The Lakers have their next head coach.

Milwaukee Bucks assistant Darvin Ham has been hired to lead the Lakers, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. He replaces Frank Vogel, who was fired in April after Los Angeles failed to make the playoffs this season just two years after winning the NBA championship.

It is Ham’s first head coaching job and the deal is for four years, per Wojnarowski.

“So damn EXCITED!!!!!!!! Congrats and welcome Coach DHam!!” the Lakers’ LeBron James tweeted.

Ham, a former player who spent eight years in the league, was an assistant coach for the Bucks the last four years, including during last season’s run to the title. He was also an assistant for the Lakers previously, from 2011-13, before going to the Hawks in 2013.

The 48-year-old, whose playing career included stops with the Nuggets, Pacers, Wizards, Bucks, Hawks and Pistons, had been considered a leading candidate for a head coaching job in the last couple of years. According to Wojnarowski, the Lakers interviewed two of their three finalists this week, including Ham and former Trail Blazers coach Terry Stotts.

Ham’s immediate and most important task will be figuring out how to get Russell Westbrook to fit alongside LeBron James and Anthony Davis after the Lakers traded for the future Hall of Fame guard last offseason.

The Lakers, who won a championship during the NBA’s bubble season in 2020, were again among the favorites going into this season after acquiring Westbrook, but injuries, a lack of cohesion and poor play led to a disastrous year in which they went 33-49 and finished 11th in the Western Conference.

Ham, who worked under Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer and comes from a coaching tree that includes a number of other NBA coaches, also won a championship as a player with Detroit in 2004.