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NBA NBA Postseason LIVE 6m ago The Clippers have no plans to part ways with Tyronn Lue, who has been the franchise's head coach for six years. Ezra Shaw / Getty Images In a sprawling end-of-season media availability, LA Clippers president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank confirmed that longtime head coach Tyronn Lue will continue in his role and declared that “our plan is to win” with All-Star forward Kawhi Leonard. Frank, the team’s top basketball executive since the end of the 2018 offseason, said his emotions were “still raw” two days after the Clippers blew a 13-point fourth-quarter lead to the Golden State Warriors in the West Play-In Tournament. The season-ending loss put the finishing touches on a turbulent 2025-26 season that saw the Clippers start 6-21 before rebounding to extend the franchise’s streak of winning seasons to 15 with a 42-40 regular-season record. Advertisement The Clippers whiffed on opportunities to improve their seed in the Play-In Tournament late in the regular season, then collapsed in the fourth quarter Wednesday night against the Warriors in the 9-10 game, which eliminated them from playoff contention for the first time since 2022. It marked the fifth straight season that the Clippers failed to win a playoff series. Despite the poor start and finish to the season, Frank said there was “never, ever, ever a consideration” of Lue being replaced as head coach. “Even at our lowest point, when we were 6-21, there never ever was any consideration of Ty not being the coach, ” said Frank, who appointed Lue as head coach to replace Hall of Famer Doc Rivers in 2020 after the Clippers blew a 3-1 lead in the Western Conference semifinals against the Denver Nuggets. “Ty’s going to be the coach here for a long, long time. And I think when you talk about partnerships, and you talk about stable organizations, when you have adversity or you go through tough stretches, you dig in and you work really, really hard at identifying the problems. Everyone takes ownership of the issues. ” Lue led the Cleveland Cavaliers to a championship 10 years ago in his first turn as an NBA head coach, with the Cavaliers coming back from a 3-1 deficit in the NBA Finals against the 73-win Warriors in 2016. The Cavaliers fired Lue early in the 2018-19 season following Le Bron James’ departure after two more Finals runs. The Clippers brought Lue in as an assistant in 2019; he had served on Rivers’ first Clippers staff in 2013-14. Then Lue led the Clippers to the franchise’s only conference finals appearance in 2021 despite Leonard suffering a torn right ACL in the semifinals against the top-seeded Utah Jazz. Leonard’s knee injuries either canceled, delayed or interrupted entire seasons or playoff runs in each of Lue’s first five seasons. That was not the case in 2025-26, however, when Leonard played 65 games and was available for his first Play-In Tournament. Despite the lack of playoff success, Lue remains under contract through 2029. Advertisement “I thought Ty and the staff did an unbelievable job of, every day, showing up with a great spirit, and just kept at it, ” Frank said. “Ty’s an incredible coach, an incredible partner. And one of the characteristics we look for, not just in staff, but also in players, are people who are driven to improve. And all of us, you know, are very much driven to improvement. ” The Clippers remain committed to the idea that any improvement the team makes this offseason will include Leonard. The All-Star forward turns 35 years old in June and is entering the final year of a contract extension signed in January 2024. This season began with the cloud of salary-cap circumvention allegations involving Leonard and former team sponsor Aspiration hanging over the team and its star. But Frank said the scandal, which is still being investigated by the NBA, did not affect the Clippers’ season. “If you know (Clippers owner) Steve (Ballmer) and know Steve’s integrity, you know there’s nothing to it, ” Frank said. “And I can’t comment on the investigation, but I will stand by what I said up here back in September, October, whenever it was, that, you know, we believe and we’re very confident we’re on the right side of this. ” Frank signaled that the Clippers would like to extend Leonard, who on Wednesday night requested he be given time to “cry about this loss a little bit more” before talking about his future. Frank acknowledged that questions about trading Leonard came once the Clippers traded James Harden and Ivica Zubac the week of the NBA trade deadline. But the franchise is focused on getting back to contender status with Leonard in the fold. “At the appropriate time, we’ll sit down with Kawhi, and very similar to 2024, lay out our plan, ” Frank said. “And if our goals are aligned, then we’d like to win with Kawhi. ” Advertisement Harden was traded to Cleveland in September for Darius Garland, a two-time All-Star who struggled with injuries to toes on both feet throughout the season. Frank said that Garland’s focus this offseason will be on getting healthy a year removed from surgery to repair his toe, in addition to improving his strength and defensive stamina after teams picked on him in April. “The offseason is the time where you can make great gains with your body, ” Frank said. “And I think when you look at the — in this league — smaller guards who have been able to excel, it’s the strength part of it. ” Frank mentioned three areas where the Clippers must get better, and those closely mirror the team’s needs from a year ago: rebounding, secondary ballhandling and shooting. Last year, the Clippers addressed those concerns by adding veterans Brook Lopez, John Collins, Bradley Beal and Chris Paul. The success of those additions ranged from decent to abject failure. The Clippers have a team option on Lopez, 38, after he struggled as a backup but was more helpful as a starter. Collins is an unrestricted free agent after starting most of the season at power forward. Beal has a player option after undergoing season-ending hip surgery in November. Paul was unceremoniously dismissed in December. Whereas last year Frank used veterans, the organization hopes a potential lottery pick comes the team’s way via the Zubac trade with the Pacers. The Clippers will pick fifth or sixth in the 2026 NBA Draft if the Pacers don’t land a top-four pick in next month’s lottery. Otherwise, they will go without a first-round pick, with their own selection going to the Oklahoma City Thunder as part of the Paul George trade that also sent eventual league MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to OKC. “Every single move we make has to answer one basic question: ‘How does this help us get back to contention? '” Frank said. “And that’s kind of the prism that we look at. We take great, great pride in that we’ve had 15 consecutive winning seasons, but that’s not our North Star. … The North Star is to get back to contention, and how long that’s going to take and the steps we need to take. ” Near the end of the 45-minute news conference, Frank was asked why fans should stick with the franchise amid a lack of postseason success and with no changes among the brain trust or its star player seemingly on the horizon. Frank empathized with the fan base while mentioning that the team won’t tank under Ballmer and will take advantage of the arena and the market that the team is in. “I’ve shared this before, because it’s a choice in this town: Those who have chosen us, there’s a special quality to it, ” Frank said. “The Lakers are a legacy brand, you know? We’re kind of that startup, but it’s a startup now under Steve’s leadership that has established certain baselines. Now, we know we haven’t delivered on, we’ve only had one deep playoff run, OK? We’ve had other successful playoff runs, but we know in the last five years, we haven’t won a playoff series. We deal with that reality. And we also deal with the reality that every day we are going to grind, to continue to look at every pathway, to get this team back to being a contender. So love our fans, love their support, and, you know, when they’re upset, they have every right to express it. And yet, they’ve been extremely supportive along the way. ” Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle Law Murray is a staff writer for The Athletic covering the NBA, based in Los Angeles. Law joined The Athletic in 2021 as a Clippers beat writer. Prior to joining The Athletic, he was an NBA editor at ESPN, a researcher at NFL Media and a contributor to Drew League. com and Clipper Blog. Law is from Philadelphia, Pa. , and is a graduate of California University of Pennsylvania and the University of Southern California. When not playing basketball, Law is probably discussing the next Saturday Night Live episode. Follow Law on Twitter @Law Murray The NU