In recent years, we’ve seen many great coaches being fired in the NBA, despite leading teams to some of their greatest ever heights. Tyronn Lue, for example, believes some franchise managements are being hypocritical when blaming coaches over players.
According to the Clippers trainer, whenever a team starts to struggle, the first idea to solve the situation is to release the head coach. Lue has an issue with this, as he considers that players also struggle on court, despite the fact that the team’s strategy and preparation might be on point.
Last week, Ty was invited on the most recent episode of “The Shop” and he discussed how coaches usually have to take the blame for players when they are underperforming, using Boston Celtics’ Joe Mazzulla as an example.
“They don’t talk about how many mistakes a player makes in a game,” he claimed. “A coach makes 1 mistake or 2 mistakes, he gets fired? But a player can have 7 turnovers, 4-for-15, 4-for-19, I’m saying man, it don’t make sense. You keep firing good coaches, keep blaming the coaches. Everybody’s gonna make mistakes. I don’t care how you look at it.”
If you’re interested in watching the full episode of this interview, press the video below:
Lue then made reference to a situation he suffered himself leading the Clippers this past campaign. In a regular season match against the Sacramento Kings, he told four players to foul when they were up three points, but no one fouled and they ended up losing the game.
“It happened to us this year,” Lue shared. “Against Sacramento, whatever that crazy score was, we were supposed to foul at the end of the game, but we didn’t foul… we go to the press conference, I’ll take the blame. I don’t care.”
If we are to be objective with this types of situations, both parties should be held accountable to their team’s failures.
Warriors coach Steve Kerr was also shocked over some of the recent trainer discharges in the NBA
Last month, the Bucks decided to continue their NBA journey without coach Mike Budenholzer, even though he led the squad to become the top seed in the league after regular season.
You can argue how Milwaukee’s decision was a bit extreme, considering Mike was one of the most succesful coaches in recent years, and also one of the most stable in a league where franchises usually don’t trust the process and change their trainer constantly.
“My first response is not necessarily shock,” Golden State coach Steve Kerr admitted back in May. “It’s more disappointment because Bud is a fantastic coach, just won a championship and has been wildly successful in his coaching career.”
“This is the business we’re in,” Kerr recalled. “It happens quickly. Expectations every year for every team are so high, and only one team can win. It’s sad news for the coaching profession.
“We all believe Bud deserved a lot better. We also are aware that this is the job we chose and we’re all vulnerable.”
