clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Report: Assistant Coach Tyronn Lue Leaves Clippers for Associate Head Coach Position with Cavaliers

According to a report by Adrian Wojnarowski, the Clippers' last remaining assistant coach, Tyronn Lue, has left the team to accept an offer to be Associate Head Coach under Dave Blatt in Cleveland.

Tom Szczerbowski-USA TODAY Sport

Well, it looks like there will be some fresh faces on the bench at Staples Center next year.  Clippers President and coach Doc Rivers has now lost all three of his lead assistant coaches from last season's staff.

Last week, we received the relatively mild news that Kevin Eastman, longtime Rivers assistant, was moving upstairs to work under Doc in the front office instead.  Then, later on, we got the somewhat surprising news that Alvin Gentry, associate head coach of the Clippers, was leaving the team for the Golden State Warriors, joining new head coach Steve Kerr's staff for almost double the salary.

Also rumored was that Tyronn Lue, who was credited with being the most defensive-minded assistant last year, was in contention for the head coaching job in Cleveland.  When David Blatt was hired instead of Lue, it appeared that the Clippers would be able to keep at least one of their assistants.

But today, we got hit with a Woj Bomb:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Los Angeles Clippers assistant Tyronn Lue has accepted associate head coach job with Cleveland, sources tell Yahoo.</p>&mdash; Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) <a href="https://twitter.com/WojYahooNBA/statuses/481167244999663616">June 23, 2014</a></blockquote>

<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Now that Lue has left the organization, Doc has a full staff to fill.  It'll be interesting to see how he balances this with the draft, free agency, and the ongoing Sterling trial.  Preliminary available names include Lawrence Frank, Mike D'Antoni, Mike Woodson, and Lionel Hollins, but no official reports can confirm the Clippers' interest in any candidates yet.  It's doubtful that the Clippers will get multiple big names from that list and build a super staff... it would be expensive and I doubt those names accept assistant positions.  They'll probably be able to get one big name as associate head coach (like how they got Gentry last season), but beyond that I'm uncertain who they'll target.