Cleveland Cavaliers head coach Tyronn Lue gives instructions from the sideline during the first half in Game 7 of the NBA basketball Eastern Conference finals against the Boston Celtics, Sunday, May 27, 2018, in Boston. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)
Cleveland Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue says he doesn’t have much to tell Los Angeles Lakers coach Luke Walton about coaching NBA superstar LeBron James.
The Los Angeles Times reported Saturday that Lue and Walton had a brief chat at the NBA summer league in Las Vegas, and Lue planned to have dinner with Walton and Lakers associate head coach Brian Shaw this week to discuss the challenges of coaching a player of James’s profile.
“I’ll just tell them LeBron’s easy,” said Lue, who coached James for the past two and a half seasons in Cleveland before the superstar departed the Ohio team for the Lakers via free agency last month.
“People get this whole thing built up like he’s hard to coach. It’s not. LeBron’s not the problem. It’s the outside tension that’s the problem. Just put added pressure immediately on the coaches, on his teammates. Now everything you do is under a microscope … So it’s going to be a totally different change for the Lakers,” Lue said. “They’ll be able to handle it.”
Lue was an associate head coach with the Cavs from 2014 to 2016 and head coach from January of 2016. James returned to Cleveland from Miami in 2014 and led them to a title in 2016.
“LeBron is easy to play with, very unselfish,” Lue said. “LeBron can bring guys along, make sure they’re doing the right thing. It’s going to be good. The outside is what you’ve got to be able to block out.”