Has David Blatt done enough to remain in Cleveland?
It is clear that it is in David Blatt’s best interest to continue coaching the Cavaliers which includes star players like LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love. But is it in Cleveland’s best interest to retain David Blatt for a championship next season?
The answer is probably yes.
Not a Rookie
David Blatt hates being referred to as a rookie coach and rightly so, since he’s been in the game long before we think he has. After playing college ball at Princeton University as point guard and team captain, Blatt played professional basketball for nine years in Israel’s Super League.
An injury ended his playing career and he was a coach for 20 years before entering the NBA. Blatt earned Russian Super League Coach of the Year (2005), four time Israeli League Coach of the Year (1996, 2002, 2011, 2014) and Euroleague Coach of the Year (2014). He also led the Russian national team to a bronze medal in the 2012 Olympics in London.
So even though Blatt is new to the NBA, he’s a big deal as a coach.
Player- Coach Chemistry
Every player-coach relationship takes time to build. Especially in the NBA, when you’re coaching superstar players and everyone has a different perspective on how to tackle a situation. Blatt did make a few mistakes this year and LeBron was a little impatient in the beginning of the season expecting too much out of his supporting cast, but they managed to reconcile their differences in the second half along with some trading adjustments to give them a competitive edge.
It is safe to assume that the chemistry will only further help the team in performing better as both sides (the team and the coach) now trust each other’s decisions.
Could any coach have led this team deeper in the Playoffs?
Before David Blatt could even get used to how the NBA worked, the mammoth responsibility of coaching LeBron was put on his desk; which means everything is scrutinized. The expectations were enormous and there were very few people on his side. He was in the position of being blamed when things went poorly, and receiving little credit when the team delivered.
Unlike Blatt, every head coach in the NBA has either been a former NBA player, a former NBA assistant or a college coach. To make things tougher, he was up against NBA’s premier team. The Warriors were 67-15 in the regular season, 12-3 in the playoffs. They were in the much tougher Western Conference. They were healthy, with the key players playing big minutes.
The Cavs have to keep their head held high since they gave a much better team a run for their money in the finals. Blatt’s defensive strategies were able to limit the best offensive team to an average 97.3 points in the first three games to get a 2-1 lead. To get the best team in the league out of rhythm is nothing short of a big deal.
‘Never Give Up’ Attitude
If you look at it objectively, the Bulls with a healthy Derrick Rose had a better team than a Love-less Cavaliers. However Chicago fell apart, losing the final three games after having a 2-1 lead. When the Cavs clinched the series with a 94-73 road victory, it was apparent that the Bulls had simply given up. We never saw Cleveland give up in the same fashion as the Bulls or even the Hawks (who lost by 30 points in the Eastern Conference Finals closeout game)
With 33 seconds left in Game 6 of the Finals, the Cavs were down by only 4 points. They had come back from a 15 point deficit. Blatt’s Cavaliers showed heart and grit in all 20 post-season games.
Cleveland could arguably be the best team in the league (IF HEALTHY)
“I feel badly for Kevin and for Kyrie because they did so much during the course of the season to help us get here. We’re not here without either one of those guys, and obviously having had them in this series would have been… it would have been significant. But we never asked for sympathy when they went down. We never made an excuse and I certainly won’t do that now. We played our hearts out. The Warriors were better. Those guys will get healthy, and we’ll come back after it next season”
-David Blatt, Post Game Press Conference
With 2 of their top 3 players down, it’s an amazing feat in itself for a newly formed team to get only two games away to the NBA Championship. A lot of the pieces for this team were new; LeBron James, David Blatt, Timofey Mozgov, JR Smith, Kevin Love, Iman Shumpert, Kendrick Perkins, James Jones and Mike Miller.
The Cavs nearly won the championship with an almost entirely new team and most of their best players injured. The team chemistry has improved through the course of the season and if they have all their key players performing, who has the arsenal to really stop this team?
Blatt has done a stupendous job with this team
Blatt cannot be faulted for this team’s inability to end the Cleveland championship draught. If anything, he earns a lot of appreciation to bring such a diverse team this far. Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert and GM David Griffin understand this and know that Blatt will only get better with time.
But LeBron is in his prime and time is crucial. He cannot humanly be this good forever. He’s clearly a more important asset for Cleveland than Blatt. The King’s opinion may be taken by the Cavaliers management and even though Blatt has been really good, they’ll have to decide if they have a better coaching option for the best player in the world.
Blatt can keep his head held high even if Cleveland decides to go another way. With a LOT of teams changing up their head coaches, Blatt will surely get a lot of offers if Cavs let him go.
No one can be absolutely certain of what the Cavaliers will decide but David Blatt has earned his place in the NBA.