The above picture is of former Cleveland Cavaliers head coach, John Lucas who was fired by the team of 2002-03. Currently, he is with the Los Angeles Clippers coaching staff as an assistant and recently gave an interview with AOL Fanhouse.
One of the topics that was discussed was whether or not he believed that Cleveland Cavaliers tanked that season to get Lebron James.
We get more from AOL Fanhouse:
During the 2002-03 season, John Lucas was head coach of the woeful Cleveland Cavaliers. He believes team brass had a mission to lose enough games to get a shot at LeBron James, who was then a senior in Akron.
"They trade all our guys away and we go real young, and the goal was to get LeBron and also to sell the team,'' Lucas said in an interview with FanHouse. "I didn't have a chance. ... You can't fault the Cavaliers for wanting to get LeBron. It was hard to get free agents to come there.''
Gordon Gund, then the principal owner and now a Cavaliers' minority owner, denied the team was tanking during that 17-65 season to get James.
"As angry as I am about the situation of being there, I was there at the wrong time,'' Lucas said. "But, for the organization, it was absolutely the right move. I'm angry because I should be a big boy because I got paid a lot of money (Lucas was fired with 1 ½ years left on his contract). But you want a chance to be able to be there for a while. You knew what the mission was. You just hoped you could get there to get that."
In the article, Gund responds to the tanking criticism by saying that it was not in his heart to tank games and that if his plan was to tank games, why would he fire John Lucas?
Well, that logic sorta falls through considering the Cavs of the time traded away most of their premier talent and there is logic in firing Lucas due to his contract and allowed the Cavaliers to hand pick their next head coach. (That coach eventually ended up being Paul Silas) I really don't blame the Cavs for wanting Lebron James or regarding a possible tanking of a season to get him. We might be talking about the Oklahoma City Cavaliers if they don't get Lebron.
The NBA draft lottery was supposed to stop this sort of tanking when it was created back in the 80's but it would not surprise me that teams in the present and future might do their best to get that certain player.
Isn't that right, New Jersey Nets?