The Los Angeles Clippers plan to pursue a contract extension with coach Tyronn Lue that will allow him to avoid entering the final year of his deal in 2025-26, sources told ESPN on Friday.
Lue is expected to be a target in the Los Angeles Lakers’ head coaching hunt and possibly other vacancies on the horizon.
The Clippers trail the Dallas Mavericks 3-2 in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs, with Game 6 set for Friday (ESPN, 9:30 p.m. ET), but this season’s outcome has no bearing on the Clippers’ desire to continue. Sources said Lue has retained Lue as the franchise’s long-term coach. Los Angeles was 51-31 and the fourth seed in the Western Conference this season.
The Clippers have been without All-NBA forward Kawhi Leonard for most of the season due to right knee inflammation, but the organization’s goal remains to re-sign free agents Paul George and James Harden alongside Leonard, sources said.
The Lakers offered Lowe the head coaching position in 2019, but he rejected the offer when the two sides could not agree on terms, sources said. After a year with Doc Rivers’ Clippers that season, Lue stepped into the head job and led the Clippers to the franchise’s first Western Conference Finals berth in 2020-2021.
The Clippers – who have suffered numerous injuries to star players in Lue’s tenure – have advanced to the playoffs in each of the past two seasons. The team has the sixth-best record in the NBA since 2020-21 under Lue at 184-134, according to ESPN Stats & Information.
Lue spent most of his Clippers tenure adapting formations and schemes to overcome injuries to his stars. This season, Lue had to adjust a week into the regular season when the Clippers traded Harden just three games into the season.
After the trade, the Clippers lost six straight games, including five with Harden in the lineup. But after Russell Westbrook started coming off the bench, Lue and the Clippers turned their season upside down. At one point, they lost 26-5 to sit at the top of the Western Conference standings on February 6.
Lue earned back-to-back Western Conference Coach of the Month honors for December and January.
Lue had to adjust again in April when Leonard missed the final eight games of the regular season with inflammation in his right knee. Leonard missed Game 1 before returning to play in Games 2 and 3. But Leonard’s surgically repaired knee didn’t respond the way he had hoped, and the team has kept its star player sidelined ever since.
Lue, who won an NBA championship as Cleveland’s coach in 2016, is 312-217 (.590) overall in the regular season and 52-33 (.612) in the playoffs.
ESPN’s Ohm Youngmisuk contributed to this report.
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