Cavs Players Impressed With David Blatt’s Offense
David Blatt has been known and respected as an offensive mind from his coaching tenure in Europe, where he won 19 titles in 21 years. This is a big reason why he was on the NBA’s radar.
The Cleveland Cavaliers hired Blatt before LeBron James even decided he would be going home. Blatt’s NBA virginity was one of the causes for doubt that James would choose to play under an unfamiliar rookie NBA coach. But since the Cavaliers have started practice and training camp, players have nothing but compliments and praise for the offensive principles Blatt is putting in, via Brendan Bowers of SLAM:
Brendan Haywood: “I like his offense a lot. There’s great ball movement, which is very key in the game of basketball. There isn’t as much of one-on-one. There’s a lot of the ball being kicked from one side of the court to another, which is important. But I said ‘Spurs-esque’ because it’s really all about ball movement—like how the Spurs create those mismatches with defenses by moving the ball so precisely. It doesn’t let the defense lock in on one guy.”
Shawn Marion: “But it’s really free-flowing, like I said. The ball really moves. By moving the ball like that, we should be able to keep some offensive pressure up on teams. Spacing is really important too. Both forward positions are interchangeable and it’s important for guys to get to their spots.”
Joe Harris: “I really enjoy the offense overall. It’s great for guys like myself and James and Mike Miller because it gives you spacing to knock down shots. Then that opens things up for our playmakers, LeBron, Kyrie, Dion, those guys can really attack the basket and create off the bounce with that spacing.”
Other reports include Mike Miller calling the offense “borderline genius” and LeBron James has already mastered the system from all five positions.
Blatt’s offensive system is said to incorporate Princeton principles (which is where he played his college ball). He wants read-and-react, pass-and-cut, fluent offense for his team, which is what led Brendan Haywood to his “Spurs-esque” analogy. Every team in the league will try to mimic the champion Spurs’ model, but no other coach has the offensive core of Kyrie Irving, LeBron James, and Kevin Love as their foundation. The upside for Blatt? All three of his best players are gifted passers.
Winning on talent won’t be good enough for the Cavaliers. Blatt seems to know that. Now we’ll wait and watch how Cleveland’s moving parts can adopt to his system and how effectively they progress into a finished product.
