Gottlieb finds comfort zone after leap from Cal to NBA
Sometimes an opportunity comes along that you weren’t looking for. That will disrupt your life. That you didn’t even know you wanted.
And you absolutely have to go for it.
That was where Lindsay Gottlieb found herself last summer. She was fulfilled professionally, going into her ninth season as the head coach at Cal. She was happy personally, the mother of 2yearold Jordan and married to Patrick Martin. She loved living in the
East Bay. Loved her life.
And then the Cleveland Cavaliers offered her a coaching job.
“Patrick asked me, ‘What do you want your legacy to be?’ ” Gottlieb said from Cleveland in a recent phone interview with The Chronicle. “For a lot of women, we think, ‘Someone has to do this.’ That becomes part of the thought process.”
So, Gottlieb said yes to the Cavaliers. She said goodbye to the university she loves. She
uprooted her life and her family and took a job as an assistant coach for the Cavaliers.
“What it means for women, and what it means careerwise, I felt like I had to do it,” she said.
Her move was a surprise to many.
“I was shocked,” said Stanford women’s basketball coach Tara VanDerveer.
But the idea of a woman coaching in the NBA is no longer shocking. Becky Hammon has been an assistant in San Antonio since 2014. This season, Gottlieb is one of 11 women working as assistant coaches in the NBA.
However, most have come from WNBA playing backgrounds or administrative roles within their organizations. Unlike the other women in the league, Gottlieb is the only who was working as a head coach at a major college program.
“I wasn’t going to leave to be a workout person or in player development,” she said. “I was a head coach. I want to be involved in schematic things.”
She is responsible for 20 of the team’s 82 “scouts” — research on the opposing team. She works closely with players both in film study and on the floor. She interfaces with the analytics department, making the language and concepts more palatable to players.
“I’m also doing a lot of learning and listening,” Gottlieb said. “I don’t need to be loudest one in the room.”
When Cavaliers general manager Koby Altman called last spring, Gottlieb thought he was just
“No matter what happens, I know I’ll be a much better coach for this experience.”
Lindsay Gottlieb
going to pick her brain about the trend of women in the league. What he was asking was much more specific: Would she join Cleveland’s staff ?
“He said the team needed to reenergize and do things differently,” she said. “He was building a culture, creating a sustainable organization.
“In that moment, everything changed for me.”
Before she agreed to the job, Gottlieb reached out to an NBA organization she knows well: the Golden State Warriors. Gottlieb, her staff and players had been frequent guests of head coach Steve Kerr and general manager Bob Myers at practices, and her player Recee Caldwell had interned with the team.
So, Gottlieb called Myers to get his opinion about the opportunity.
“She asked me what I thought,” Myers said. “I said, ‘It’s probably inappropriate for me to try to convince you to come work with us.’ I like her fabric. She’s inquisitive, humble and thoughtful. A person who would be beneficial to have in the organization.”
The Warriors, who face the Cavaliers on Saturday in Cleveland, have not yet hired a female assistant. Does Myers feel like he let someone get away?
“Yeah, maybe,” he said. “Especially someone that close. I don’t want to (hire a woman) because it’s a trend. But because it’s the right person.”
Gottlieb went to Cleveland and met with the staff, including new head coach John Beilein and assistant head coach J.B. Bickerstaff.
“I realized these are people I want to be around,” she said. “This was a chance for me to pivot in my career and be around people at the highest level of the game I love.”
The piece everyone wants to ask about first has been the smallest hurdle: how NBA players react to a female coach.
“She knows so much about the game,” said secondyear point guard Collin Sexton. “Basketball is basketball. Same coverage. Same schemes. She knows everything. She knows what she’s doing.”
The team was impressed when it got off to a fast start (51) in games Gottlieb had scouted for. That record has taken a dive, as the Cavaliers have struggled to find wins, but her comfort level grows by the day.
“I feel like I’m finding my voice,” Gottlieb said.
Of all the adjustments Gottlieb has faced, working with men has been among the easiest.
“I think winning over the men in that locker room has been the least daunting part of this transition,” she said. “The number one thing is to be authentic. They can sniff out B.S. They care if you know what you’re talking about and can make them better. I think everyone gets better when they’re surrounded by different perspectives.”
Sexton works with “Coach Lindsay” in film sessions and on the floor. He said he thinks the biggest transition has nothing to do with gender but the level of play. Both Gottlieb and Beilein, who coached at Michigan for the previous 12 seasons, came from the college ranks.
“There’s a difference in NBA calls,” Sexton said. “From college to the NBA is a transition.”
Gottlieb has found the team supportive of her personal life.
“Being inclusive isn’t being gender blind,” she said. “You have to recognize different approaches. Many of the people on the staff are wonderful fathers, but they’re not the mother.”
In some ways, the job is more conducive to motherhood than college coaching. Gottlieb doesn’t have to go on long recruiting trips. She mapped out the season in advance, and if she’s gone for more than two days in a row, Patrick and Jordan fly to meet her on the road. Patrick is a consultant who flies back to the Bay Area once a month.
“I know the travel is tough on her but she’s adjusting, just like I had to adjust,” said Sexton, who was drafted out of Alabama in 2018.
Sexton is one of the many Cavs who has accepted Jordan with, quite literally, open arms, getting big toddler hugs after games.
“After the game, he’s there ready to greet me and highfive,” Sexton said. “It makes it feel more familylike. It makes us all feel good.”
A New York native, Gottlieb has had to readjust to winter weather. She lives next door to Indians first baseman Carlos Santana, whose little girls have become fast friends with Jordan. She finds Cleveland accepting and family friendly.
And while the job is different, the sport is the same.
“Just by doing my job and being myself, I feel I can push the needle forward,” Gottlieb said. “No matter what happens, I know I’ll be a much better coach for this experience.
“It’s a really enriching experience, no matter what.” Ann Killion is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: akillion @sfchronicle.com Twitter: @annkillion