Both knees wrapped in ice, LeBron James walked in a circle, waiting for his turn to speak with a larger-than-usual media contingent.
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“Sometimes you can win games in the regular season and get worse”, Griffin said at a hastily-arranged new conference at the team’s practice facility.
The Bulls are now 2-0 against the Cavaliers this season.
Lue was promoted Friday, when the Cavaliers shockingly fired David Blatt despite him taking the team to the NBA Finals last season and now leading the Eastern Conference. Griffin is a hands-on GM, making almost every road trip with the team, so he said he felt like he had the players’ pulse, even without a final conversation with the captain, James.
“You’re more vulnerable coaching-wise if you win than if you lose”, he said early in the broadcast.
Carlisle also suggested that Blatt may now be “liberated” with this firing and that he can find a better situation.
It’s a risky strategy, but if reports are true that players were upset with Blatt’s inability to call out James, it might be necessary if he wants to maintain the respect of the locker room.
The Chicago Bulls have been pretty much an average team this season, but something just happened that has improved their title chances.
During college, Blatt played for a kibbutz basketball team in the summer. “I think early, we wanted to push it, we wanted to open the floor and I think we came out and did that and then I think we just dropped off the map. There’s no sugarcoating what he said”. He will, however, attempt “to do some things better”. What matters most to the Cavs are two teams: The Golden State Warriors and the San Antonio Spurs. But we do know he and James and he and the rest of the players have an affinity for each other and a close relationship.
“I’m not somebody who believes we don’t talk to the family before we make changes”, Griffin said.
“Over the course of my business career I have learned that sometimes the hardest thing to do is also the right thing to do”, Gilbert said. He shares he thinks Tyronn Lue will do a better job.
“Me and ‘Bron were friends before when I played”. “I told him: ‘I got to hold you accountable”. He argued that his team deserved more credit than it was getting and said he was doing so because “it’s about my guys”. There’s no denying the four-time MVP has major influence within Cleveland’s organization, but Griffin was adamant that James was not consulted before the decision was made.
Now the job is Tyronn Lue’s, Blatt’s associate head coach, and it seems as though this was always the future plan.
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“For me, I can’t get caught up and anxious about what other people are thinking”.
