{"id":713048,"date":"2026-04-18T08:45:42","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T08:45:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/713048\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T08:45:42","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T08:45:42","slug":"clippers-double-down-on-tyronn-lue-as-head-coach-never-ever-ever-a-consideration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/713048\/","title":{"rendered":"Clippers double down on Tyronn Lue as head coach: \u2018Never, ever, ever a consideration\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a sprawling end-of-season media availability, LA Clippers president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank confirmed that longtime head coach Tyronn Lue will continue in his role and declared that \u201cour plan is to win\u201d with All-Star forward Kawhi Leonard.<\/p>\n

Frank, the team\u2019s top basketball executive since the end of the 2018 offseason, said his emotions were \u201cstill raw\u201d two days after the Clippers blew a 13-point fourth-quarter lead to the Golden State Warriors in the West Play-In Tournament. The season-ending loss put the finishing touches on a turbulent 2025-26 season that saw the Clippers start 6-21 before rebounding to extend the franchise\u2019s streak of winning seasons to 15 with a 42-40 regular-season record.<\/p>\n

The Clippers whiffed on opportunities to improve their seed in the Play-In Tournament late in the regular season, then collapsed in the fourth quarter Wednesday night against the Warriors in the 9-10 game, which eliminated them from playoff contention for the first time since 2022. It marked the fifth straight season that the Clippers failed to win a playoff series.<\/p>\n

Despite the poor start and finish to the season, Frank said there was \u201cnever, ever, ever a consideration\u201d of Lue being replaced as head coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven at our lowest point, when we were 6-21, there never ever was any consideration of Ty not being the coach,\u201d said Frank, who appointed Lue as head coach to replace Hall of Famer Doc Rivers in 2020 after the Clippers blew a 3-1 lead in the Western Conference semifinals against the Denver Nuggets. \u201cTy\u2019s going to be the coach here for a long, long time. And I think when you talk about partnerships, and you talk about stable organizations, when you have adversity or you go through tough stretches, you dig in and\u00a0you work really, really hard at identifying the problems. Everyone takes ownership of the issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lue led the Cleveland Cavaliers to a championship 10 years ago in his first turn as an NBA head coach, with the Cavaliers coming back from a 3-1 deficit in the NBA Finals against the 73-win Warriors in 2016. The Cavaliers fired Lue early in the 2018-19 season following LeBron James\u2019 departure after two more Finals runs. The Clippers brought Lue in as an assistant in 2019; he had served on Rivers\u2019 first Clippers staff in 2013-14. Then Lue led the Clippers to the franchise\u2019s only conference finals appearance in 2021 despite Leonard suffering a torn right ACL in the semifinals against the top-seeded Utah Jazz.<\/p>\n

Leonard\u2019s knee injuries either canceled, delayed or interrupted entire seasons or playoff runs in each of Lue\u2019s first five seasons. That was not the case in 2025-26, however, when Leonard played 65 games and was available for his first Play-In Tournament. Despite the lack of playoff success, Lue remains under contract through 2029.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought Ty and the staff did an unbelievable job of, every day, showing up with a great spirit, and just kept at it,\u201d Frank said. \u201cTy\u2019s an incredible coach, an incredible partner. And one of the characteristics we look for, not just in staff, but also in players, are people who are driven to improve. And all of us, you know, are very much driven to improvement.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Clippers remain committed to the idea that any improvement the team makes this offseason will include Leonard. The All-Star forward turns 35 years old in June and is entering the final year of a contract extension signed in January 2024.<\/p>\n

