The NBA's Phoenix Suns on Friday announced that Monty Williams will become the new head coach of the team. Since Williams had been a major candidate on the list of the Los Angeles Lakers, the news increased the chance of Ty Lue becoming the new boss of the purple and gold.

"I am thrilled to welcome Monty Williams to the Suns family as our next head coach. Monty brings a wealth of NBA experience, both as a coach and former player, in addition to being a high-character individual who will infuse basketball wisdom and life lessons into our locker room. Monty is well respected for his coaching pedigree, leadership and commitment to the community, all of which make him the ideal person to lead our team moving forward," said James Jones, general manager of the Suns.

According to Shams Charania of The Athletic, Williams agreed to a five-year contract with Phoenix. The 47-year-old previously served as head coach of the New Orleans Hornets/Pelicans and led the team to the playoffs twice. Before he was offered this new job with the Suns, Williams was Brett Brown's assistant coach with the Philadelphia 76ers. The team finished third in the Eastern Conference this season and currently hold a 2-1 lead in the conference semifinals against the Toronto Raptors. He will stay with the team until the end of this season.

Before Williams decided to join Phoenix, he had also been in touch with the Lakers, which are also looking for a new head coach. Now that Williams is off the board, the other major candidate of the purple and gold, former head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers Ty Lue, has the best chance of getting the job.

According to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski, the Lakers are proceeding to make an offer to Lue and have no plans of introducing a new candidate for the job.

In his coaching career, Lue's biggest highlight was winning the 2016 NBA Championship in Cleveland with LeBron James, who joined and had a very frustrating season with the Lakers this season. Having won only 37 games, the Lakers missed the playoffs again. After the regular season, the team's president of basketball operations, Magic Johnson, quit before the Lakers fired their head coach Luke Walton.

James, 34, has shown signs of aging – he missed 17 consecutive games in the regular season, the most in his entire career. His dominance on the court was long gone too. Of course, James did not want to give up, and getting him a coach he won a ring with will definitely make him happy. The question is, will the Lakers be happy to hire Lue.

It's really to hard tell. On one hand, James likes Lue and he will at least listen to his criticism. They are familiar with each other and that matters a lot to James, who always enjoys bringing his own staff.

On the other hand, during their years with the Cavaliers, Lue had been blamed for following James blindly, even though he was the coach and James was the player. Moreover, Lue's most famous tactic was "giving the ball to James," which basically left no time for James to rest. Now that "The King" is already 34 years old, whether the tactic will still work or backfire remains to be seen.

Most importantly, in order to make the "James-Lue" combination work, the Lakers will have to do it James' way: collecting 3-pt shooters and veterans, or in other words, trading the team's future for quick success. It should be pointed out that when James joined the purple and gold, he made it very clear that he's willing to wait, instead of pressing the team to get what he wants.

One of the reasons that James decided to leave Cleveland at the beginning was that he realized the model of him leading a team of shooters did not work. If the Lakers hire Lue as their new coach, it's a very bad sign for both the team, that they may be giving up all the young assets collected in the past three years, and James, that he may be taking the worn path from which he was trying to get away.