LA Clippers: Highlights From Ty Lue’s Introduction

Today, the LA Clippers formally introduced Ty Lue as the new head coach. Here are some of the notable tidbits from his press conference.

At the introduction for new LA Clippers head coach Ty Lue, we heard from Steve Ballmer, Lawrence Frank and Ty Lue himself. While most of the attention was, rightfully so, dedicated to Lue, Ballmer had a couple of interesting tidbits as well.

LA Clippers Press Conference Notes: Steve Ballmer

In his introduction of Lue, Ballmer began by encouraging people to vote, and then by giving very warm remarks to previous coach Doc Rivers. He called Rivers a mentor and a fantastic championship coach, and he wished Rivers well in Philadelphia (except for in Clippers vs. 76ers games).

Ballmer mentioned that the coaching search involved several very well qualified candidates and said that he was especially impressed by some assistant coaches who had never been head coaches before. But in the end, he feels that they got the best of the best, and said, in typical Steve Ballmer fashion, that he believes we have the best coach in the NBA now.

When asked about the ending of the season, Ballmer said he felt like the Clippers very rarely played their best basketball in the bubble. He downplayed the 3-1 collapse, and said he was disappointed that the team didn’t accomplish the goals that were set out for them.

After the bubble, he said he took a look at where some areas of improvement could be, and he found that coaching was the first answer. In contrast to what some have hinted on social media, Ballmer said he did not make the decision rashly and deliberately took his time to make sure he was making the right decision.

In one of the final questions, Ballmer was asked what some other areas of improvement he identified were, and he mentioned player development and roster construction. With so few assets available to the team, he feels that the staff has to do a better job of developing the young players and a better job of making improvements where possible.

LA Clippers Press Conference Notes: Ty Lue

The theme of Ty’s statements in this conference was learning. He said that he’s never done learning how to be a better coach. He credits Doc with being his mentor as a coach, but mentioned that he’s also always studying and has gotten better by studying Erik Spoelstra, Brad Stevens and Nick Nurse. He highlighted Nurse being willing to go to concepts like the box-and-1 or triangle-and-2 with the Raptors.

In that same part of the press conference, he said something that should make all fans of the Clippers happy:

"“If you stop learning, and you stop being willing to learn from other people, then you won’t be successful. Everything I do is not mine. I take a little bit from each person, each coach, each great coach: Popovich, Phil Jackson, Stan Van Gundy taught me a lot. Scott Skiles taught me a lot. Just being able to take from a lot of different coaches and kinda make it your own, that’s what I pride myself on.”"

It sounds like Lue won’t let himself be complacent and think that his way is the best way; instead, he’s always a student of the game and is studying what works.

Asked about what changes he wants to make to get this team a championship, Lue immediately went to pace. He says he wants to play faster and get more easy buckets, which answers one of the questions we had for him recently. He said he also feels that getting better ball movement and getting players into positions that maximize their talents is important.

To that end, he said that what he mostly wants to see to improve Kawhi Leonard and Paul George is that they be put more into their comfort zones and in the kind of system that will let them play their brand of basketball. Intriguingly, Ty said that those two will “have to adjust to my system and to my program, but I will also have to adjust to them, their comfort zone and what makes them better.” He said that with those two, setting the tone on defense is where they have to start.

Some final quick hitters that we heard at the introduction:

• Ty Lue said he’ll consult the medical and performance staff on Kawhi’s load management
• Lawrence Frank said that player development is important no matter what situation the team is in. They think they can make big gains in development, especially of young players.
• Lue said that the two stars lead by example, but that natural leadership doesn’t always come from the best player. He wants to see leadership coming from himself, from the stars and from guys like Patrick Beverley and Lou Williams
• On assistant coaches, Lue doesn’t want his assistants pigeonholed as a purely defensive coordinator, etc.
• On chemistry, Lue blamed the players being new to the team and missing time due to injuries more than just “not liking each other”
• After taking time off for medical concerns from Cleveland, Lue credits changing his diet, working out and losing 35 pounds with getting himself into a better place.
• After being fired from Cleveland, Lue said he picked the brains of Doc, Carlisle, Kerr and Stevens to figure out how to be a better coach in his next opportunity.

There were lots of encouraging statements made, from the new coach and from ownership and the front office! Be sure to follow along on Twitter and Facebook as we at Clipperholics continue to cover the Ty Lue-led Clippers.