(Editor's note: This post has been reworked from an earlier version published June 2, 2015.)
In David Blatt's first season as NBA head coach, his team took two games in the NBA Finals from a historically elite Warriors squad. In his second season as NBA head coach, his team had the best record in a strong Eastern Conference. And now he's been fired, replaced by Tyronn Lue, and everyone will view his tenure as a failure.
Blatt had become somewhat of a punchline because it often looked as if he held no power whatsoever. Reports from early last season indicated the team repeatedly ignores his play calls, which makes it funny when LeBron boxed him out of huddles. James famously shot down Blatt's late-game play and took the ball himself to beat the Bulls in overtime in the second round of the playoffs. This season, there were reports assistant coach Tyronn Lue was calling timeouts behind his back.
When things went well, Blatt's players are lukewarm about him. When things went poorly, they have said nothing rather than publicly trashing him. When Blatt did apply his touch, he has occasionally screwed up in obvious, dramatic fashion, like when he tried to call a timeout when the Cavaliers had none.
And his interactions with the press were gauche and baffling. In January, he committed a major NBA taboo by discussing whether Kevin Love was worth his contract. He's come across as conceited, repeatedly getting fussy when referred to as a "rookie" (even though he is, by the dictionary definition of the word, certainly a rookie) and comparing himself to a fighter pilot.
All of these things happened, all of them are bad and all of them were in part Blatt's fault. But these obvious, silly miscues hid the more important thing: Blatt has actually did a good job of getting out of the way and letting the Cavaliers succeed.
As a head coach in Europe, Blatt achieved pretty much every standard of coaching success. He won league titles in Israel, Russia and Italy. He won international club competitions, like the Euroleague and Adriatic League, with Maccabi Tel Aviv. He guided Russia's national team to international success, winning FIBA EuroBasket in 2007 and taking bronze at the London Olympics in 2012, often against teams with more talented rosters.
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When Blatt was named head coach of the Cavaliers, it should have been an intriguing opportunity. One of basketball's most successful minds was finally getting his chance to prove his worth in charge of an NBA team.
If David Blatt were the coach of any other NBA team, this season would've been fine. His first year would've been viewed as an adjustment period as he got used to the differences between international and NBA basketball. His tinkering and experimentation would've been perfectly acceptable. It would've been interesting to watch him adapt, getting up to speed in relative anonymity. Perhaps the former Princeton guard who played under Pete Carril could've successfully installed Carril's famed Princeton offense, a college strategy many have tried (and generally failed) to institute in the NBA.
But less than a week after Blatt was announced as Cleveland's coach, LeBron James opted out of his contract with the Heat. Two weeks after Blatt was announced as Cleveland's coach, LeBron James decided to play for the Cavaliers. Blatt didn't discuss James in his interview process with the Cavaliers, nor did James talk to his potential new coach while making his decision. Blatt's arrival in Cleveland and LeBron's arrival in Cleveland were more or less coincidental, but led to a monumental shift in Blatt's job description.
Suddenly, Blatt went from being the coach of an NBA team to being the coach of LeBron James' NBA team. He didn't get a grace period. He didn't get eased in. He went from the excitement of a new challenge in a new country to coaching basketball's biggest star with almost no margin for error. And as the coach of basketball's biggest star, you can really only do two things: put LeBron James in the best position to be LeBron James, or fail.
At first, it seemed like Blatt was ready to fail. The team's defense was abysmal and Blatt tried to institute elements of the Princeton offense, a strategy whose slow pace of play and tricky backdoor cuts are meant to decrease the competitive and physical disadvantages between undersized Ivy Leaguers and bigger school counterparts. LeBron James has no competitive or physical disadvantages. The team really did struggle, finding itself below .500 almost halfway into his first season.
Over the course of that year year, Blatt figured things out. That team that struggled to hit .500 in January is now headed to the NBA Finals. On defense, the Cavs went out and got Timofey Mozgov, a player Blatt knew from his time with Russia, and the team built itself a top-notch defense. On offense, LeBron James is being LeBron James. Towards the end of the year, LeBron got touches than he did all season. He got more touches than pretty much anybody has gotten all last season.
Sure, realizing you should give the ball to the world's best player isn't groundbreaking coaching. But it showed humility and willingness to admit a failed strategy from a guy who has often come across as arrogant and stubborn.
Coaching LeBron James requires a certain amount of uncreativity. It also has an incredibly small margin of error: If you're the coach of one of the best players in NBA history in the prime of his career and you don't win the NBA Finals, it means you screwed up.
Maybe Blatt will one day get an opportunity to prove himself as an NBA coach with lower stakes. But by the high standards of the job he didn't sign up for, he screwed up.
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