Cavaliers head coach Tyronn Lue is preparing for his first season without LeBron James as his superstar leader. Lue, who took over for David Blatt as head coach in January 2016, has helped Cleveland reach the Finals the past three seasons. Cleveland won the NBA Finals in 2016, Lue’s first season at the helm.
Lue recently spoke to Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe about his preparation for the upcoming season. Not only did Lue give his honest assessment of what he envisions life to be without James, he also gave insight into Cleveland’s mindset for 2018/19.
Here are a few of the highlights:
On adjusting to life without James…
“Of course I would love to have LeBron James, but now that he’s gone it’s going to be a new challenge. think me and my coaching staff, we’re up for it. It’s going to be different, a lot of young guys that we can try to teach and mold them how you want them to be.”
How the Cavaliers will replace LeBron…
“We want to continue to be exciting, continue to be competitive for our fan base. But it’s hard to replace LeBron James. Don’t say we’re going to replace LeBron. He’s an irreplaceable player. It’s not replacing LeBron James, the best player in the game for so long, and he’s meant so much to the franchise and every franchise he’s played for — Miami, Cleveland, the city of Cleveland, his family, his friends, coaches, players. Everybody he’s been around he’s made better and you can’t replace that. So we’ve got to understand that and continue to keep growing and working collectively and be the best we can be.”
How the Cavaliers’ roster has changed…
“I think when LeBron came back [from Miami] and we traded for Kevin Love, we didn’t have any draft picks — all veteran guys who could play now and understand how to play and how to win and what it took. Now, having made the trades we made during the season and acquiring some young talent through the draft, it will be a different challenge for us. I’m already excited about it.”
How the current roster will mesh…
“I don’t know [how to mix young and old] because we’ve never had that challenge before. I think it will be good because we have some good vets and we’ve always been surrounded by good vets. I know what we will continue to do is continue to build the culture. I think since LeBron came back, [owner] Dan Gilbert has surrounded him with great players, great veterans who are good for the culture. Our main focus this summer is continuing to keep building these guys up but also continuing to build the culture we had the last four years [four NBA Finals appearances].”
What The King did for Cleveland is priceless, the guy is a class act, can’t wait to see him this year in LA, with 43 national tv games, even more than GSW, what an exciting season… hopefully he will keep playing at a high level for many more years, we are so lucky to get to see him play, must enjoy it while it lasts.
Who is the king? Certainly not the league manufactured star known as LeBron? The guy is a joke. Cleveland is a joke. You all burned your jerseys in the street when he left for Miami. LeBron will disappoint in LA, big time. The city of Cleveland can go back to being irrelevant for another 100 years. No NBA league office to manipulate games for you anymore.
Lol salty
Lol… man you really are reaching. The list starts MJ, LBJ, everyone else.
Kareem & Bill Russell can be in the #2 discussion, then everyone else.
LBJ barely cracks the top ten of “greatest of all times.” That’s why comparing him to Jordan (who is THE greatest of all time) is the biggest joke on Earth. I swear, people think the NBA began in like 1980. Lol.
The way I see it is LeBron started dominating the ball during the 2015 NBA Finals when Kyrie and Love got hurt, and never gave the ball back (not much). It got so bad everyone said he had no supporting cast, and they were all standing around watching. Tyron isn’t lying they gave up their draft picks and kept acquiring vets to appease LeBron. Look where Hood and Clarkson are now. First thing LeBron does in L.A. is brings in the old dudes. I’m glad for Love, Cedi, Sexton, Tristan, Korver, Channing, Zizic, Clarkson, and Hill. They don’t have to stand around any more. Yes LeBron is great and gave the city a championship. I like games where everyone gets involved and aren’t looking for stats. I will watch the Cavs and Golden State a lot. I won’t watch any Lakers games.
