Head coach David Blatt has been sacked by the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo originally reported that head coach David Blatt had been sacked by the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The Cavaliers are first in the Eastern Conference with a 30-11 record. Last year, Blatt’s first in Cleveland and first in the NBA, he led them to the NBA Finals, where they lost in six games to the Golden State Warriors.
“I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to serve as the head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers,” Blatt said in a statement released by his agency, Priority Sports. “I’d like to thank Dan Gilbert and David Griffin for giving me this opportunity and am honored to have worked with an amazing group of players from LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love through our entire roster.”
According to Wojnarowski, Cavaliers assistant coach Tyronn Lue has agreed to a three-year deal as head coach.
According to ESPN’s Brian Windhorst, there was increasing discord in the locker room despite the team’s outward endorsement of Blatt.
Before LeBron James made his desire to return to Cleveland public before the 2014–15 season, Blatt was chosen head coach of the team. Many people conjectured that if James had made his announcement sooner, Blatt would never have been hired.
Their relationship has been tumultuous for the last fifteen months. ESPN’s Marc Stein claimed to have witnessed James “emasculate” Blatt during the huddle during the previous year’s Finals.
In essence, LeBron is substituting and calling timeouts. After LeBron made a decision he didn’t like, he barked at Blatt in public. LeBron huddles up with Tyronn Lue, the assistant coach, a lot, and he looks away from Blatt a lot.
In one case that I saw from just behind the bench, LeBron loudly shook his head in disapproval following a play Blatt called in the third quarter of Game 5, which amounted to the biggest nonverbal reprimand you could imagine.
