Changing Cavs: Cleveland seeks new culture.
New coach must ensure players know their roles
Hours before the Golden State Warriors walloped the Cleveland Cavaliers last week, David Blatt delivered the most not-fun answer about having fun.
Asked if the Cavs were having fun, Blatt said, “We’re doing good in that department. This game is fun. It’s a wonderful game. You’re all here and very interested and excited, and so are we. ... I think we’re all having fun. I really do. I really do. I know I am.”
It’s definitely no longer fun for Blatt, who was fired Friday as Cavs coach and replaced by Tyronn Lue even though the team reached last season’s NBA Finals and was atop the Eastern Conference at 30-11 at the time.
“I’m judging more than wins and losses,” Cavs general manager David Griffin said.
While it’s unprecedented to fire a coach with a winning percentage that high at this point in the season and while in first place in the conference, this is not a gamble.
Regardless of who is coaching, the Cavaliers were expected to win the East and reach the Finals for a second consecutive season. It’s obvious the Cavaliers front office, which had support from ownership, didn’t think Blatt could lead this group to a championship.
That puts pressure on Lue, who was Cleveland’s associate head coach and interviewed for the job when the team hired Blatt in June 2014.
Lue played in the league, won a title with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2001 and was an assistant for Doc Rivers with the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Clippers. He is liked by players, including LeBron James, and was going to get a top job sooner or later. It came a little sooner, and it comes with security. Lue is not the coach on an interim basis.
He has played or worked for several outstanding coaches: Phil Jackson, Stan Van Gundy, Jeff Van Gundy, Scott Skiles and Rivers.
“I am confident he has the pulse of our team and that he can generate the buy-in required to start to refine the habits and culture we have yet to build,” Griffin said.
Griffin added of Lue, “(He) has been a conduit for coaches, players and staff members.”
Griffin had been watching the team and was unhappy that players didn’t know their roles or understand team sacrifice. He had been sensing issues — including offensive problems — in recent weeks, even as the Cavs won.
“Over time you start to see the things you want to be doing habitually start to erode a little bit,” Griffin said. “We were regressing over a period of time. I don’t think there was a final straw. I’m in the locker room a lot. There’s just a disconnect there right now, a lack of spirit and connectedness that I couldn’t accept.”
The players bear some responsibility for this, but it’s much easier to change a coach than it is to change a roster, especially a high-priced roster assembled to win a championship. Blatt un- derstands that, too.
Griffin was adamant that he didn’t take a poll or ask players about the decision and said they were surprised when informed of the coaching change.
James was not asked for his opinion nor was he involved in the decision to replace Blatt with Lue, a person familiar with the situation told USA TODAY Sports. But it would also be naive to think Griffin didn’t know how James would feel about the move. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the situation.
It’s Lue’s responsibility to find that spirit and connectedness, to make sure players know their roles and buy in to team success. He also has issues on the court, primarily on offense and finding ways to make sure Kevin Love can excel in tandem with James and Kyrie Irving against high-quality teams.
Lue has a chance. He’s an NBA insider, unlike Blatt, and should connect with players. It was a bold move when Griffin hired Blatt in 2014 — before James announced he would return to Cleveland. There was a significant segment of basketball people that wanted Blatt, the first European-based coach to be an NBA head coach, to be successful.
Maybe he was the right coach for a Cleveland team without James, Irving and Love. It turns out he wasn’t the right coach for that team. Blatt was at times awkward and defensive and thought his accomplishments in Europe weren’t sufficiently recognized in the United States.
Blatt didn’t always help himself, such as trying to call a timeout he didn’t have or drawing up a final play with James as the inbounds passer against the Chicago Bulls in the playoffs.
Asked recently to give credit to Matthew Dellavedova for improved play or Tristan Thompson for his streak of consecutive games played, Blatt wasn’t effusive when it was a chance to compliment players. That gets back to players.
Maybe Blatt will coach again in the NBA someday. Maybe again in Europe. Maybe he can have fun again.
Let’s see if Lue can have fun with the Cavs. As Griffin said, “Pretty good is not what we’re here for.”
Lue needs to make the Cavs great. That’s the job.