Kyrie, Kanye, Kylie and an Amigo Cart: While We’re Waiting…
January 25, 2016Joe Thomas says he wants to be a part of the Browns’ rebuild
January 25, 2016David Blatt filled an essential role in the NBA landscape. Not only did he coach the Cleveland Cavaliers and all-world talent LeBron James, but he also doubled as a lightning rod for coaching hot takes. From the moment owner David Gilbert hired him, Internet jokesters riffed that LeBron was head coach and general manager while Blatt and GM David Griffin just pushed papers. Blatt covered up grenades for his team in the national media. If the Cavs lost by a wide margin people would speculate, “When will Blatt figure out his rotations?” “How can Blatt use Kevin Love better?” He dutifully served as a big buffer that kept the team warm and dry. The buffer is now gone.
On Friday Cavs owner David Gilbert fired David Blatt and promoted assistant coach Tyronn Lue to the near end of the bench. The timing is curious and outright surprising. The Cavaliers won the Eastern Conference in 2015 and pushed Golden State to six games in the Finals. After defeating the Los Angeles Clippers on Thursday the Cavs moved to 30-11 on the season. Exactly halfway through the campaign, the Wine and Gold are the top dogs of the East by a decent margin. Vegas will undoubtedly favor them to run roughshod through the Eastern Conference Playoffs when the time comes. So why make the change now? After Thursday’s win, sideline reporter and fashion icon Craig Sager asked LeBron about the Hack-a-DeAndre strategy the club employed. James shrugged off the veiled accusation. “It’s all about winning… Whatever it takes for us to get a win.”
The problem for the Cavs is that winning isn’t a problem. A year ago they were 23-20, post bowling, and about to take the country by storm. It’s easy to forget that the club had massive difficulties working together, struggled against inferior opponents, and faced uncertainty every night on the court. This year the Cavaliers excelled out of the gate. Cleveland is on pace for a 60-win season which, even in a reformed Eastern Conference, all but guarantees a top seed. So if winning is the goal, and the club continues to win, why make such a fundamental change at the exact midway point of the season? The pressure now shifts to Ty Lue.
Cleveland added Lue to the coaching staff before the 2014 season along with Blatt. An 11-year NBA veteran and two-time NBA champion, Lue apparently connects with the players in a way that Blatt cannot. Depending the rumors you choose to believe, Lue was somewhere between a LeBron whisperer in the locker room and a puppet master holding up cue cards during Blatt’s press conferences. Regardless of his previous responsibilities, Lue now needs to figure out rotations, manage playing time, contend with massive millionaires’ egos, and try to deliver Cleveland its first professional sports championship since 1964. As if that were not a tall enough task, he now has no preseason to use as a warm up. When the divisional rival Chicago Bulls rode into town on Saturday, Lue wrote the lineup and mostly failed to impress during an embarrassing 96-83 loss. Cavs Twitter was especially unkind to Lue, and that’s just after one game. There will be little margin for error and a massive microscope on him for the rest of the season.
In the wake of Blatt’s firing, media outlets released reports that painted very different pictures of Blatt’s head coaching tenure. Yahoo!’s Adrian Wojnarowski detailed how LeBron James and his “camp” worked to get Blatt fired from the moment James returned to Cleveland. The Plain Dealer‘s Chris Haynes paints Blatt as a feckless leader who refused to hold the best players accountable and froze up in critical moments late in games. The truth probably lies somewhere between these accounts. We may not know the real story until LeBron writes his tell-all autobiography (which will be a must-read).
For the past two seasons, fans and writers wondered how long David Blatt would last as head coach; many assumed his termination was inevitable. When the axe fell on Friday the Cavs lost not only their head coach, but also their firewall. LeBron has the team he wants and the coach he wants. Griffin made the move he felt was necessary to best position the Cavs for a championship run. Isn’t this what everyone wanted? Well here it is. There are no more excuses. Blatt is no longer around to catch flak from critics. The Cavs have at least 40 games left. After that it will take 16 victories to earn a trophy. If the team fails to deliver a parade they can only blame themselves. LeBron is the man who suddenly got everything he always wanted. How will the story end?
