Well, he’s at it again. Cleveland Cavaliers head coach David Blatt is just saying whatever he wants once again. This time he’s trying to relate the ‘difficult’ job of being an NBA head coach to that of an actual difficult one.
His job appeared to get be a little too much to handle late in the Cavs recent win over the Chicago Bulls. Blatt might have almost costed his team twice if possibly smarter heads didn’t make audibles late in the game.
Cavs assistant coach Tyronn Lue prevented Coach Blatt from pulling a Chris Webber and calling a timeout when the Cavs had none left.
Then, of course, LeBron James came up big for Cleveland with the game-winning shot but it’s been reported that play was altered from original plans by coach Blatt.
Coach Blatt drew up a play that had LeBron originally inbounding the ball. That didn’t happen.
You would think the man who’s in an exclusive fraternity, one of only 30 people to have a job as an NBA head coach, would understand how important and special his job is but also understand it’s really not a life or death situation.
While some Cavs fans might think it is, it’s not. So the fact that Blatt believes that his job can be equally comparable to that of a fighter pilot, well, it really doesn’t have any air behind it.
Following from ESPN’s Dave McMenamin.
“A near-mistake was made and I owned up to it and I own it,” Blatt said. “A basketball coach makes 150 to 200 critical decisions during the course of a game, something that I think is paralleled only by a fighter pilot. If you do it for 27 years, you’re going to blow one or two. And I blew one. Fortunately it didn’t cost us.
“As far as the play is concerned, that’s just not fair. Sometimes you go with your player’s feeling because you believe in what he can do. That at the end of the day was my decision to go with what he felt. That’s just not fair.”
There are some things Blatt can relate to the life of a fighter pilot. The fact that he’s one of the driving forces whether his craft stays in the air or goes down in flames. He’s leading a team that is soaring to new heights and they flying over the competition with him at the helm. He might be radioing ‘mayday’ from time to time but at the end of the day, he pulls them out of questionable airspace and directs them into the clear airspace.
Alright, I tried to help out coach but it still doesn’t make sense. You’re coaching basketball, people’s lives aren’t in your hands.