This season began with the cloud of salary-cap circumvention allegations<\/a> involving Leonard and former team sponsor Aspiration hanging over the team and its star. But Frank said the scandal, which is still being investigated by the NBA, did not affect the Clippers\u2019 season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you know (Clippers owner) Steve (Ballmer) and know Steve\u2019s integrity, you know there\u2019s nothing to it,\u201d Frank said. \u201cAnd I can\u2019t comment on the investigation, but I will stand by what I said up here back in September, October, whenever it was, that, you know, we believe and we\u2019re very confident we\u2019re on the right side of this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frank signaled that the Clippers would like to extend Leonard, who on Wednesday night requested he be given time to \u201ccry about this loss a little bit more\u201d before talking about his future. Frank acknowledged that questions about trading Leonard came once the Clippers traded James Harden and Ivica Zubac the week of the NBA trade deadline. But the franchise is focused on getting back to contender status with Leonard in the fold.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the appropriate time, we\u2019ll sit down with Kawhi, and very similar to 2024, lay out our plan,\u201d Frank said. \u201cAnd if our goals are aligned, then we\u2019d like to win with Kawhi.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harden was traded to Cleveland in September for Darius Garland, a two-time All-Star who struggled with injuries to toes on both feet throughout the season. Frank said that Garland\u2019s focus this offseason will be on getting healthy a year removed from surgery to repair his toe, in addition to improving his strength and defensive stamina after teams picked on him in April.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe offseason is the time where you can make great gains with your body,\u201d Frank said. \u201cAnd I think when you look at the \u2014 in this league \u2014 smaller guards who have been able to excel, it\u2019s the strength part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frank mentioned three areas where the Clippers must get better, and those closely mirror the team\u2019s needs from a year ago: rebounding, secondary ballhandling and shooting. Last year, the Clippers addressed those concerns by adding veterans Brook Lopez, John Collins, Bradley Beal and Chris Paul. The success of those additions ranged from decent to abject failure. The Clippers have a team option on Lopez, 38, after he struggled as a backup but was more helpful as a starter. Collins is an unrestricted free agent after starting most of the season at power forward. Beal has a player option after undergoing season-ending hip surgery in November. Paul was unceremoniously dismissed in December.<\/p>\n

Whereas last year Frank used veterans, the organization hopes a potential lottery pick comes the team\u2019s way via the Zubac trade with the Pacers. The Clippers will pick fifth or sixth in the 2026 NBA Draft if the Pacers don\u2019t land a top-four pick in next month\u2019s lottery. Otherwise, they will go without a first-round pick, with their own selection going to the Oklahoma City Thunder as part of the Paul George trade that also sent eventual league MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to OKC.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery single move we make has to answer one basic question: \u2018How does this help us get back to contention?’\u201d Frank said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s kind of the prism that we look at. We take great, great pride in that we\u2019ve had 15 consecutive winning seasons, but that\u2019s not our North Star. \u2026 The North Star is to get back to contention, and how long that\u2019s going to take and the steps we need to take.\u201d<\/p>\n

Near the end of the 45-minute news conference, Frank was asked why fans should stick with the franchise amid a lack of postseason success and with no changes among the brain trust or its star player seemingly on the horizon. Frank empathized with the fan base while mentioning that the team won\u2019t tank under Ballmer and will take advantage of the arena and the market that the team is in.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve shared this before, because it\u2019s a choice in this town: Those who have chosen us, there\u2019s a special quality to it,\u201d Frank said. \u201cThe Lakers are a legacy brand, you know? We\u2019re kind of that startup, but it\u2019s a startup now under Steve\u2019s leadership that has established certain baselines. Now, we know we haven\u2019t delivered on, we\u2019ve only had one deep playoff run, OK? We\u2019ve had other successful playoff runs, but we know in the last five years, we haven\u2019t won a playoff series. We deal with that reality. And we also deal with the reality that every day we are going to grind, to continue to look at every pathway, to get this team back to being a contender. So love our fans, love their support, and, you know, when they\u2019re upset, they have every right to express it. And yet, they\u2019ve been extremely supportive along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a sprawling end-of-season media availability, LA Clippers president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank confirmed that longtime head…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":713049,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3789],"tags":[7,559,4034,192,4032,251,135,4033,4031,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-713048","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-clippers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-clippers","10":"tag-la","11":"tag-la-clippers","12":"tag-laclippers","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-los-angeles-clippers","15":"tag-losangeles","16":"tag-losangelesclippers","17":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116424836631940614","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=713048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/713049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}