Cavs fire David Blatt
- Thread starter CaptainLaddie
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Has to be Tyrone Lue right? Who else is Lerbon's guy? Jeff Van Gundy is the only other possible pro guy. Caliapri? Mid season is shocking. Maybe Blatt and Gloria got a little too close...
This fact to me speaks volumes about how poorly he was doing even behind the scenes. I never liked the idea of bringing in a first time coach in this league PRIOR to bringing LeBron back. This always seemed destined to end badly.
Interim for the rest of the year and then Calipari after the season unless they win the title.
Yep, Lue. Woj Bomb!
Windhorse has to be pissed he didn't break it. He didn't credit Woj, just Yahoo...
Windhorse has to be pissed he didn't break it. He didn't credit Woj, just Yahoo...
Is LeBron now officially a coach killer?
They were going to win 60 games no matter who the coach was as long as they were somewhat healthy.
They were going to win 60 games no matter who the coach was as long as they were somewhat healthy.
This is pretty stunning.
This seals the fate for this team now more than ever. They aren't going to defeat the Warriors or Spurs in a 7 game series. Kevin Love is a poor fit for this team, and Blatt is now taking the rap for it. Blatt never got to truly instal his system once Lebron decided to return to Cleveland. Hindsight is 20/20 but I wonder if Blatt would take the job in Cleveland if he'd known he would have had to deal with the storm/child that is Lebron.
This seals the fate for this team now more than ever. They aren't going to defeat the Warriors or Spurs in a 7 game series. Kevin Love is a poor fit for this team, and Blatt is now taking the rap for it. Blatt never got to truly instal his system once Lebron decided to return to Cleveland. Hindsight is 20/20 but I wonder if Blatt would take the job in Cleveland if he'd known he would have had to deal with the storm/child that is Lebron.
Is that a serious question? A guy with no NBA experience was going to pass because he was forced to coach one of the top 5 -10 players of all time?
It means he'll be paid out for three years which seems like a pretty impressive overpay for a guy who is probably better off with an interim tag.
Yes... This is a serious question.
I mean... For a guy that had a great coaching gig in Israel and was regarded as the Popovich equivalent in Tel Aviv wasn't exactly a complete unknown that needed to jump at the first NBA opportunity that he had in front of him.
Coaching Lebron isn't an easy thing. If Miami didn't have the infrastructure to withstand the early struggles that took place down South, Spo would have been fired as well. Couple that with the media circus that Lebron brought back with him to Cleveland, I'm not sure Blatt would have still jumped in without and hesitation in taking the Cleveland gig had he known in advance that Lebron was returning.
Look at it from his perspective, he thought he was going to Cleveland, to install his vision. Basically the Spurs of the East. He was planning on coaching Kyrie, Wiggins, Thompson and Bennett. Blatt was going to have time to grow as a coach while nurturing the young talent in Cleveland. Instead, for his first coaching gig in the US, the pressure was on immediately to be a title contender. All while having to throw away the very offense that was the reason for his prior success as a coach.
A good coach should be able to adapt to any circumstance and find the best way to work with his talent around him, but that takes time. DB never even got his sea legs under him before he was caught in the storm.
Of course Lue can be fired next week, but it's absurd to give him a three year deal.
If Lue gets fired before the deal ends, Gilbert is paying dead money to yet another dismissed coach (Mike Brown - $4M annually, Blatt - $5M annually).
Not coaches, just coach. In hindsight, Blatt might not have wanted this to be his first test in the NBA waters. The job he thought he signed up for and the one he wound up getting were two different things.
How long did the guy he was replacing last? Are you really making the argument that the Cavs job was better before LeBron came back? Dan Gilbert is a raving lunatic who is now paying 3 NBA head coaches simultaneously. But sure, LeBron's a coach killer and poor Blatt would've created Spurs east without his influence.
Come on, the point he's making is an easy to understand one. Platt probably would have preferred having a chance to sink or swim his own way. He had to make a ton of concessions to coach the greatest player in the world and I'm sure he was fine doing so but the job he was signing up for, while more difficult, was going to be very different from the job he ended up having.
Okay...
I'm not saying he would have created Spurs east. But that's they style of play that his teams were known for. If you are a first time NBA coach, the pressure to win now with Lebron James could be worse then the project of building a team up from the pieces that the Cavs had when DB signed on. Before Lebron, Blatt was basically playing with house money. If he succeeded in Cleveland and built a good playoff team, great. But with Lebron, the outset from training camp was championship or bust. All while Blatt was becoming accustomed to the NBA. If you don't see how that could be a detriment to a first time coach, then we're just going to go in circles.
Couple that with Lebron never approving the hire of Blatt, and it's surprising that he even lasted through this past offseason.
It's an easy point to understand, but it's wrong.
NBA free agency doesn't exist in a vacuum. If you think David Blatt took that job and was surprised by LeBron's signing there, you're crazy. At the very least, he knew it was a very real possibility, because agents communicate with teams through back channels constantly.
