CLEVELAND: Tyronn Lue didn’t go to Princeton. He hasn’t coached around the world. He doesn’t have any Olympic medals. But the newest Cavaliers coach has his own masters degree of sorts – he has learned at the feet of some of this game’s best.
Lue played for Phil Jackson. He was mentored by Jerry West. He was an assistant coach under Doc Rivers. All three are champions as is Lue, who won rings as a role player with the Los Angeles Lakers. Now as he walks into one of the most volatile jobs in the NBA, Lue will need Jackson’s intelligence, West’s savvy and Rivers’ charm. And perhaps a little luck, too.
“I have a lot of great people in my corner,” Lue said. “They know what I’m about. They know who I am. They know my character. I’m comfortable in my own skin.”
That wasn’t the case with David Blatt, whose resume was always much more impressive than his fit. Cavs players never respected his overseas experience. As a result, a coach who routinely scolded players in Israel and grew to be admired by an entire country shrunk to being the target of a veteran team’s scorn in Cleveland.
This was always Plan B. Blatt was forced on General Manager David Griffin at the behest of owner Dan Gilbert. When Gilbert insisted on Blatt, Lue was brought on as the cleaner. It took a lot of money to do it – Lue was believed to be the highest paid assistant in NBA history – and the title of associate head coach. No one will say it outright, but the Cavs and Lue were operating under the assumption that if this didn’t work with Blatt, Lue was there to take over. In the meantime, one of Lue’s many tasks was to acclimate Blatt to the NBA.
He did the best he could. Blatt’s learning curve was steep – perhaps steeper than the Cavs even imagined. Despite his wealth of basketball experience, Blatt was a novice at NBA culture, rules and the rhythm of a season. As a result, Lue had more freedom than any other assistant coach in the league.
He called timeouts from the bench last year. He handled substitutions, including late-game matchup substitutions when Blatt never took his eyes off the court to see who on his own team was coming or going. When Blatt tried calling a timeout he didn’t have, Lue was there to pull him back to the bench before he cost the Cavs a playoff game.
In essence, Lue was the wizard last season – the man behind the curtain pulling the ropes and creating the smoke. Blatt was the hologram. Lue was unfairly labeled as trying to undercut Blatt, when he was actually just doing what was asked of him.
“Blatt knew I had his back 100 percent. I would never do anything malicious behind his back,” Lue said. “We talked yesterday and he said, ‘I thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I know you had my back 100 percent.’”
Part of the problem the Cavs had with Blatt was his unfamiliarity with all of his assistants. He was in favor of bringing on Lue, the runner-up for the job, but he knew so little of him that he mispronounced Lue’s first name at his introductory news conference. European coaching staffs are much smaller than the NBA. He had no qualified assistants he could bring with him, leaving him to essentially inherit former coach Mike Brown’s (very good) staff in Cleveland.
Blatt will find another job in the NBA. Another owner will look at his sparkling 83-40 record and his NBA Finals appearance and race to hire him. But who will be his assistants? It will likely have to be the same scenario he had in Cleveland. He’ll have to work with the holdovers from a previous regime. The coaches here respected Blatt and tried hard for him, but no one ultimately connected with him.
Lue has a familiarity already with these coaches and players and he certainly has the ear of LeBron James. Lue downplayed his connection to James and said the media has misinterpreted it, that James had to communicate with Lue during games because he was the defensive coordinator and they were discussing defensive strategies.
That’s all well and good, but it was apparent early on last season that James preferred to do his communicating only through Lue. One scout who watched the Cavs play at New Orleans last season said Blatt was out past the half-court line trying to get James’ attention during the game, but James ignored him. Blatt had to walk all the way back to the bench to retrieve Lue, who went out to the court to communicate with James.
James tried harder with Blatt this season. He was more supportive of him publicly. But the resentment in the locker room extended far beyond James by the end of Blatt’s tenure.
To that end, Lue is already ahead of the game. He has James’ attention more than Mike Brown, Erik Spoelstra and Blatt ever did. Lue has already checked James more than Blatt tried.
When one of James’ post-practice shooting sessions during a road trip ran long recently, Lue returned to the court and chastised James for taking so long and said it was rude to everyone else waiting on him.
Perhaps it’s the bond of being a former player. Perhaps it’s learning from legends like Jackson and West. Regardless, Lue has already proven on multiple occasions he won’t back down from the Cavs’ biggest star.
This is on him now and the stakes are incredibly high. The Cavs have burned through four coaches in the last four seasons. Gilbert is on his sixth head coach and fourth general manager since purchasing the team 11 years ago. Lue knows he doesn’t have much time and he needs to win big.
“Or I’ll be next,” he said. “That’s how it works. That’s my goal. I’m trying to win a championship.”
So is Gilbert. So is Griffin. So is James. So was Blatt. But for the first time since James’ return to Cleveland, the man behind the curtain is now front and center.
There is certainly risk involved. Lue has never been a head coach before. The Cavs privately believe things could get worse before they get better. But Lue came to Cleveland to get out from under Rivers’ coaching shadow and he has certainly done that. Now he’s charged with getting a team of stubborn stars to buy in, to listen and to follow him.
Hopefully he knows where he’s going.
Jason Lloyd can be reached at jlloyd@thebeaconjournal.com. Read the Cavs blog at www.ohio.com/cavs. Follow him on Twitter www.twitter.com/JasonLloydABJ.