TV report that Blatt would resign instantly proven wrong, Cavs dismiss unrest reports
Shortly after the publication of a report claiming that LeBron James had undercut and overruled him during the 2015 NBA Finals, Cleveland Cavaliers head coach David Blatt was set to address the media in a season-ending press conference. As he prepared to toss his network’s coverage to the live presser, SportsTime Ohio’s Bruce Drennan took a big swing, citing one of his “great sources” in reporting that Blatt, fresh off completing the first year of his four-year contract, was about to resign and walk away from the Cavs’ bench:
[Follow Dunks Don’t Lie on Tumblr: The best slams from all of basketball]
Well, that didn’t happen, leaving Drennan to apologize on Friday:
No, Blatt did not resign on Thursday. In fact, he said he “absolutely” intends to continue coaching the Cavaliers, and that, for all the season-long sturm und drang about his interactions with the peerless superstar who carried a Cleveland side missing three of its four best players to Game 6 against the Golden State Warriors, the relationship isn’t and never has been as bad as it’s been portrayed.
From ESPN.com’s Dave McMenamin:
“You know, I think it’s a special thing to have the opportunity to work with LeBron on a daily basis,” Blatt said. “You know, people sometimes judge things on a game or on a period of time, and they forget that we’re in there working together and striving to make the utmost of our team and of our situation day-to-day. And a bond develops over time that is a lot more than what meets the eye. It’s been a great pleasure and a great honor to work with a player of his magnitude, and to work with someone who is so committed to helping this organization reach its goals, and is so committed to helping his teammates make it to the highest level. And I can just tell you it’s been a fantastic experience, and I’m looking forward to continuing it.” […]
“Well, people make it out to be more than it is in terms of some personal feeling or challenge,” Blatt said. “For me, it’s always been about finding ways to help him reach his goals, which is exactly what we want here in the team and in the organization. We want to be a championship team. The most important thing for me in working with LeBron and in working with all of the players is finding out what works, what helps them, what makes them tick, what gives them the kind of confidence and the kind of direction and the kind of partnership that’s needed to make this a successful team. I can tell you one thing: It’s been a lot of fun, on a number of different levels. It’s not just the challenging aspect. It’s having the opportunity to work with a truly special, special player. I mean, one of the most, if not the most special player of all time. That’s not a small thing. It’s invigorating and exhilarating, in all honesty.”
Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal has more from Blatt on his relationship with James:
“He is a galvanizing player. He is our best player,” Blatt said Thursday when asked about the report. “He’s the league’s best player. He’s a winner. He’s a proven champion. I think it’s important that he feels empowered and at the same time that he knows that he’s very much a part of this team. And I think he’s exhibited that, and always put the team’s success beyond his.
“Now if he has felt that he has [something] to say and wants to impose his will in terms of influencing in a positive way on those around him, that’s a good thing. That’s a good thing for all, and I certainly encourage that and certainly respected the fact that LeBron’s heart was in the right place.”
It’s worth questioning whether such “had his heart in the right place” absolution is even necessary in the aftermath of the critical report of James’ sideline comportment by ESPN.com’s Marc Stein. As Deadspin’s Kyle Wagner writes, the context of LeBron doing absolutely everything he can to will his team to victory matters — especially considering, as we’ve learned throughout his illustrious career, “everything LeBron can do” amounts to more than just about anybody else in NBA history:
The typical genuflection in sports to the chain of command stems mainly from puerile military metaphors. […] But it’s also premised on the idea that the coach, on some level, knows best. Outside the field of play, more aware of the broad scope of the contest, he’s best positioned to process information into tactical plans. Usually, this is true.
The problem here is that LeBron James is a supercomputer. When the league turned over to the next-gen player-tracking SportVU tech, the Raptors showed Grantland’s Zach Lowe a program that tracked where defenders were on a play, and where they ideally would be. Mathematically perfect ghost players would zip around the court, and the defenders who kept up were typically the most effective, except for one. LeBron had the speed of observation, diagnosis, and ass to hustle ahead of the ghosts. “LeBron basically messes up the system and the ghosts,” Toronto’s analytics director told Lowe. “He does things that are just unsustainable for most players.” He outplays the machines.