M.J. retired after 15 seasons. LeBron has now played 15 seasons. The only All Star M.J. played with was Pippen. The east wasn’t weak back then like it is now. Lebron has won 3 championships in 9 tries with 2 All Stars in 15 years. M.J. won 6 in 6 tries, all in Chicago, with 1 All Star and a tougher schedule. My vote will always be M.J. as best of all time.
And not to even mention, the NBA was basically jungle ball, back then. He was regularly getting clotheslined when he went to the basket. Nowadays, you breathe on LeFlop and it’s a foul.
Lebron manipulated opponents all the way under the rim on his drives, a great vantage point for watching LJ finish with a dunk while @dodgethis cuts his hand crushing a beer can in rage. Awww
They were the Easts 4th seed last year.
They almost lost to the Pacers in the 1st Round
They were swept by the Warriors in the finals
If the league was manipulating games to benefit CLE they didn’t do a very good job
T Lue is not a good coach imo. Interested to see how he does without Lebron calling the shots
See game 5 versus the Pacers. Oladipo steals ball and drives to put in layup. Pacers should have been up by 2 and call time out. No goaltend call. Pacers can’t foul now because they wouldn’t get the ball back. LeBron hits game winner. With Pacer timeout, game would have been ot or Pacers win. Pacers win game 6. Oh well. That’s LeBron manipulation at it’s best. Pacers lose series because of a no call.
The refs were ripping off James all series long. He just overcame while Pacers were just another EC alsoran. Too bad for Mio.
Pacers win. LeBron is gone now!
Nate McMillan started complaining to the refs in game 1 about LeBron crossing the free throw line early and swinging his free arm out when he was driving. They were calling it by the end of the series.
For an also run, I’d say the Pacers had a pretty darn good year. The won the season series 3-1 against the Cavs, and outscored them by 40 in the playoff series.
I’ll watch the Pacers, Cavs, and Celtics now. Watching Klay, Steph, KD, and Draymond passing the ball around is the kind of basketball I like to watch.
Nance Jr mentioned how happy he is that Lebron is gone, this is great news for the whole roster. Lebron was holding back Osman,Hood,Clarkson,Love,JR, Thompson, and Hill.
Understand with Lebron there everyone had a role and you couldn’t do much except play the way which would maximize Lebron looking good. Now with Lebron gone all the Cavs will be able to play team ball and do a lot more than just shoot 3’s off Lebron passes. The future is amongst us with Sexton,Osman,Zizic, and Love.
Solid pick up of Dekker from the Clips too. Jerry West even paid CLE to take him, sending the exact difference in his salary and the minimum to CLE. And the Cavs used a trade exception so they didn’t have to include a player or a pick or cash. They look alright like .500 kinda team:
Sexton G.Hill/Clarkson
JR Korver
Hood/Nwaba Osman
K-Love Nance Jr./Dekker
TT Zizic
There is no Osman is the third forward off the bench. He’s arguably the Cavs best player after Love. He was competing with Durant,Kawhi, and LeQuit.
That’s the media! They didn’t tell everybody Harden, Westbrook, and many others were there too. That’s how the media works!
I predict
Sexton Hill Taylor
Hood Nwaba Clarkson
Osman Korver Preston
Love Nance Dekker
TT Frye Zizic
I can’t believe JR will be kept on when he is so easy to stretch– he would amount to about $3 mil per year expense. They may not get one of Hood or Nwaba but even then… there is also Osman, Clarkson and Korver (KK will not draw a firstrounder).
Lue’s words won’t help him any… when he says “mixture of age and youth” it sounds like he might up and start JR with Sexton, which will grate everyone!
I like the idea of stretching JR. That allows Hood/Nwaba to play the 2 and Osman can start.
Lue, as you pointed out, will start JR w Sexton if he is on the team, unfortunately.
“Cavaliers head coach Tyron Lue is preparing for his first season without LeBron James.”
So basically, Tyron Lue is preparing for his first season as an actual head coach?
Nice. Congrats, buddy! You made it!