Luke Walton will be the seventh coach LeBron James has had in his career when the Los Angeles Lakers take the floor this fall. It may seem silly to count that, but coaching James brings a very different dynamic to a job that’s difficult enough for NBA coaches. For example, perhaps no coach had a worse summer than Tyronn Lue, who was “shocked and hurt” when LeBron James left the Cavaliers in free agency.
But just because James is gone from the Cavaliers doesn’t mean that Lue simply thinks the circus that follows the best player in the NBA is someone else’s problem. As it turns out, Lue has already worked to help Walton get used to James. According to an ESPN report, Walton contacted Lue and wanted to know all about what will come of the assignment.
“He told me, ‘I have my pen and paper out already. Let’s hear it,'” Lue told ESPN.
The two worked out a meeting with them in Las Vegas while the two attended Summer League. Lue spoke to ESPN’s Dave McMenamin, who detailed what LeBron’s former coach needed to know from his current one.
“I just want to let him know, the s— that people say and you read, Bron’s not like that,” Lue said. “Like, they make it seem like he’s hard on the coach, he’s hard on [the organization]. He’s nothing like that. That’s the most important thing I want to convey with him: that he’s not like that.
“My biggest thing is the zoo comes from just the outside media. It’s really not coming from within because everybody he deals with — Maverick [Carter], Randy [Mims], all those guys — are professional. So it won’t be no problem from any of those guys, and Bron carries himself the right way. So the biggest part is just having to deal with the media scrutiny. But he’s not like that. I don’t want people thinking Bron’s an a–h— or Bron’s this and that because he’s not.”
It’s good advice all around, especially if the relationship between James and Lue was actually much better than the perception it had around the league. It’s certainly nice of Lue to set the record straight not only with Walton, but by giving an interview with ESPN, the rest of the league.
