1:07pm: The Lakers have no plans to introduce new candidates into their head coaching search, and are proceeding toward making an offer to Lue in the coming days, per Wojnarowski and Ramona Shelburne of ESPN.com (Twitter link).
12:03pm: As of Thursday afternoon, Lue still hadn’t heard back from the Lakers since his second interview last week, but the team is expected to reach out to him soon in an effort to hire him, per Tania Ganguli and Broderick Turner of The Los Angeles Times.
11:16am: With Monty Williams on the verge of officially signing a five-year contract with the Suns, the Lakers can cross another name off the list of candidates for their head coaching job. According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (via Twitter), there’s an expectation now that Los Angeles will move forward in the process with Tyronn Lue. However, the club has yet to formally make him an offer, Woj notes.
Although the Lakers also interviewed Juwan Howard and Jason Kidd, Lue and Williams appeared to be the strongest candidates for the job throughout the search process. Lue and Williams each met with the Lakers for follow-up interviews after their initial meetings.
[RELATED: 2019 NBA Head Coaching Search Tracker]
A report last week indicated that Lue, who turns 42 today, struck an “emotional chord” during his interviews with the Lakers. He began his playing career as a Laker and won a pair of championships with the franchise, giving him a background with the organization.
Of course, Lue also has a strong familiarity with current star LeBron James, having coached LeBron and the Cavaliers to the team’s first-ever NBA championship in 2016.
During his time as the Cavs’ head coach, which spanned two full seasons and parts of two more, Lue posted a 128-83 (.607) record in the regular season, along with a 41-20 mark in the playoffs.
No surprise lue the front runner .I was hoping Lakers would interview more people. But I get the feeling they really want a coach who has ties with LeBron
Wonder if Mike Brown called Jeanie Buss and/or Tyronn Lue to wish them good luck.
the puppet show has begun
Does it matter? Lebron running the show is better than anything the Lakers have done in the last 6 years.
Like last year?
Were still pretending the Lakers didn’t have 4 starters hurt for huge chunks of the year? Cool
Enjoy the soap opera in LA!
‘We’d like to introduce our next head coach, LeBron Lue’.
Lap dog Lue. If I were a young Lakers player I would be hoping for a trade.
Neither the choice nor the impatience is a good sign.
Team defense will likely be a problem.
With FO & HC jobs open, LAL does not seem to be trying very hard in filling them.
I may have been impatient with my “impatience” claim– Woj just said “frontrunner”. But where is the effort? LAL could be stealing candidates if they wanted to.
Yeh my favorite teams a joke. So what?
Actually, Lue would be the assistant coach and mostly would just tote luggage.
Honestly, Lue is the best choice since he knows what to expect with LBJ. I would def try to bring JHoward in as associate coach though. Because he had that experience with LeBron from a player perspective during the first few years in Miami.
Ms. Buss, call the Zen Master, not sure he’d be on board with this.
Ooof. Phil endorsed Lue.
Not encouraging signs, those path of least resistance decisions around apparently just handing basketball operations over to Pelinka without seriously pursuing any of the young front-office talent interviewing with several other teams and going with Lue (though I understand the latter decision much more given LeBron’s likely input).
I think it’s very disrespectful that ppl banter about this idea that LBJ would tell Ty Lue what to do. Most of you have paid little attention to the Cavs and the dynamic of he and Lue. One of the reasons why ppl liked him in Cleveland is that he was unafraid to get in LBJ’s face and talk to him like he did any other player. Being an NBA coach is about commanding the respect of your locker room, and that starts with your best player and your ability to get that player to buy into your game plan. You really think MJ, Kobe, Shaq, etc weren’t to an extent, an extension of the coach? LBJ likes Lue not because he can manipulate him but because he’s willing to subjugate his ego because he trusts Lue’s coaching ability. I heard it said that LBJ actually hates the notion that he’s controlling anything. I would say that when you have a MJ, Kobe, LBJ, Shaq you would be stupid NOT to seek your franchises players input. It doesn’t mean you acquiesce to their whims but you want the organization to be on the same page, top to bottom.
Well put. Ty Lue is unafraid to tell LBJ how it is sometimes. If he is hired he needs to establish a good relationship with the young players. I believe, with the right pieces added (Ross, Ellington, Scott, Beverley, Mirotic, Seth Curry) and staying healthy they could be a top 3 seed in the west. If they can add one star to the mix, perhaps Beal, they can win the conference. Trade Ball, Ingram, Hart and the 11th pick for him then add Mirotic and Beverley with the remaining cap space (about 25mm after trade). 3/48mm for Niko and 2/16mm for Pat. Resign McGee with whatever’s left.
PG- Beverley
SG- Beal
SF- James
PF- Mirotic
C – McGee
6th Man – Kuzma
Say good bye to any kind of youth development. LeMe won’t allow any minutes for younger players and only wants to play with players that allow him to ball hog.
It works.
You really think the Lakers as an organization care about “youth developement” when they signed LBJ to a 4 year deal that will probably take him into retirement? Yeezus. THEY WANT TO WIN!!!!!! And considering how management was willing to trade almost all of them for Anthony Davis then that should tell you about their intentions. I will say that I felt that was likely a bad move to jettison some of those guys. You still need to round off the roster with a Kuzma or Ingram type.
Tyronn Lue … sayyyyy, how about getting Mike Brown as associate head coach: `I suppose they’ve each got “TWEEDLE” round at the back of the collar,’ she said to herself.
LeBrons puppet