BREAKING: LA Clippers, Tyronn Lue agree to new contract
The Clippers are 184-134 (.579) in Tyronn Lue's four seasons.
It was learned on Wednesday that the LA Clippers and Tyronn Lue have agreed to a new contract that is slated to keep Lue as the head coach for the long term, as first reported by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
Lue had one year remaining on his previous contract, which was originally non-guaranteed, per Andrew Greif, formerly of the LA Times, who first reported that detail on May 17, 2023. That option was eventually picked up and guaranteed by the Clippers last August. The new contract is a five-year, $70 million pact, sources told The Athletic’s Shams Charania.
The Clippers have managed a 184-134 (.579) record during Lue’s first four seasons with the team.
“I think Tyronn had a terrific year,” Clippers president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank told reporters at his end-of-season media availability in early May. “Our hope is Tyronn is the coach of the LA Clippers for a long time. He’s an unbelievable partner, I love him as a person and a coach. I think he’s one of the elite coaches in today’s game. We’ve talked about it before, he has a great way of connecting while still holding guys accountable. He’s a truth teller without leaving scars and wounds. He’s an unbelievable strategist who makes terrific in-game adjustments and he has a growth mindset that he’s always looking to get better. Our hope is that Tyronn is here for a long time and we love Tyronn.”
Lue piloted the Clippers to the franchise’s first-ever Conference Finals in 2021 before falling to the Phoenix Suns in six games while Kawhi Leonard was sidelined with a partially torn right anterior cruciate ligament.
Injuries have been the story of Lue’s tenure with the Clippers.
Over his four seasons, Lue has guided the Clippers to a 97-47 (.674) record in games that both Leonard and Paul George played in, but the team has gone 87-87 (.500) in games where they were missing one or both.
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This past season, the Clippers marched all the way to the Western Conference’s 1-seed following a stupendous 26-5 stretch, but that was short-lived as the team sputtered amidst a variety of reasons.
Forward Kawhi Leonard missed the team’s final eight games of the regular season with what was designated as knee inflammation, an ailment that even forced the two-time Finals MVP to miss the first game of the team’s first-round series against the Dallas Mavericks. Leonard returned for Games 2 and 3 before being shut down for the rest of the series after not looking like himself due to the inflammation not subsiding as much as both he and the team would have liked.
The Clippers would go on to lose to the Mavericks in six games.
In 2021, the Clippers had evened their series against the Utah Jazz when Leonard went down due to injury. While they did rally to make the Conference Finals, they couldn’t muster up enough of a challenge while shorthanded against the Suns.
Leonard had to miss the entirety of the 2021-22 season due to injury, and Paul George was only able to play in 31 of the team’s 82 regular season games as a result of his own afflictions. The Clippers went 24-27 (.471) without both in the lineup that season.
The 2022-23 season was supposed to be one of great prosperity for the Clippers as both Leonard and George reportedly rolled into training camp ready to go. That was quickly snuffed out as Leonard missed a month of action seemingly right away.
When they had to play without both stars, the Clippers could only churn out a 3-9 (.250) record as they looked mentally and emotionally defeated.
George was injured in a late March 2023 game against the Oklahoma City Thunder, and the result of the injury kept him out for the remainder of the regular season. While there was some hope George could return late in the first round, that was never the case.
The Clippers put up a valiant fight, splitting the first two games with the Suns before learning that Leonard was once again injured, this time with a partially torn right meniscus. Leonard would miss the series’ final three games as the Clippers lost in five to the Phoenix Suns.
Lue, praised as a fantastic tactician and communicator, dealt with family loss during the 2022-23 season, as he explained in an interview with The Pivot Podcast in late March 2023.
Rumblings of Lue stepping down entirely during that season crept up at various points, but that decision never came to fruition as Lue finished out the 2022-23 campaign.
This new deal aligns Lue with long-term stability and clearly paints him as a pillar not just in the locker room but within the organization itself.
This developing story will be updated with more details as they become available.