So snap back to that third-quarter play in Game 5, on which LeBron was so vociferously shaking his head in disapproval. What possible reason would we have to think that LeBron telling Blatt to get that bulls— out of his face wasn’t the correct call? To think that LeBron’s insights into the league he’s owned for the last decade shouldn’t have taken primacy? The only reason for him not to speak up if Blatt was wrong would be to preserve the fiction that Blatt is in charge. That’s not very compelling when set against meaningfully improving the team’s chances of victory.
Wagner’s point dovetails nicely with Yago Colas’ smart inquiry into the language and approach of Stein’s report, and whether moralizing over James’ treatment of Blatt has less to do with the specific relationship at hand than with the underpinnings of our relationship to the game:
Perhaps, when confronted with such questions, LeBron rightly takes it as a disingenuous power move on the part of critics seeking to preserve a power structure in which white owners buy and sell black bodies, white coaches command black bodies, and black bodies go where, and do what, they’re told and keep their mouths shut unless it is to express gratitude for being #blessed to make with their talents a tiny fraction of what is made off them. “You can’t build your own team! That’s for the owners to do!” “You can’t call plays, that’s for the coaches to do!”
For his part, the man who built this team — Cavaliers general manager David Griffin — doubled down on his in-season support of Blatt and dismissed reports of discord between his coach and his star player. From McMenamin:
“LeBron himself said he thinks Coach has done a hell of a job,” Griffin said Thursday. “So if you want to use his actual words, that’s what the man said. […]
“I really appreciate the fact that there is this ‘cool’ narrative hanging out there, and you can say this forever,” Griffin said. “It literally never has to go away. … No matter how many times we win, no matter how much we win, it never has to go away because it’s all conjecture.
“So, I think one thing David [Blatt] did as well as anybody I’ve ever seen, and I wish I did better, was just ignore the noise from the media perspective. Because frankly, none of that means anything. We know what actually takes place here.”
Added Griffin: “I can’t say I get upset because there have been so many ridiculous storylines about our team all year that I think you get to the point where you understand it’s just going to go with it. This is how it’s going to be. I think, as I said before, it’s difficult for me to understand if you’re going purely on basketball achievements what exactly this team left on the table, given what we had. I just don’t know what we’re really critiquing at this point anymore.”
Griffin’s been consistent and definitive in his backing of Blatt and his insistence that any hiccups in the Cavaliers’ development have all been natural outgrowths of drastically overhauling both the coaching staff and roster in short order; in the midst of all that disruption, he’s argued, everyone needs some time, some space and some breathing room to figure things out.
The Cavaliers certainly did that this season, bouncing back from a 19-20 start to go 34-9 after Jan. 15 — including, as Griffin notes, a 33-3 mark with James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love in the lineup after the trades for Timofey Mozgov, J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert — and stomp through the Eastern Conference playoffs despite having to drastically change their offensive and defensive styles after losing Love late in the first round, weathering Smith’s two-game suspension to start Round 2, and then losing Irving for parts of both the conference finals and championship series. However you divide the credit for that among Blatt, James and the rest of the Cavs’ prime movers, there certainly seems to be more reason to praise what got accomplished than to decry what didn’t.
As with virtually all reports and retorts, the truth here probably lies somewhere in the middle.
“Is there some truth to the stories about friction between LeBron James and Blatt? Of course,” wrote Terry Pluto of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “Will Griffin and Blatt do their best to negate those reports? Naturally, it’s part of their job. But what is the real bottom line? Is the NBA supposed to be like preschool where everyone should ‘just play nice?’ Or does it come down to this: Winning and losing games?”
Judging by Blatt’s insistence that he’s sticking around and Griffin’s insistence that things are all good, it seems for now like it’s the latter — even if our “great sources” might momentarily steer us in a different direction.
– – – – – – –
Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
Stay connected with Ball Don’t Lie on Twitter @YahooBDL, “Like” BDL on Facebook and follow Dunks Don’t Lie on Tumblr for year-round NBA talk, jokes and more.
