The Point Four-ward: Playing Fast and Lue-s

Four points I’m thinking about the Cleveland Cavaliers…

1.) When a friend texted me on Tuesday evening that the Cavaliers and head coach Tyronn Lue had just agreed to a five-year $35 million dollar contract, I thought for a second, then shot back “I guess now we’ll find out if he can actually coach or not.” I was joking, of course. Well, mostly. Kinda.

The national spin on Lue has been that his best quality as a head coach has been getting LeBron James to buy in and support him. While there’s certainly a kernel of truth to that (or, more likely, a cob), it also diminishes the moves Lue made that made this team stronger over the course of his half-season tenure.

For instance, Lue was able to criticize his players because he was consistent with the message he delivered. In the case of Kyrie Irving — the most important player outside of James who Lue had to reach — Lue said the same things about Irving in January as he said in June. He wanted Irving to push the pace and attack the basket.

2.) The adjustment Lue was asking Irving to make was a simple one, but one that the fifth year point guard still struggled with implementing: play your game, just play it faster. Make quicker decisions. Attack and see what opens up. Don’t let the ball die in your hands.

Then Lue stuck by his player and the role he’d defined for him. In a mid-March home win over the Dallas Mavericks, Irving reportedly frustrated teammates (and Cavs fans) by racking up 28 shots, and just one assist in a 99-98 win, while James rested on the bench. Irving defended himself by saying that his coach has told him that he needed to “be aggressive,” especially in the absence of The King.

Lue could have responded with a public teaching moment, where he explained that Irving’s aggressiveness, no doubt, opened up opportunities for his teammates and that Irving would have to start to recognize those opportunities if he wanted to be a player who made those around him better. Instead, Lue backed up Irving by reiterating that the game plan was to have Irving play in “attack mode.”

3.) Rebranding Irving as an “attack guard” may be Lue’s greatest bit of player management so far because it pushed Irving to shore up some of his weaknesses, while publicly focusing on his strengths. Lue didn’t make Irving doubt himself or second guess his shoot-first instincts. Rather, he told Irving just how devastating an offensive force he could be… and how much better he and the team would be if he didn’t dribble the ball to death, giving the defense more time to set up and killing any off-ball movement. Irving, Lue encouraged, was expected to be better, but he was expected to a better version of himself… not a completely different one.

Confidence is such a huge part of the game of basketball. In a recent podcast interview with The Vertical’s Adrian Wojnarowski, new Houston Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni talks about how the erosion of his confidence ended his NBA career and how, in turn, he wants his players — and, particularly, his point guards — to feel as confident as possible while they’re trying to execute the game plan. That doesn’t always mean playing mistake-free basketball — and it’s not like Irving’s over-dribbling magically disappeared under Lue. But it does create a environment where, late in the fourth quarter of Game 7 of the NBA Finals, for instance, Irving can hoist up a three to break the game open without secretly wondering if he’s going to get publicly branded a ball hog if the shot rims out. It helps that it turned out the way it did, of course. But, still…

Irving showed signs of overall growth in the playoffs, as he was engaged on defense for the first extended period of his still-young career. He also added to the book most had already read on him, proving to be a clutch playoff shot-maker, in the style of his idol Kobe Bryant. The best thing about Irving is that he can still get better — and the best indicator that he might do just that is that he’s now playing for a coach who went to bat for him and earned his trust.

4.) So, back to my half-joke when I heard about Lue’s extension. With all of the praise I honestly think Lue deserves for the job he put together for half of the 2015-16 season and a playoff run that ended with the first championship in franchise history, there are still plenty of unknowns when it comes to how Lue will handle steering the U.S.S. Cavalier over the long haul.

How Lue manages the minutes of his older players — and James, in particular — will be only one of several questions Lue and his coaching staff will begin the 2016-17 season needing to answer. Will the team look like they’re stuck in chill mode during the entire regular season, as they did for much of this past one? Will Lue be able to coax a similar level of defensive attention from players like Irving and Kevin Love that they displayed in the Finals on a more consistent basis? Will Lue find a way to make some sense out of the team’s murky back-up point guard position? Will the team look old… or will they look seasoned and confident?

The NBA never lacks questions for a head coach to answer. Now, armed with a contract extension, a championship, and a full off-season and training camp to get his team ready for 2016-17, we’ll get to see if Lue is truly “The Answering Machine.”