The Clippers’ coaching roster is closer to becoming official, with the team finalizing deals with Chauncey Billups and Larry Drew, both of whom will join new coach Tyronn Lue’s coaching staff, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. A league source confirmed the report.
Drew, 62, coached with Lue in Cleveland. He also played in the NBA for 10 years, including two seasons with the Clippers, after which he began his coaching career as a Lakers assistant in 1992.
The Kansas City, Kan., native twice has been a head coach, going 128-102 in three seasons in Atlanta and 19-57 in most of a season in Cleveland, where he took over after Lue was fired six games into the 2018-19 slate. Drew also led the Cavs to an 8-1 record as an interim coach between March 19-April 3 2018, when Lue took a medical absence.
Billups, 44, played 17 NBA seasons and was a member of the Detroit Pistons’ 2004 championship team. It’ll be the first foray into coaching for Billups, the former All-Star point guard with a highly regarded basketball mind. Last season, the Denver native worked as an analyst for Clippers games on Fox Sports West broadcasts.
Former Brooklyn coach Kenny Atkinson and top Miami assistant Dan Craig also reportedly are expected to join Lue’s Clippers staff.
Lue, a Clippers assistant coach last season, is taking over for Doc Rivers, who departed after seven seasons and two bitter second-round playoff collapses. Rivers quickly was hired as head coach in Philadelphia, where he’ll be joined by former Clippers assistant Sam Cassell, the 11-year NBA assistant who spent the past six seasons coaching alongside Rivers, as well as former Agua Caliente Clippers coach Brian Adams.
Another former Clippers assistant, the defensively focused Rex Kalamian, joined Luke Walton’s Sacramento Kings’ staff last week.
The NBA board of governors and the National Basketball Players Association agreed last week to play a reduced 72-game season starting on Dec. 22, which presents an unprecedented short turnaround following the conclusion of last season in the NBA bubble in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.
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