On Monday evening, the Los Angeles Lakers saw their 2023-24 season officially come to a brutal conclusion with a 108-106 road defeat at the hands of the Denver Nuggets in Game 5 of their first-round series. It officially ended a tightly contested series that saw the Nuggets continually taking over down the stretch of close games.

The game followed that formula once again on Monday in Ball Arena as the Lakers and Nuggets both exchanged blows late in a hotly contested game.

But ultimately, it was another game winner from Jamal Murray–one week after he hit his first game winner of the series in Game 2–that sent the Lakers on their way to Cancun for the second straight year at the hands of the Nuggets.

Now the Lakers have an important offseason that has a lot more questions than answers. One of the biggest questions revolves around the future of head coach Darvin Ham, who has drawn the ire of the Lakers fanbase with his at-times bizarre rotational choices and his inconsistency in calling timeouts at the right times.

In fact, NBA insider Shams Charania of Stadium and The Athletic on X, the social media platform formerly referred to as Twitter, already reported that the Lakers are likely to move on from the former championship-winning assistant this offseason and look to bring their fourth coach in five years of the LeBron James era.

All of this of course begs the question of who will be Ham's successor. The good folks over at the BetOnline Sportsbook already have some thoughts on this front, as currently, former Milwaukee Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer–who coached alongside Ham in Milwaukee–was given the best odds at +400.

Up next was former Portland Trail Blazers head coach Terry Stotts, followed by current Lakers assistant Phil Handy, who has earned a reputation as a favorite amongst players and fans alike during his tenure.

How much of this is coaching?

How much of the Lakers' struggles in their series versus the Nuggets can be attributed to coaching is certainly a fair question to ask. There were definitely moments in which Ham made some puzzling decisions both in terms of lineups and timeout usage.

However, the reality of the situation is that the Nuggets simply have a much better constructed roster than the Lakers, as Denver saw their third option in Michael Porter Jr. put up nearly prime Kevin Durant in this series, while Lakers didn't really have much of a consistent third option behind LeBron James and Anthony Davis for much of the proceedings.

Still, the NBA coaching game is a ruthless business, and a head coach is certainly going to be the first one to go before a team moves on from, well, LeBron James. In any case, Rob Pelinka and the rest of the Los Angeles brass certainly have some big decisions on their horizon.