Blatt coached various teams throughout Europe from 1993 to 2014 and earned numerous accolades, such as Russian Super League Coach of the Year in 2005 and Euroleague Coach of the Year in 2014. Given Lue’s brief tenure at the helm, there was speculation the league could give Raptors coach Dwane Casey the nod, given that the game will take place on his team’s home floor.
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Blatt’s dismissal last Friday was the third firing of an National Basketball Association coach this season, although his release from Cleveland is different than the first two-Kevin McHale (the Houston Rockets) in mid-November and Lionel Hollins (the Brooklyn Nets) earlier this month.
It’s a fair question, because the Warriors – leaders of the Western Conference – got three players on the Western Conference team (Stephen Curry, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson) as did the Spurs (Kawhi Leonard, LaMarcus Aldridge).
All I know is what I saw, and I saw a guy who completely was unable to get even a modicum of respect from a majority of his players. I think my relationship with Spo had nothing to do with that.
According to a radio interview in Israel, as transcribed by an Israel-based Bleacher Report reporter, Heat limited partner Ranaan Katz was quoted as saying, “With the Miami Heat, LeBron James – before and after his four seasons when his contract was up with the team – made it clear that he wanted to dump head coach Erik Spoelstra”. All in all, it was pretty much how they want to play every night. We’re going to keep digging deeper and deeper into this situation until we get the edge of the story that we want. Thankfully for the defending NBA Eastern Conference champions, the Phoenix Suns were in OH and they didn’t disappoint.
“I think that’s the way we want to play is fun, everybody gets involved”, said Lue, who will coach the Eastern Conference in the All-Star Game on February 14.
“It sucks“, James said.
Regardless of whether LeBron tried to get Spoelstra fired in Miami it was never going to happen because Pat Riley doesn’t let anyone tell him what to do.
At this point it is hard to know who to believe but LeBron does have a history of a lot of coaching changes on his teams despite the fact that his teams are always very good.
Lue’s stat supporting Love was a little off. There are actually seven players on winning teams averaging a double-double this season – Love, Hassan Whiteside, DeAndre Jordan, Andre Drummond, Dwight Howard, Pau Gasol and Zaza Pachulia.
Whether James undermined Blatt is open to interpretation. I got 14 guys here.
“But you can’t worry about it too much”, James said. When Irving’s trying to shake Tony Parker, can we really expect him to be anxious about analytics?
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“Sometimes you have to take that stuff personally”, Jazz forward Gordon Hayward said about the previous matchup.
