Americans are notoriously impatient, and no matter what anyone might want to say about Tyronn Lue, there’s only one responsible way to view his presence as the head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Simply stated, we simply can’t say anything particularly profound about Lue — at least not anything which can be taken seriously — until the NBA Finals run their course.
It’s not a sexy thing to say. It’s not what radio talk-show hosts are able to do — they have to drive debate and put forth opinions to get the needle moving. Yet, it’s the right stance to take as the Cavs and LeBron James destroy every Eastern Conference team in their playoff path.
Cleveland encountered a lot more resistance in the 2015 East playoffs — no one can doubt or contest that claim. More precisely, David Blatt coached a poor series against Chicago in the 2015 East semifinals, and if a man named Tyronn Lue hadn’t restrained Blatt when he tried to call a timeout at the end of Game 4 of that series against the Bulls, Cleveland might not have reached the NBA Finals. If you wanted to make a Lue-over-Blatt argument right now, that’s your best argument.
Beyond that? As inconvenient and perhaps frustrating as it might be, you’re just going to have to wait a bit.
Once he gained that reprieve after Game 4 against Chicago, Blatt frankly coached his rear end off. His defensive approach thwarted the 60-win Atlanta Hawks and took Kyle Korver out of the East Finals (before he was injured). In the NBA Finals, he got more out of a shorthanded roster than many expected. Steve Kerr needed to commit to small ball — and receive an NBA Finals MVP performance from Andre Iguodala, a most unexpected plot twist — in order to emerge from that series with the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
He wobbled and stumbled, but by the end of the 2015 NBA Finals, David Blatt had gained a measure of respect from the rest of the league.
Tyronn Lue hasn’t had to face teams as formidable as the 2015 Bulls or the 60-win version of the Hawks. This 2016 iteration of the Atlanta roster is patently inferior to the 2015 lineup, and the Toronto-Miami winner doesn’t appear to be ready to take the Cavs to the edge the way the 2015 Bulls did.
Yes, Lue pulled the trigger with Channing Frye and gained exactly what he hoped to from that chess move in Game 3 against the Hawks. Cleveland’s ball movement and spacing are exactly what one should hope for from a top seed which needs to move smoothly through the earlier rounds of the playoffs, so that it can be fresh (especially LeBron) for the Finals.
Yet, placing considerable weight on Lue’s achievements in the Eastern Conference playoffs makes sense only if you genuinely doubted the Cavs during the regular season… and if you DID doubt the Cavs during the regular season, just exactly why did you go there? You have to answer that question before reconsidering the issue of Ty Lue.
An honest assessment of the Cavs’ coach — brought in when the team was 30-11 and atop the East — should have always been measured against the NBA Finals. First, Lue had to get the Cavs back to that point, and he’s well on his way to doing so. Second, Lue had to improve over Blatt within the Finals, and that’s simply not something we can know at this point.
It could be that Tyronn Lue is exactly what the Cavs needed. It could be that firing David Blatt in the middle of a season which was ALWAYS destined to reach the NBA Finals was a subtly and unexpectedly brilliant move.
No one’s saying those statements CAN’T be true.
They just can’t be viewed as true on May 7.
Let’s see where we are on June 20, and then we’ll be able to bring closure — or at least more clarity — to this conversation.
