The Cavaliers had lost their first six games under Lue, but under interim head coach, Larry Drew won their first game last night over the Atlanta Hawks 136-114.
Lue, who won over 200 games at a percentage of over sixty percent, was the winning coach of the only championship team in franchise history.
The Cavaliers stumbled early with an injury to Kevin Love's toe, which is expected to keep him off the floor for as long as a month, but the larger factor seemed to be the pace of play installed by Lue.
Lue wanted to play at a faster pace, which the NBA is moving towards today, but still had personnel made for the surrounding cast for LeBron James, which to paraphrase the Boss, wasn't quite "Born to Run".
Another issue with Lue was that he wanted to continue to give the veterans (George Hill over Collin Sexton as the biggest issue) more playing time than the younger players, who would be more of a part of the rebuild.
General Manager Koby Altman had sold Lue on their intent to contend for a playoff spot and Lue was playing veterans that he thought (often incorrectly) would give the team a better chance to win.
The only argument that the front office could make would be that the more that veterans like Kyle Korver (very valuable to a contender), J.R Smith ( I'm not sure that the team could give Smith away under almost any circumstances) and Channing Frye (brought to help the younger big men, not to log huge minutes) would play, perhaps they could improve their marketability.
The Cavaliers are trying to have their cake and eat it too as they want to play the predominantly younger players, yet proclaim their interest in making the playoffs in which they aren't nearly as likely to challenge for the postseason using those players.
However, if the Cavaliers truly want to play the younger players and hope for the best, Tyronn Lue wasn't the best choice for the job.
They could have done a much better job in communicating that decision to Lue and perhaps this split (Much like the Browns with Hue Jackson) would have been better to have taken place during the summer to benefit both parties.
Of course, this being the Cavaliers, there is a certain amount of stress as interim coach Larry Drew wants to be named the full time coach at a bump in salary, while the team has named him interim coach for now.
This means that of course the relationship has stumbled out of the gate and no matter how well things turn out for a while, this will be remembered and will come up again sooner or later.
Drew spent three years as the head coach of the Atlanta Hawks and one with the Milwaukee Bucks.
Drew coached the Hawks to the playoffs for all three seasons in Atlanta, before spending the next year in Milwaukee, where a disastrous 15-67 season gave Drew a deceiving 144-169 record.
Drew coached the Cavaliers to wins in eight of nine games last season during Tyronn Lue's medical absence, so he's somewhat used to being the head man.
Drew could be a good choice for the rest of the year, but considering this organization's history in bungling (other than having the world's best player want to return to his hometown team, it's less than dazzling under the ownership of Dan Gilbert), doesn't really give me confidence to say this will end well.
Tyronn Lue could have been freed in the off-season, it would have been the right thing to do, but sometimes you have to actually see a bad idea instead of imagining it.
Still, the firing now will help Lue be the more than likely favorite for the "team that many expected to contend, but have underachieved" head coaching position before the end of the season.
Now, the next step is to see if improvement comes under Drew and just what changes are made under Drew...
Next time- I hope to start the TRS boxing ratings or a piece on Emanuel Steward that I've been holding for a slow day.
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