David Blatt may have lost the Cleveland Cavaliers, and one of the reasons was reportedly his reluctance to challenge his star players.
According to Cleveland.com’s Chris Haynes, the problems go back to the 2014-15 season, when Blatt was reluctant to point out mistakes made by LeBron James, Kevin Love, or Kyrie Irving. In practices, he also reportedly called weak fouls for his Big Three, all of this irritating the rest of the roster, who saw it as a transparent ploy to get in the good graces of his stars. Haynes reported that things got so bad in the film room, Tyronn Lue intervened to try to get James and co. held accountable.
The film room stories were corroborated by ESPN’s Brian Windhorst and Dave McMenamin, with the issues continuing this season. They reported that general manager David Griffin sat in on a film session and got on James for not getting back on defense, criticism that James reportedly accepted. However, all it did was further undermine Blatt’s authority.
Former Cavaliers center Brendan Haywood basically confirmed some of these reports in an interview with Sirius XM’s NBA Today.
“Coach Blatt was very hesitant to challenge LeBron James,” Haywood said, via NBA.com’s Steve Aschburner. “It was one of those situations where, being a rookie coach, and LeBron being bigger than life, it was a little too much for him. I remember we had James Jones [talk] to Coach about how, ‘Hey, you can’t just skip over when LeBron James makes a mistake in the film room.’ Because we all see it.
“And we’re like, ‘Hey, you didn’t say anything about that. You’re going to correct when Matthew Dellavedova’s not in the right spot. You’re going to say something when Tristan Thompson’s not in the right spot. Well, we see a fast break and LeBron didn’t get back on defense or there’s a rotation and he’s supposed to be there, and you just keep rolling the film and the whole room is quiet.’ We see that as players. That’s when, as a player, you start to lose respect for a coach. Slowly but surely, that respect started chipping away where he would kind of be scared to correct LeBron in film sessions. When he would call every foul for LeBron in practice. Those type of things add up. Guys are like, ‘C’mon man, are you scared of him?’”
With all this in mind, perhaps a change was overdue. Hopefully for Cleveland, one of the things Lue will do better is hold all of his players accountable.
