Ty Lue reveals what he would’ve needed to make LeBron-Wade-Rose trio work

Derrick Rose, Dwyane Wade and LeBron James were all teammates on the Cleveland Cavaliers to begin the 2017-18 campaign, the swan song of James’ second stint in Cleveland. However, by the end of the regular season, both Rose and Wade had been traded to different teams, indicating a failed experiment.

But Los Angeles Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue — who was the Cavaliers’ head coach at the time — recently said that he would have been able to figure out how to make the trio of Wade, Rose and James work if he simply had more time.

“Bron gave them the leeway to do whatever they want,” Lue said of Wade and Rose. “But I just think trying to figure it out playing with each other, the spacing, the shooting, and all those components played a factor. And it just wasn’t a good fit. They could still play, it just wasn’t a good fit basketball-wise. And that’s just kinda how it didn’t work. But if I had a little bit more time, I would have been able to figure it out.”

Rose had a tumultuous start to the season with Cleveland as he navigated injury woes, which led to him taking some time away from the team. Eventually, after he appeared in just 16 contests in a Cavaliers uniform, Cleveland moved him to the Utah Jazz in a three-team deal. Utah waived him shortly after, and he then reunited with head coach Tom Thibodeau on the Minnesota Timberwolves.

As for Wade, the Cavaliers traded him back to the Miami Heat before the trade deadline. Wade spent the opening 13 seasons of his NBA career playing for the Heat and won three championships with the squad in 2006, 2012 and 2013. The trade back to the Heat led to him finishing his career in Miami, where it all started.

The trio of Wade, Rose and James was appealing on paper, but the fact of the matter was that Wade and Rose were well beyond their primes when they joined forces with James in Cleveland. They were no longer the dynamic offensive players of yesteryear, even if they were still decent complementary pieces.

Cleveland was ultimately right to shake up its roster leading up to the deadline, as the Cavaliers were somehow able to reach the NBA Finals for a fourth year in a row in 2018.

James and company once again came up short of a title against the Golden State Warriors in the championship series, however. After the Cavaliers got swept in the 2018 NBA Finals, James departed Cleveland once again and signed with the Los Angeles Lakers, a storied franchise he still plays for to this day.