Ty Lue is swatting down whispers that he gave Chris Paul the cold shoulder before the Clippers and the Point God went their separate ways.
In the aftermath of Chris Paul’s shocking split with the Clippers, multiple NBA insiders reported that the impetus for the decision had something to do with the veteran guard’s leadership style, which allegedly rubbed the team the wrong way. Those same reports also claimed that Chris Paul and coach Ty Lue hadn’t been on speaking terms in the weeks leading up to the break.
But per fresh reports, Lue says there’s no beef here, maybe just business decisions and a very complicated group project called an NBA season. Nothing personal, just rotations, and timelines.
Lue kept it cool, denied any freeze-out, and kept it pushing. No scorched earth, no messy sub-tweets. Lue was then asked whether he had reached out to or spoken to Paul since the split, considering Paul had claimed in the days after that he hadn’t heard from the coach.
“I haven’t heard from him, either,” Lue replied.
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The coach went on to add that he had no problem with Paul and understood his competitive nature but then seemed a bit annoyed by the suggestion that the two had stopped talking at the end of Paul’s tenure.
“We had a 40-minute conversation on the phone,” Lue said, without identifying when. “And that’s my guy. My friend before he got here. So you don’t want to see that happen to anybody, no matter what the circumstances are. But now, we gotta figure out how to win games.”
So where do we go from here? The Clippers lock in on the next chapter.
