NBA News: Tyronn Lue Finally Opens Up About Cavs Firing, Wishes He's Still The Team's Coach

KEY POINTS

Tyronn Lue was promoted to be the Cleveland Cavaliers’ head coach as replacement for David Blatt
He steered the franchise to three straight NBA Finals trip
An alleged conflict of philosophies between him and the management was the reason why he was sacked

Former Cleveland Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue finally talked about the situation he had when he was still at the helm of the franchise. Now an assistant coach for Los Angeles Clippers, he admitted that he thinks his firing from the team shouldn’t have happened.

Lue steered the Cavs to three straight NBA Finals appearances, including the only championship of the franchise with hometown star LeBron James as the face of the team in 2016. He racked up 128-83 cumulative win-loss record for the team before the basketball world was stunned by the news that Cleveland fired Lue after starting the season with six straight losses following LeBron’s move to the Los Angeles Lakers.

“I don’t think it should’ve happened,” Lue told Joe Vardon of The Athletic via ESPN article, believing that he shouldn’t have gotten the ax. “You don’t see that very often where a coach goes to three straight finals and wins a championship and gets fired six games into (the regular season). You probably have never seen it,” he added.

Asked about coaching the wine and gold, he admitted that it’s still in his mind and wishes he’s still the man in charge. “Yeah, I do,” said Lue, 42. “What I tried to build there, I think the culture I tried to set. I thought we could do it together.” He also was thinking of the possibilities that could have happened with youthful personnel with “Koby (Altman) being a young GM, me being a young coach, having young players.”

He was the team’s coach when they drafted Collin Sexton with the eighth pick in 2018 from the University of Alabama. Reports from The New York Times said that the difference in philosophies between him and the management could have been the reason of Lue’s firing where the former 11-year pro prioritized giving their young players more opportunities than veterans JR Smith and Kyle Korver.

The Cavaliers are 12-28 this season and made a move, sending Jordan Clarkson to the Utah Jazz in exchange for Dante Exum and the never-ending talks of Kevin Love going to another team.