37 Comments
Corey, given the premise you open with, are you arguing that greater accountability and the lack of an available scapegoat is not a good thing for the franchise?
I’ve lost so much respect for LeBron over this. We had a good coach. As a diehard Cavs fan, I’ve seen incompatant coaches. Many of them. David Blatt was not one of them. He was a good coach and we were playing well. For selfish reasons LeBron had him axed. If LeBron doesn’t win it all this year, and he likely won’t, it will be a serious stain on his legacy.
No more excuses. Yet they had them right out of the gate Saturday.
They could have taken an easy path and not fired him and maybe achieved EC champs. Glad they chose, instead, to make a tough call and try to tighten up a loose ship and go for broke.
Re: out the gate Saturday anything: Anyone who expects instant turnaround is the mindless type that we should ignore though.
Lol what turnaround? Oh ok you mean they were out of shape yet started 30-11? Or when they ran the Clippers out of the gym? Yet they’re suddenly out of shape. Sounds like excuses to me.
Other people to ignore: those who believe silly narratives and have difficulty with critical thinking.
Yeah silly me, why expect a real response from you?
You know, as somewhat of an aside in all of this, but on the subject of scapegoat: I haven’t heard a lot of people arguing for Blatt on the merits of his coaching abilities. Think that’s pretty telling.
I think it goes beyond LeBron. If reports are true then Love and even Irving are to blame too. Now they suddenly want to change to a fast paced offense when they don’t have the players to do it.
Ok, lets stop this here before I have to start issuing bans. Please refrain from all personal attacks.
I’m done, just didn’t appreciate the personal attacks.
https://flixchatter.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/thumbsdown.gif?w=660
Me too.
It might have been the right move. I am skeptical.
But the ‘entire lockerroom’ thing is noise. They follow James. In his passive aggressive way, he’s been selfish, even by NBA standards. I bet he never really discussed his issues directly with Blatt, but told everyone else, over and over.
So Griffin knew what he had to do but James can say it wasn’t his decision. It was but he won’t own it.
It’s James’ fault if they don’t get as far in the Finals this year- or at least if they don;t start running a real offense.
Good point. It makes you wonder was he ever the leader? He wasn’t the first time here and he definitely wasn’t in Miami.
Right. The argument seems to be that he was a nice guy who got caught in a difficult situation that he hadn’t signed up for. I can live with that reasoning. But how did Blatt ever provide evidence of being an elite coach in the league, or even an above-average coach? Those arguments are tougher to make.
Thankfully, Lue has a few attributes that appear to have been most problematic for Blatt – experience in the league, ability to relate to players, initimate knowledge of culture of NBA locker rooms, capacity to hold his star players accountable (having already earned their respect). It’s a much more promising equation for success, and I admire Griffin for having the gumption to do it. I view it as a winner’s move – the type of move we rarely see in Cleveland sports.
Yeah, and his biggest failing was that he was also unable to manage a superstar (no easy feat, but part of the job if you want to win in this league). The derp derp crowd kneejerked into the narrative that Lebron didn’t like him so he rallied a conspiracy against Blatt. It’s certainly more complex than that Lebron scapegoating. I think that the team as a whole didn’t buy into the guy for a variety of reasons (system, personality, discipline, whatever, doesn’t matter…dude didn’t connect). For ex, here’s Haywood going on the record and pulling back the curtain on something interesting: http://www.fearthesword.com/2016/1/22/10818444/brendan-haywood-says-david-blatt-was-hesitant-to-challenge-lebron
It’s not worth it besides the real game is tonight. Not the game in Cleveland but San Antonio at Golden State. Two real teams that actually know how to play the game and don’t require babysitters and psychologists.
