Although he spent much of the summer focused on helping the U.S. national team win gold at the Paris Olympics as one of Steve Kerr‘s assistants, Tyronn Lue also found plenty of time to discuss the Clippers with Jeff Van Gundy, another Team USA staffer who will work under Lue in Los Angeles this season, writes Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN.
According to Youngmisuk, Lue returned from France energized to begin the 2024/25 season and looking forward to the challenge of trying to guide the Clippers back to the postseason after losing a nine-time All-Star in free agency.
“When you lose a guy of Paul George‘s stature, instantly people (think), “Oh, they can’t win’ or ‘They’re not going to be competitive,'” Lue told Youngmisuk. “But that just challenges me even more. OK, people are counting us out or people don’t think we’re going to be good. That right there just gives me an extra dose of (motivation). I can’t wait to prove everybody wrong.”
Lue suggested that having a full offseason and training camp with former MVP James Harden will make a “huge difference” for the Clippers heading into the 2024/25 campaign. The team acquired Harden from the Sixers during the second week of the 2023/24 regular season last fall.
“Having to learn (how to best use him) on the fly was tough,” Lue said. “… What he’s shown us is that we can run a pick-and-roll … scoring the basketball, making plays for each other, making it easy for everybody to play.”
Here’s more on the Clippers:
- Lue said the addition of Van Gundy to his staff will be “huge” for the team, per Youngmisuk. “He’s a basketball film rat,” the Clippers’ head coach said. “He’s calling me, asking me questions, offensively, defensively, all the different things about game 17 (of last season). I don’t remember that s–t. But he’s locked into all that.”
- Lue also expressed confidence that Kawhi Leonard, who missed time at the end of last season and was removed from Team USA’s Olympic roster due to knee inflammation, will be good to go this fall. “I speak to him all the time,” Lue told Youngmisuk. “He’ll be ready for training camp. He’s feeling good and I know he’ll be ready for training camp.”
- The Clippers are returning to Hawaii for training camp this October, the team announced on Tuesday (Twitter link via Law Murray of The Athletic). It will be the fifth time since 2017 that the team has held its fall training camp in the state. This year’s camp will take place at the Stan Sheriff Center on the University of Hawai’i campus and will conclude with an October 5 preseason game against the Warriors in Honolulu.
- As Murray tweets, that matchup with Golden State in Hawaii will kick off a five-game preseason slate for the Clippers. The team will play the Nets in San Diego/Oceanside and the Trail Blazers in Seattle in addition to hosting a pair of games against Dallas and Sacramento at the brand-new Intuit Dome.
- Michael Pina of The Ringer explains why he believes the Clippers can still be a force to be reckoned with in the West despite losing George and former MVP Russell Westbrook, whose exit Pina describes as “addition by subtraction.”
“Addition by subtraction” my foot. The Clippers were +4.4 per 100 possessions with Russ on the floor. He brought them energy and defense that Harden could never produce, and without a trade-off in playmaking. Naz Reid, 6th man of the year and Minny sensation, was worth +5.9 per 100 possessions for Minny. That’s not a huge difference between Russ and the top bench player in the league. Norman Powell can produce similar overall value, true, but he isn’t a playmaker.
With you on everything except the playmaking. Russ isn’t close to the playmaker harden is
He is, though. They basically have the same level of PGA, turnovers, and assists on a per possession basis. Russ doesn’t have the opportunities that he used to, but they’re about equal in terms of play-by-play and individual actions. Harden’s better from the perimeter and starting plays, Russ is better on the move, as a slasher, and mid-set. They’re very different, but similar levels.
Harden doesn’t have nearly as many missed dunks and has a much higher shooting percentage.
Neither of those things have anything to do with anything mentioned so far, lmao.
I read the article when published and I was surprised how Pina just mentioned Westbrook as addition by subtraction and then brushed past it without saying why, Pina is better than that.
The loss of Westbrook is going to be tough to overcome from a playmaking aspect as no one else on the team has his ability to get to the rim but he still can’t shoot and he’s still a little turnover prone.
Perhaps the positives will outweigh the negatives as Powell will get more opportunities to score and he’s a more efficient scorer. I never saw the defensive additions that Russ brought them but Chris Dunn will more than make up for any defense they lost.
I think kris dunn was a nice addition to be backup pg. Kawhi hopefully will have some motivation after team USA situation. I have a hard time though seeing them being as good as last season.