No two situations are exactly alike, of course. But if Tyronn Lue’s tenure in Cleveland is any indication of what the Clippers can expect from their new head coach, it’s easy to see why they tabbed him to steer a talented roster that faces lofty expectations.

He was the candidate who’s done it before – and done it successfully and swiftly.
Smarting after blowing a 3-1 series lead in the Western Conference semifinals, the Clippers hope Lue – who has agreed to a five-year deal to coach the team – has the right recipe to do it again.

In January 2016, Lue replaced David Blatt as the Cleveland Cavaliers head coach. The Cavs were 30-11 at the time, but they were being described as a fractured, broken bunch who employed a traditional style of play that wasn’t likely to deliver the franchise’s first championship, even with LeBron James leading the charge.
It might have seemed somewhat inevitable that Lue, then just 38, eventually would take the reins in Cleveland – after all, the Cavs lured him away from his post as a Clippers assistant with a reported four-year, $6.5 million contract that made him the highest-paid assistant in the league. But he reportedly was hesitant to accept the head gig.

“I didn’t want it. I was scared of – the locker room was a mess,” Lue told The Athletic in January. “… I knew it would be a tough task. I knew all the pressure that would come along with it.”
But that changed after Lue called Doc Rivers – whom he’s replacing in L.A. – and Jerry West, the current Clippers consultant whose final two seasons as a Lakers executive overlapped with Lue’s first two as an NBA point guard. According to The Athletic, Lue said West asked him if he was “crazy” when he said he was thinking about passing.

Lue took the job. Six months later, he joined Pat Riley and Paul Westhead as the only NBA coaches to take over during the season and win a title, for which championship-starved Cavs fans will forever be grateful.
With a championship and two other NBA Finals appearances, the first-time coach established a track record of not only cultivating chemistry by holding stars accountable and emboldening role players but also as a coach capable of making the right strategic calls in important moments – all attributes the Clippers desired.

They’ll look for Lue to establish equilibrium that was lacking following the arrival of stars Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, whose presence failed to ward off the embarrassing collapse in the Western Conference semifinals.
As a rookie head coach in Cleveland, Lue – who played alongside Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal – proved himself confident and capable, worthy of respect from Cleveland’s biggest star. And that served to improve rapport roster-wide.

There was the huddle soon after he was hired, when Lue reportedly told James – who had taken to overriding Bratt in obvious ways – “Shut the (expletive) up. I got this.”
And, famously, at halftime of Game 7 in the 2016 NBA Finals, Lue skipped film and instead challenged James directly to defend better and be more aggressive, purposefully pushing his superstar’s buttons. Then he left the room, reportedly leaving James fuming – and then dominating the second half, when the Cavs outscored the Warriors 51-40 and held Golden State scoreless for the final 4:39 as the Cavs put a ribbon on the city of Cleveland’s first championship in 52 years.

Early on, Lue also challenged Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love and insisted all of the Cavs be in better shape so they could pick up the tempo and increase their number of possessions. And he implored them to find joy in the journey, asking that they begin participating again in pregame introductions that they’d been skipping, at James’ behest, in order to better focus.
Lue’s tactical abilities were every bit as clutch as his motivational chops in Cleveland, and he left receipts as proof: His teams went 41-20 in the playoffs and reached three consecutive Finals. He never lost a game in the conference semifinals – the stage of the postseason the Clippers’ organization has never, in its 50-year history, gotten past.
Offensively, Cleveland had a playoff-best rating in both 2016 and 2017. And defensively, the Cavs were stellar in the most important moments: In their historic 3-1 Finals comeback in 2016, they held Golden State’s vaunted offense to fewer than 101 points in all four victories.

Lue proved flexible with his personnel in a way the Clippers will appreciate, including on one occasion in 2018, when he reacted to a Game 1 loss in a first-round series against Indiana by inserting J.R. Smith and Kyle Korver into the starting lineup in place of Jeff Green and Rodney Hood. That particular move yielded immediate results defensively and opened the floor for James, who shredded the Pacers’ defense for 46 points in an important 100-97 victory in what turned out to be a seven-game series.
Lue has some of former Lakers coach Phil Jackson to him, too on the sideline, his relatively undemonstrative demeanor having helped calm the Cavs in tough moments, such as, say, when they’d coughed up an 18-point lead in a 2016 second-round game against the Atlanta Hawks.
He sensed that he shouldn’t immediately call a timeout in that game, letting his players work to regain their footing themselves before eventually drawing up a play for Smith that resulted in a go-ahead 3-pointer that gave Cleveland a lead it never relinquished.

Afterward, James spoke of the value of Lue’s cool disposition: “It’s a calm feeling when you come to the sideline no matter if you’ve given up a lead or not.”
And Lue, who now is 43 and still relatively young by NBA coaching standards, has indicated a desire to lay down long-term roots, which also is an attractive notion for the Clippers.

In interviews last season with Cleveland media, Lue – who returned for the first time in January, as a Clippers assistant coach – was candid about his disappointment that he was fired six games into his fourth season, and his first without James.
“What I tried to build there, I think the culture I tried to set … I thought we could do it together. Koby (Altman) being a young GM, me being a young coach, having young players,” Lue told The Athletic.
Lue might get that opportunity at some point in L.A., but in his immediate future with the win-now Clippers, he’ll be tasked with guiding a talented team burdened with a ton of pressure to the mountaintop for a franchise’s first time – and his second.