While I can admit that Blatt got a raw deal (since we hired him pre-return) there’s been no indication that he’s even an above average coach. His gameplans have been less than overwhelming – if he’s really ever had anything specific – and he certainly hasn’t shown much ability to make in game adjustments. Let’s not even get started on the eight grade level inbound plays. In order to get what we’ve set out to achieve we need a coach that can: 1. figure out defensive rotations against GSW 2. utilize Love effectively. Blatt was able to accomplish neither. As someone else pointed out in another thread I think, no one is crying out on this because of Blatt’s merits as a coach. Please stop following that national media narrative and making this about Lebron.
No Duncan though. Well played Pop
James isn’t a leader he leaves whenever he can find a Plan B. He did it first time to Cavs and then did it to Miami. Riley wouldn’t let him get away with this stuff. Difference now is Gilbert is a hostage because he clearly doesn’t know how to run a professional sports team. In other words he’s beholden to James. Take LBJ away and the Cavs are the Browns of the NBA. It starts with ownership. Gilbert is attempting to buy a championship look at his payroll. Lets see what happens when he’s not successful with that strategy.
Insert Diaw let Aldridge play C. Probably a better match-up anyways. Plus I don’t question Pop he knows his team. He has respect from his team.
I think the biggest downfall for Blatt was trying to coach in the NBA. In Israel, the players probably actually listened to his coaching and believed in his plan. I don’t know if he ever got that in cleveland. Just the way things go in the NBA. It is one of the only sports that a coach has to put up with a bunch of divas. There are a limited number of good players in the league, and if one of the best on the team doesn’t listen, and perhaps tells others they do not have to listen either, the coach has no chance.
That’s an insightful anecdote from a guy who would seem to have no real axe to grind with Blatt. In it, you can get a sense of the internal rot that set in from the very beginning of Blatt’s tenure.
I have to tip my hat to Griffin/Gilbert. Even though having Lue on board as an assistant was costly up front, it was quite a shrewd move that gave the front office a high-quality contingency plan to execute if Blatt no longer seemed viable. By doing so, a season that felt doomed to failure in the Finals (or earlier) now seems to have at least a flickering ember of hope.
Yes, and I also think Blatt perhaps lacked the humility necessary to understand that the approaches (both strategic and interpersonal) he used in Israel and in international competition would not translate to the complex culture of the NBA. The absence of personal connections to the American game certainly did not help ease this transition.
Don’t forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he always wanted…
He was doomed from the start. He was supposed to coach a young team and ended up with a team full of egos.
he moved to Miami?
More important point: who hired him? The same guy who hired Mike Brown not once but twice. Honestly Gilbert should be happy the Browns are in town otherwise people would be taking a much closer look at how he runs his organization. I just can’t understand how these successful businessmen are unable to run a professional sports team. Cleveland has two. Maybe I’m foolish for thinking it’s about championships. I’m beginning to think it’s more about $$$ and ego. Perhaps this is why it’s 50+ years since Cleveland won a championship. No offense Crunch.
Supposedly Griffin suggested Gentry, Lue or Blatt. Gilbert chose Blatt. Why not just pick one of the first two if that was the order they preferred?
Griffin is on ESPN Cleveland doing his spin job and I’m just laughing.
Whoever was chosen as HC was doomed because “The Chosen One” wasn’t back to give his Amen. Oh wait he wouldn’t have had anything to do with the hire just like he had nothing to do with the firing of Blatt. He just came out the next day and told reporters that now they understood why he (LBJ) wasn’t happy over wins or why he felt the way he did.
none taken!
http://www.tubechop.com/watch/7628292
Bernie James baby! Kai Haaskavi!!! I remember.
http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/omgshoop.gif
Every NBA team is “full of egos”, but certainly the events of summer 2014 presented a major challenge for any coach to adapt to.
“I haven’t heard a lot of people arguing for Blatt on the merits of his coaching abilities.”
As soon as Blatt came on board, his job ceased to be “coach these guys”, but “take the blame when Lebron gets upset”. There’s no arguments to be made for or against Blatt’s coaching ability because he never actually got the chance to coach, just be the scapegoat along for the ride while Lebron ran the franchise.