Clippers’ regular season matters, Lue says
Coach hopes a higher seeding will improve team’s chances of advancing in playoffs.
LAS VEGAS — The most pressing issue faced by USA Basketball’s FIBA World Cup team on Monday night surfaced after it rolled past Puerto Rico during a 117-74 exhibition victory.
With an expression that landed somewhere between acceptance and pain, Minnesota Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards told reporters that the team’s direct flight Tuesday to Spain, the site of their next two World Cup warmup games, would not have wireless internet.
The prospect of hours offline was why Tyronn Lue, the Clippers coach who is spending this summer and next on Steve Kerr’s Team USA coaching staff, lingered in a T-Mobile Arena hallway late Monday. A journeyman guard, Lue wasn’t good enough as a player — his words — to represent Team USA, so last winter he jumped at an invitation from USA Basketball’s Grant Hill to assist with Kerr’s offense, defense and substitutions.
It is an assignment he has taken seriously. Anticipating travel to Spain, Abu Dhabi and the Philippines during the next five weeks, before the mentally and physically taxing NBA regular season begins, Lue lost 20 pounds this summer in hopes of staving off fatigue. Lue didn’t leave the arena Monday night until a video coordinator delivered a laptop with the latest game film that would serve as his inflight movie in preparation for Saturday’s exhibition against Slovenia, led by former Clippers playoff nemesis Luka Doncic.
When the Team USA job ends next month and Lue opens training camp in Hawaii, he will walk into a fourth season coaching the Clippers that won’t feel out of place with Team USA’s win-or-bust expectations.
Entering the fifth season of Kawhi Leonard and Paul George’s partnership, the Clippers have won three playoff series. Injuries to one or both of their stars have cut short each of the last three seasons. Within the Clippers, there is a belief that some wounds have been in part self-inflicted.
Last season a team that touted its depth, star power and championship aspirations in the preseason barely avoided the play-in tournament. In April, following a first-round playoff loss, Clippers president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank said the team had to “get back to honoring and respecting the regular season” and “compete harder every single night.”
Lue, who won NBA championships as a player with the Lakers and coach in Cleveland, said Monday he has seen enough to believe the Clippers belong in the class of contenders but echoed Frank that clinching a top-three playoff seed will require “a different approach and play more games of the regular season, see if that helps us going forward.”
The $91.2-million question — the combined salaries of Leonard and George next season — is how the Clippers will position themselves for a top seeding while also continuing to manage the workload of their two stars.
“The biggest thing for us is making sure our players are healthy and making sure that we’re doing right by the players, but with that being said we’ve also got to take the regular season more serious as far as coming in and playing hard every night and winning games and playing games,” Lue said. “Our fans deserve that. They’ve been behind us for a long time and like I said, there have been some unfortunate injuries that we’ve had. That’s part of the game. When we are healthy and we are feeling good, then we’ve got to make sure that we’re trying to play every single night.
“But then most importantly, just try to get one of those good seeds where the last 10 games of the season, you’re not fighting and clawing trying to stay out of the play-in game. Those are games you can kind of rest and get your body ready for the playoffs.”
Frank said in the spring that he expects Leonard to take part in training camp after suffering a torn meniscus in April, and Lue echoed that optimism, saying Leonard is “on track, and he’s feeling pretty good.” Asked what he expects of George, who has recovered from March’s season-ending knee sprain, Lue said he will again be expected to play on and off the ball. And asked whether Leonard could fit best at power forward and George small forward, Lue said that “anything is possible” while reiterating that the team’s small-ball lineups must improve.
“I know we’re gonna put the work in, I know we’re gonna be a great team,” Lue said. “We’ve just gotta stay healthy.”
Lue rarely hid his exasperation last season with his stars’ inconsistent availability, or the strict minutes limits imposed by the medical staff when they were available. It was why he lobbied the front office to sign freeagent point guard Russell Westbrook in February, and re-sign him in free agency in July. For all of the criticisms lobbed at Westbrook, he rarely sits out games and plays at one, full-bore level of intensity. Injuries to Leonard and George limited Westbrook’s time with them to 230 minutes last season.
“I view him as a starter, view him as a starter and, you know, kind of just see how it plays out,” Lue said of Westbrook. “... We needed his energy, we needed his firepower and so he was really good for us. My vision right now is to stay how we were before PG got hurt and see what happens.”
This offseason brought not only questions about the status of their stars’ health, but also the status of their coach’s contract. As Detroit’s Monty Williams and subsequently San Antonio’s Gregg Popovich reset the standard for NBA coaching salaries, Lue sought to add more years and money to his own contract, which was set to enter its final guaranteed year in 2023-24. It coincided with Phoenix and Milwaukee showing serious interest in Lue when filling their respective head-coach openings. The Clippers never entertained allowing other teams to talk with Lue, however, and later guaranteed the final year of Lue’s contract for the 2024-25 season.
When it comes to contract extensions for Leonard, who has been eligible for one since July 12, and George, who becomes eligible Sept. 1, Lue said there was no update on where extension talks stood, adding it had not weighed on him. Each player can decline the final year of his current contract after next season.
“No, I mean I’ve got two years left on my deal, so you know I’m in a good position,” Lue said. “I’m just happy to be where I’m at and go out there and have a good year this year and see what happens. But, like I said, I got two years left on my deal and I’m not really worried about an extension.”