Cleveland and Miami are two very, very different cities. I haven’t had the pleasure of travelling to Miami, but from my visits to Cleveland, I can definitely guarantee you there are no palm trees and beaches. The cultures of the respective NBA organizations in the Cleveland Cavaliers and Miami Heat are very different as well, but don’t let the relaxed environment of Miami fool you, it was all business in the American Airlines Arena. That left a resonating idea in LeBron James head that has transitioned to his new life as a Cavalier.
James who spent 4 years of his career as a Miami Heat, from 2010 to 2014, winning 2 NBA Championships, and 2 MVP’s, during his time there, learned a lot through the process of working with President Pat Riley and Head Coach Erik Spoelestra. According to Brian Windhorst of ESPN, Miami’s tactics for training a regiment were very militaristic in their approach, which has made James into the strong leader he is now with the Cavaliers. Zydrunas Ilgauskas, who spent most of his career as a Cavalier and one year in a Heat uniform, gave the best explanation as to why:
“Cleveland is part of the mainstream of the NBA. In Miami, there is one man in charge and that is Pat Riley and everyone falls into line from there. It’s very simplified for you. There is one way to do things, his way.”
James and Ilgauskas’ first week as Heat players in 2010 was spent on a military base in Pensacola, Florida, for training camp. They didn’t shoot in practice for the first three days, it was all defensive and conditioning drills. For each full workout during the season, everyone wore knee pads and mouthguards. It was full contact. If you were caught grabbing your shorts out of fatigue, you were told to stand up. Needless to say, it set a tone.
“Most places you have your body fat checked twice a year, at the beginning of the season and at the end,” llgauskas said. “In Miami, it’s every week or two. Sometimes when guys know it’s coming they’ll go sit in the steam room to try to sweat off a few pounds. Because if they don’t like what they see they will let you know about it.”
That has definitely left an impression on James and the way he deals with leading this much younger Cavaliers team. Last year, the mess that was the Cavaliers, still made it to the NBA Finals, but lost out in 6 games while missing Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love. This year, with David Blatt out as Head Coach, a more focused Kyrie and Kevin Love, LeBron hopes the culture shock he has brought to Cleveland will work, but in his first season back it wasn’t like that at all:
James was taken aback at the lack of professionalism he found, sources said. Players came in late and left early. They didn’t always dress appropriately. Blatt, a coach with a reputation as a tyrant in Europe, surprised James by how lax he was at times. James tried to set a tone, staying after practice and working with Jones and Miller, but watched as young players with no history of success — namely Love and Irving — didn’t follow suit.
At the end of the day, it was really the ideological differences between LeBron James and David Blatt that made his hard for this team to be as dominant as they were supposed to be. With firing Blatt and bringing in Tyronn Lue, James was able to push the culture more profoundly to the players:
“It’s a big job to change a team’s culture,” Lue said. “You have to hold everyone accountable. You have to make sure everyone is on board. And to change culture, you can’t treat everyone the same way. Everyone is not going to be treated the same way. They don’t take it the same way and you just got to know how to deal with certain people, deal with people on a day-to-day basis and deal with them differently. I just think, when you win, it’s easy to change the culture. When you’re on losing teams or losing situations, it’s a lot harder. I think when you can preach winning and they see the winning, I think it makes it a lot easier to change the culture.”
Now look where the Cavaliers are. Back in the NBA Finals, healthy, with a full roster in their disposal and a focused LeBron James to lead the way and redeem themselves against the same Golden State Warriors team they faced last year. It’s all goes down tonight at 9pm, Game 1, can LeBron James and the Cavaliers seize the moment?
