David Blatt Isn't LeBron's Puppet, He's a Coach of the Year Candidate
Cleveland Cavaliers coach David Blatt has been called plenty of things during his debut season on an NBA sideline—seemingly everything but the title that actually fits.
He's not LeBron James' puppet, Cleveland's scapegoat or any of the other unsavory monikers tossed his way this year. Blatt is a Coach of the Year candidate, and a very deserving one at that.
Remember, this isn't the job Blatt came from overseas to do. When he signed on the dotted line last June, thoughts of LeBron's homecoming were nothing more than dreams. The only Clevelanders thinking of Kevin Love then were fantasy owners getting a head start on their draft boards.
A one-and-done playoff appearance constituted a best-case scenario. That ceiling held for a couple of weeks until James' return sent it into a different stratosphere and Love's arrival pushed it to an absurd level.
Blatt had to adjust to everything on the fly while simultaneously acclimating himself to NBA waters. When last summer's winds of change breezed into the season, he rolled with those punches too.
He's reworked a craft he'd seemingly mastered across the pond, altering it to the point that his old observers have a hard time recognizing him.
"Those who have covered Cavaliers head coach David Blatt during his overseas tenure insist that he's not being himself," Northeast Ohio Media Group's Chris Haynes wrote in January. "From their accounts, he's a boisterous, no-nonsense, my-way-or-the-highway type of a coach. If you don't fall in line, he'll line you up at the end of the bench."
Guess how well that approach would have worked in a superstar-driven league? On second thought, there's no need to guess. Blatt already answered that question by leaving that mindset behind.
It's hard to balance the idea of Blatt as a no-nonsense monarch with the man who's quickly become one of the league's most amenable coaches.
He's open to new ideas, an invaluable trait in his profession, but one that recently put him in the crosshair of the media.
During an appearance on Bill Simmons' B.S. Report podcast, ESPN's Brian Windhorst said that Blatt's Princeton offense had been scrapped and James was regularly calling Cleveland's plays. The basketball world struggled to make sense of the news.
"This is wild," said USA Today's Nate Scott. "Blatt has essentially ceded control of the game on offense to James."
Only, like a lot of these volcanic viral stories, the reality was nowhere near as dramatic as the idea. The report, as Blatt readily admitted, was partially true. There were times when James or other players called the shots.
But lost amid the scramble to throw logs on the fire was the fact that this is pretty common practice.
"At times according to the flow of the game, somebody may call out a play," Blatt said, per Haynes. "I don't think that's unusual, no. Certainly if you know what you're doing, you have a plan going in. That's obviously not an all-the-time case, but it's going to happen during the course of the game, sure."
If you're coaching the best player on the planet, you'd be foolish not to allow him some leeway. As James' close friend and former teammate Dwyane Wade said, this same thing was taking place when the pair played together with the Miami Heat.
"[James] was here and he did some of that as well," Wade said, per Shandel Richardson of the Sun Sentinel. "Sometimes, he'd see that I needed a shot or I need to get involved or Chris [Bosh] needed to get involved. He'd call a certain set that he'd know would get us involved. He has that kind of high IQ to do that."
What many used to criticize Blatt is really something worthy of praise.
"If you have LeBron James on your team, you should let him call some plays as he sees the defenses/matchups dictate," wrote NBC Sports' Kurt Helin. "LeBron is as high IQ a player as there is in the league, he sees the game. You should give him the freedom and David Blatt is smart to do so."
Blatt is smart in a lot of ways that have been overlooked and underappreciated. As soon as the front office balanced the roster, the Cavs have been the world-beating juggernaut so many thought they could be.
It took some time for all the pieces to fall in place. Cleveland owned a .500 record at the 40-game mark, worlds removed from the astronomical potential that appeared on paper. But the front office had to fix some of the roster's flaws.
In a three-team trade in early January, the Cavs swapped out the ball-dominant Dion Waiters to fill more pressing needs with J.R. Smith (three-point shooting) and Iman Shumpert (perimeter defense). Days later, they fortified the frontcourt with rim-protector Timofey Mozgov, acquired from the Denver Nuggets for a pair of first-round picks.
While that meant more adjustments for Blatt, it also allowed him to show what he could do at the helm of a balanced team. And over the last two months or so, he's overseen one of the strongest squads in the entire NBA.
| First 40 | .500 | T-14th | 105.2 | 11th | 106.4 | 26th | Minus-1.3 | 16th |
| Last 36 | .806 | 1st | 111.4 | 1st | 101.1 | 10th | Plus-10.3 | 2nd |
Not bad for a coach that some wanted to rush to the hot seat mere months after he took over.
"It's just that everyone wanted to write a certain story based on the results and based on whatever," Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr said, per Northeast Ohio Media Group's Chris Fedor. "He had to go through a little growth process, learning the NBA. ... I'm happy to see him going on smoother waters here because he didn't deserve what he had to go through earlier."
Blatt has made some gutsy calls as Cleveland's coach—none gutsier than his decision to bench Love in some critical fourth quarters. Tenured coaches would have a hard time playing that card with Love's salary, let alone stature.
More importantly, Blatt has made that move without burning the bridge to his starting power forward.
"Everything is easier when you're winning," Love said, per ESPN's Michael Wallace. "So you can have some really good games, and then some tough times. The rotation might be different. But as long as you're winning, it kind of makes up for everything."
The Cavs are winning. James has a hand in that. Ditto for Kyrie Irving, Mozgov, Smith, Shumpert and Love.
But few have as many fingerprints on this success as Blatt. And slowly, people are starting to realize that.
After guiding the Cavs to an 11-4 record in March, Blatt took home the Eastern Conference Coach of the Month Award. In typical coach speak, he downplayed the achievement.
"It's not about what you do individually; it's about what the team does," he said, per Haynes. "And in return, everybody gets part of the glow. That's what it's about."
That's true, but there is some significance behind the honor.
"I know it's a validation," James said, via Haynes. "Even though he talks about that he doesn't need a validation to be a part of this league, it gives him even more validation to say 'I belong here.'"
It's been obvious for a while.
Blatt has found the balance between freedom and structure to get James and Irving playing at incredibly high levels. Blatt has integrated new parts and replaced the ones he's lost. He has faced constant scrutiny, heard the condemnations of his coaching, read the reports of his being undermined and never once let it affect him.
Those are Coach of the Year qualifications. Maybe not enough to overshadow what Kerr has done in the Bay Area or Mike Budenholzer's work with the soaring Atlanta Hawks, but he has done enough to get into the discussion.
For as much spotlight time as he's received this season, it's good to see the attention finally coming his way for the right reasons.
Unless otherwise noted, statistics used courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com.
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