The Real Reason the Cavs fired David Blatt
David Blatt was never meant to coach LeBron James, and he was certainly never meant to coach the Cavs to a championship.
At the time of his hiring for the 2014–2015 season, Blatt’s assignment was to develop a young team featuring Kyrie Irving into a competitive product, which, in the Eastern Conference, means getting to .500 and getting a six or seven seed in the playoffs. That seemed like a manageable task for a well-regarded international coach with no NBA experience.
Then something miraculous happened. The once and future King announced he was coming home. If there was any way the Cavs could have respectably backed out on their word and fire Blatt immediately, they would have. Because overnight, the plan changed. Rather than develop a competitive team, the Cavs could compete as a championship team. Only problem was, they had inadvertently hired the wrong man for the job.
And rather than bolster his case, the trip to the NBA Finals last year and a gutty performance against the Steph Curry-led Warriors only highlighted the Cavs’ championship mettle, despite a shallow roster, major injuries, and the wrong man in the head coach position.
As the media noted throughout the 2014–2015 season, the strain was evident. Not because Blatt, Lebron and the rest of the Cavs were trying to adjust to each other and get on the same page. They were waiting for the charade to end, tempered intermittently with glimmers of hope that they actually could win a championship as is, despite Blatt.
The only issue the Cavs front office had to consider was the right moment to fire Blatt. An ugly blowout loss to the gloating defending champs on your home court seemed as good a time as any. And so, the accidental Blatt era came to a swift end.
The Cavs front office cited a “lack of fit” with the personnel and vision for the team as the reason for Blatt’s firing, and they’re not lying. The difficulty for Blatt is that the vision he was hired to manage radically changed overnight.
His replacement is assistant coach Tyron Lue, a former player and now, 2nd youngest head coach in the league. Whether or not Lue is the right man for the job remains to be seen (though the Cavs are no doubt envious of the Warriors’ success with Steve Kerr and, improbably, interim coach Luke Walton, who are both former players). But in at least one regard, Lue has a leg up on Blatt.
He keeps track of timeouts.