During his one and a half seasons as Cleveland head coach, Blatt compiled a regular-season record of 83-40 and went 14-6 in the playoffs.
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Coaches in the NBA understand the fragile nature of their job security, but the decision by the Cleveland Cavaliers to fire David Blatt in midseason with an NBA résumé that spanned a trip to the NBA Finals in his debut season previous year and a 30-11 record now, the best in the Eastern Conference, was stunning.
David Blatt was removed as the head coach of the Cavaliers on Friday.
When James shocked the league and came back home to Cleveland, there was this sense of entitlement that championships would just fall from the sky and line up outside of Quicken Loans Arena with the trio of James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love.
“The news of anybody losing their job, regardless of the profession, is not good news”, he said.
Raptors coach Dwane Casey, who has been friends with Blatt for a long time, was asked about the situation before his Raptors took on the Miami Heat on Friday.
When you throw in those type of things combined with the fact that Tyronn Lue already had a lot of power in the organization, had a lot of traction, and a lot of people that were there already viewed him as the coach, these type of things happen. “I know integrity and I know knowledge”. I know integrity. And I know knowledge. That’s all I’m going to tell him.
A disconnect in the locker-room seemed like the last possible thing possible but I guess there was deeper, underlying issues with this team that Griffin “couldn’t accept”.
In this November 2, 2015, file photo, Cleveland Cavaliers coach David Blatt pats LeBron James on the chest at the end of an NBA basketball game against the Philadelphia 76ers in Philadelphia. “It’s not fair to him in particular but, frankly, it’s not fair to me and our group any more”.
There were also multiple reports during the past two seasons that James and Blatt were not in good terms in Cleveland although both have denied that there is hostility between the two. He’s done some phenomenal things adjusting to this league.
“You just have to focus on what you can do and whatever decisions are made, they’re made”. Because Blatt’s a great guy and he did a great job there.
“We’re just a team that we’re a bit fragile at times”, James said following Saturday’s shootaround, “and we’re still learning each other”. But he stayed the course. I watched his practice, tried to steal from him, learn from him, and then unfortunately he comes into our conference.
“What I see is that we need to build a collective spirit, a strength of spirit, a collective will”, Griffin said. It just seems insane that he would be fired after having so much success, but that’s the business we’re in.
But in the meantime, everybody will have opinions and so forth. He had to adjust on the fly while coaching one of the most talented rosters in the league. The Cavaliers have the best record in the Eastern Conference (30-11), but were beaten 132-98 by the Golden State Warriors in a Finals rematch on Monday.
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Blatt is the third coach the Cavs have fired in the last four seasons. Perhaps his most negative quote regarding his coach was “He’s our coach, who else do we have?”, which – clearly – does not come off as a ringing endorsement.
