Many folks have been asking several hypothetical questions about which other sports teams might be worthy of a ‘The Last Dance’-type of documentary and the real answer is, not many. Perhaps the years that came closest to resonating in the general public in a similar way were the several years that the Cleveland Cavaliers faced off against the Golden State Warriors for four straight NBA Finals. Of course, if you are a fan of LeBron James, you’d likely love to focus on the 2016 Finals in particular. But what would there be for fans to see?
We have an answer to that question from one of the principals on the Cavs coaching staff and current Lakers assistant coach Phil Handy, during an appearance on Scoop B Radio, with Brandon ‘Scoop B’ Robinson of Heavy.com. Handy believes that if there were an all-access documentary about those Cavaliers that fans would come away with different perceptions of not only LeBron James, but also the team’s head coach Ty Lue, who was often maligned as a figurehead.
“Especially being down 1-3 that whole series. People would be shocked to see how calm we were. After losing that game and what the mindset was. I also think people would be shocked to see how much of a command coach Tyronn Lue is. There was a lot media that said ‘Bron’s the coach, he’s this, he’s a coach killer, he runs the team and blah blah blah…they would be so wrong in their assessments and they would have so much more respect for T-Lue and they would have so much more respect for LeBron in the sense that he’s probably one of the most coachable dudes that I have been around in the sense of how he approaches the game and WANTING leadership. He wants direction from his coaches and he’s one of those players. Yes, every great player is smart, so you would be remiss as a coach not to involve them and draw from them but, I think the camaraderie of that team, the calmness and just the leadership of the team. I think people would be just totally blown away by those three things and be shocked by what they see.”
While I wasn’t a fly on the wall during those Finals, I have personally seen Lue and LeBron interact in a way that belies a lot more mutual respect, as well the basic aspect of a coach challenging their player, than is usually represented or understood by fans. However, since LeBron has plenty of work to do whenever basketball returns, don’t wait on anything like that for a while.
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