After taking over for David Blatt in 2015, Tyronn Lue helped lead LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers to three NBA Finals appearances. In 2016, he became the first coach to guide a Cleveland professional sports franchise to a championship since 1964. But even after going 128-83 over four seasons–and securing a ring for the city–Cavs owner Dan Gilbert fired him anyway six games into the 2018-19 campaign.
During an interview with Joe Vardon of the The Athletic, LeBron’s former coach–who is currently an assistant on Doc Rivers staff with the Los Angeles Clippers–expressed that he still wished he were in Cleveland coaching the Cavaliers even with James’ departure for L.A.
“I don’t think it should’ve happened,” Lue told The Athletic. “When it happened, I just kind of … It puts everything in perspective. You’ve got to continue to keep working, it’s a business — you’ve got to understand that. It was tough. To win the first championship ever in Cleveland history, and then make the finals (the next two years) and then get fired six games in, it’s hard to swallow and it’s tough to deal with.
“You start thinking about things like what you could have done different or if it was going to happen if you did anything different anyway. You don’t see that very often where a coach goes to three straight finals and wins a championship, and gets fired (the season immediately after the third finals), six games into (the season). You probably have never seen it.
“When it happened, speaking to (GM) Koby (Altman) and speaking to (Cavs owner) Dan (Gilbert), they looked at like, ‘For you to be a championship coach, winning a championship and going to (three) straight finals, and then having to deal with this — it’s not really fair to you,’” Lue said. “You don’t ever want to be fired, no matter how you look at it. Whether the situation was good or not, you still never want to be fired and have that on your resume.”
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