NBA The Clippers’ promising young team might soon benefit from a head coach and chemistry trainer with more recent NBA championship experience. Tyronn Lue, right, is the new coach.
When the Southern California native, Tyronn Lue, was in fourth grade at Hawthorne Elementary School, he remembers that every time he came home for Christmas, he had no money to buy Christmas presents.
He bought stuff with gumball machines or his basketball card collection. “You know those collectors’ cards? It’s blank.” Lue said. “I had 10, 12 gumball machines and they’d be like $5, 10 of them, and I’d collect them one after another,” said Lue, who was a sixth-grader during the glory days of the New York Knicks.
As he left for college at Miami, he wanted to stop at Walgreens after leaving the stores near his home to buy snacks and video games for his Miami Heat teammates. “You know those video game store?” Lue said. “They’d be like $5 for a game, or $10 or $20. I’d just go down there and buy them, and I’d bring the trash can back with me, and bring the trash can back home.” He was about $200 to $300 into his purchases by the time he got to his parent’s house.
When he moved to Cleveland, the team he eventually led to the NBA championship, he and his teammates would occasionally visit the neighborhood Super Lights mall where mall security would allow him to buy groceries and toys. Now he’s hired to coach the Los Angeles Clippers, he will come home every night to cherish all the memories the NBA brought him.
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