The notion that David Blatt signed up to round a hapless group of misfits into shape and got stuck with three all NBA players is just an attempt to fit Blatt's firing into the narrative about LeBron that some people here want to believe.
Blatt wasn't a good coach. The roster doesn't quite work, but he didn't have control of the locker room, and that's 90% of the battle in the NBA.
LeBron not being consulted is a laughably bad report by Windhorst. All GM's consult their star players before making a personal move and to believe that LeBron, who wields more power than any star player in the league within his own organization, was not consulted on the issue, is bananas. Wasn't LeBron the one who pined for the Wiggins trade? Wasn't he the one that called for Shumpert, Smith and Mosgov?
I remember last season after the finals Windhorst and Lowe were talking about the future of Blatt and Windhorst essentially said that LeBron liked having Blatt to kick around. When your best player is judge, jury and executioner of your team, and essentially bullying the coach, how is that productive to a winning environment. If the best player doesn't respect the coach, what does the mean for the other players?
One of the things that I don't think gets talked about enough is how when LeBron went to Miami, he went to an established organization that had a set way of doing things. They had a strong chain of leadership form Arison to Riley to Spolestra. They didn't necessarily cater towards LeBron the way that Cleveland had done and is doing now. They got him to do things that he didn't always want to do and the result was the best basketball of his career. Part of the reason I figured he wanted to go back to Cleveland was because although he liked winning in Miami, he also missed some of that controlling authority that he had on and off the floor that he exemplified in Cleveland.
I remember last season after the finals Windhorst and Lowe were talking about the future of Blatt and Windhorst essentially said that LeBron liked having Blatt to kick around. When your best player is judge, jury and executioner of your team, and essentially bullying the coach, how is that productive to a winning environment. If the best player doesn't respect the coach, what does the mean for the other players?
One of the things that I don't think gets talked about enough is how when LeBron went to Miami, he went to an established organization that had a set way of doing things. They had a strong chain of leadership form Arison to Riley to Spolestra. They didn't necessarily cater towards LeBron the way that Cleveland had done and is doing now. They got him to do things that he didn't always want to do and the result was the best basketball of his career. Part of the reason I figured he wanted to go back to Cleveland was because although he liked winning in Miami, he also missed some of that controlling authority that he had on and off the floor that he exemplified in Cleveland.
Yeah, never impressed by him as a coach and don't care about his Israel pedigree. I'm sure he'll make a fine assistant coach someplace and maybe can work his way back up....but absolutely did not compel respect.
That JLaw gif is awesome.
That JLaw gif is awesome.
Brian Windhorst@WindhorstESPN
How surprised were Cavs players today? When team meeting was called, some players speculated Kevin Love had been traded
How surprised were Cavs players today? When team meeting was called, some players speculated Kevin Love had been traded
Yeah that extra $2m that won't count against the cap or tax could have been a deal breaker. A multi-year deal is standard for NBA Head Coaches. It's the same false security that all HC get.
I would guess that the Blatt firing was a direct result of him wanting to jettison Love.
$9.5/3 years - not chump change, but if your point is "not my money", then yeah Gilbert won't stay up at night.
The posts stating Blatt wasn't a good coach are silly. How can anyone say that?
The Cavs' roster is basically a mongoloid by NBA standards. They have LeBron James who is the greatest player of his generation and arguably of all time in his declining years. Then Cleveland has a half-an-elite but recently oft-injured player in Kyrie Irving, a square peg in Kevin Love, a good big in Tristan Thompson and then your typical mid-level NBA guys in Mozgov, Smith, Shumpert. And the rest of the roster is essentially barely functional NBA talent - Matthew Dellavedova has played a lot of meaningful minutes for this team which says a lot about that roster. Yet the team went to the finals last spring despite a rash of injuries and is on track to win 60 games this season.
Boiled down, the Cavs roster is one superstar and a lot of other flawed players - if you compare to the Spurs or Warriors its clear that Cleveland has a huge talent deficit outside of James. Not even Popovich could win with this roster. Its terribly flawed.
The Cavs' roster is basically a mongoloid by NBA standards. They have LeBron James who is the greatest player of his generation and arguably of all time in his declining years. Then Cleveland has a half-an-elite but recently oft-injured player in Kyrie Irving, a square peg in Kevin Love, a good big in Tristan Thompson and then your typical mid-level NBA guys in Mozgov, Smith, Shumpert. And the rest of the roster is essentially barely functional NBA talent - Matthew Dellavedova has played a lot of meaningful minutes for this team which says a lot about that roster. Yet the team went to the finals last spring despite a rash of injuries and is on track to win 60 games this season.
Boiled down, the Cavs roster is one superstar and a lot of other flawed players - if you compare to the Spurs or Warriors its clear that Cleveland has a huge talent deficit outside of James. Not even Popovich could win with this roster. Its terribly flawed.