Report: Cavaliers May Have Concerns With David Blatt; Blatt Responds
When LeBron James did ultimately decide to return home to the Cleveland Cavaliers, he was also agreeing to playing for a rookie NBA head coach. David Blatt had been hired as the new head coach in Cleveland before LeBron’s return, which suggested at some level that there was some initial comfortability with simply making it work.
The Cavaliers are 18-12 to start the season, good for fifth in the Eastern Conference and currently three games behind Chicago. Their high points have been high and their low points abysmal, none perhaps lower than their latest 103-80 loss to the Detroit Pistons. Granted, Kyrie Irving and Anderson Varejao were both out for Cleveland, but this isn’t the first sighting of consistently bad defense and embarrassing losses for these Cavaliers. As a result, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst and Marc Stein report that the Cavaliers management have started to worry about Blatt’s control on his team:
Sources told ESPN.com that there is rising concern in team circles about the level of response Blatt is getting on the floor, with Blatt himself acknowledging that the Cavaliers “lost our energy and we lost our competitiveness” in Sunday night’s embarrassing home loss to Detroit.
The Cavs’ effort level, especially defensively, is eroding noticeably, raising the volume on questions about just how much the locker room is listening to the 55-year-old Boston native, who has enjoyed tremendous success internationally but still began this season as a relative unknown to NBA players.
Whispers about the lack of attention various Cavs players are paying to Blatt during some timeout huddles, as well as their apparent preference to communicate with Cavs assistant and former NBA player Tyronn Lue, have been in circulation for weeks.
When you assemble the talent core that the Cavaliers did by trading for Kevin Love after getting LeBron back, the expectations become paramount. On talent alone the Cleveland Cavaliers are still one of the most fun teams to watch in the NBA. And with that talent they’re equipped to at least compete with any team out there. Cleveland’s first 30 games is just an experimental, infant sample size of what this team may or may not become, but David Blatt’s seat has to be getting warmer.
Every one wants to understand the notions of growing pains, building chemistry, adjusting to a new coach, and all of the prerequisites to establishing a legitimate championship team, but Blatt has a unique challenge in being a rookie head coach in the NBA coming from overseas. His players raved about his offense coming into the season and despite the less than favorable start and the rumblings of concern, Blatt seems unphased.
Blatt on if he still has the Cavs’ attention: “Absolutely I do. We just didn’t play well … Don’t think it was an issue outside of that”
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) December 29, 2014
David Blatt: “We didn’t come out and win 18 games without there being respect or understanding or any of those things”
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) December 29, 2014
We don’t know how much patience the Cavaliers management has in making this a championship effort. If Blatt is their guy, and more importantly, LeBron James makes a concerted effort to stick up for him, there shouldn’t be a problem for Blatt keeping his job. But if things don’t shape up and come together, that patience could give way to those paramount expectations, and the rumblings will only get louder.
