The potential of John Beilein walking away from the Cleveland Cavaliers during his first season with the team came as a shock to many, but there continue to be hints that all is not well behind the scenes that could make that news less surprising.
Cavaliers second-year point guard Collin Sexton hinted at behind-the-scenes issues with Beilein during an interview at All-Star Weekend in Chicago, where he suggested that Beilein’s detailed, college-style coaching was too demanding and would wear out players before the end of the season.
“You know how he is, he is very detail-oriented and it’s detail, detail, detail,” Sexton said, via Sean Deveney of Forbes. “He loves details. And he always wants us to make sure that when we are out there, we are giving it our all. College coaches, you know how they are — they want you to go 1,000 percent every second of the day. He’s been in college for 20 years, more than that. We’ve had to tell him, like, ‘Coach, we’ve got 82 (games), we can’t kill ourselves.'”
The Cavaliers are 14-40, meaning Beilein has already lost as many games this season as he had during his final four years at Michigan combined. That isn’t surprising, but that amount of losing is definitely new to him. Add in that NBA players demand a different type of coaching than college ones do and it’s not a shock that Beilein is struggling so much that he and the Cavs might part ways. Asking the 67-year-old Beilein to adapt his coaching style at this stage of his career was never likely to work, not to mention the other issues he’s made for himself. Sexton’s words sum that up, and if he does go, it doesn’t sound like many of his players will be too bothered.
