Cleveland Cavaliers' Sky-High Payroll Puts Pressure Back on David Blatt
In spending themselves well past the NBA's luxury-tax threshold, the Cleveland Cavaliers are, by default, dousing head coach David Blatt's seat with the most potent fire accelerant—the green kind.
Thrust into the championship limelight following LeBron James' return more than one year ago, the Cavaliers have spared (almost) no expense this summer. They brought Kevin Love back on a max deal, might shell out another to Tristan Thompson, landed Mo Williams and handed new contracts to Matthew Dellavedova, Iman Shumpert, J.R. Smith and James.
Whenever that much financial finagling is involved, the intent is no mystery. The Cavaliers have not distanced themselves from the title-or-bust stereotype. They've instead, by all appearances, embraced it, putting additional pressure on everyone to make the most of their investment.
Especially Blatt.
Dollars and Sense
With J.R. Smith's salary for 2015-16 now fully guaranteed, the Cavaliers have more than $93.6 million in assured commitments on the books next season. And that's before factoring in whatever they'll need to pay Thompson.
Cleveland is dangling a five-year pact in the "$75-80 million range," according to the Plain Dealer's Terry Pluto. But Thompson's agent, Rich Paul, isn't biting, going as far as telling Sportsnet's Michael Grange that the 24-year-old forward is prepared to sign his qualifying offer and leave the Cavaliers next summer if his asking price isn't met.
James, who is also a client of Paul's, has on more than one occasion advocated for Thompson's return, citing his importance to the team's vision. If Thompson is demanding a max deal, as Bleacher Report's Ric Bucher said he is, there's a strong chance he'll capitalize on Cleveland's need to keep James happy and get it.
Signing Thompson to a max deal that begins at $16.4 million, according to Basketball Insiders' Steve Kyler, would leave the Cavaliers with around $110.1 million in salary commitments. Tack on the $1.2 million Pluto has them giving Sasha Kaun, and they'll be up to $111.3 million, putting them more than $26.5 million above the league's luxury-tax line.
The Cavaliers' tax bill in this scenario, using the non-repeater scale from Larry Coon's CBA FAQ, will be roughly $70.1 million.
Four teams, as of now, haven't even spent that much on their entire rosters. And yet, based on their initial offer to Thompson, the Cavaliers are at least prepared to toe that astronomical line.
Just as expectations shift for a team that's been together for an entire year, the needle moves for a coach after his rookie season. Blatt, now a sideline sophomore, won't be enjoying a grace period. His first year barely had room for a learning curve, and he's already been to the NBA Finals.
More importantly, Blatt is now charged with the performance of what, in the end, could be a $180 million product. And it's much easier to change the coach than the product.
Next summer, if the Cavaliers have failed in their latest championship bid, perhaps even receiving their postseason pink slip before the NBA Finals, they won't be able to make wholesale changes to the roster—not even with the salary cap set to reach $89 million.
Sure, Thompson could sign his qualifying offer and be on his merry way in one year. But as it is, the Cavaliers have $57.8 million in guaranteed contracts on the books for 2016-17. By the time they re-sign Timofey Mozgov and James, they'll be well north of the cap ceiling and only moving further away, depending on what happens with Anderson Varejao (non-guaranteed) and Thompson.
Hiring another coach, unlike adding more impact players, is actually an option. New head honchos don't count against the cap, and owner Dan Gilbert has already shown he has no qualms about paying more than one (Mike Brown).
So in the event Cleveland falls short yet again, Blatt will be the most likely scapegoat, if only because the Cavaliers won't have the flexibility to blame anyone or anything else.
The Past Is In The Future
Last season cannot be remembered as a fairy tale.
Pushing it as a coming-of-experience story would even be a stretch. The Cavaliers blitzed through the Eastern Conference en route to the Finals, yes, but that won't stop the churning rumor mill that initially depicted Blatt's relationship with James as a house of cards.
Once the Finals were over and the Cavaliers' season officially ended, the illusion that everything was hunky-dory—or at least a non-issue—came crashing down.
As ESPN.com's Marc Stein wrote of the Finals scene:
"And we likewise saw LeBron emasculate Blatt in ways that are simply unbecoming of a player of James' legend-in-the-making stature.
I saw it from close range in my role as sideline reporter through the Finals for ESPN Radio. James essentially called timeouts and made substitutions. He openly barked at Blatt after decisions he didn't like. He huddled frequently with Lue, often looking at anyone other than Blatt.
There was James, in one instance I witnessed from right behind the bench, shaking his head vociferously in protest after one play Blatt drew up in the third quarter of Game 5, amounting to the loudest nonverbal scolding you could imagine -- which forced Blatt, in front of his whole team, to wipe the board clean and draw up something else.
"
Explanations for James' behavior aren't difficult to manufacture. He was either well within his means as the league's best player, or the media was once again exuding its propensity to exaggerate all things LeBron James.
Neither form of reasoning lets Blatt off the hook. He isn't James' guy. He was installed before James re-signed to be part-architect of a rebuild, not the chief of a superteam. And even he admitted that their situation created a less-than-perfect atmosphere.
“I have a good relationship with him,” Blatt said in June, via the Jerusalem Post. “We went through a process. It took us time to get to know each other. We learned how to work together the best way possible."
"When you work with a star of that magnitude, the relationship is slightly different," he continued. "It isn’t like with any other player. I learned from this process. We both want the same thing but don’t always agree about everything."
This mutual understanding that Blatt painted wasn't enough to keep speculation at bay before James officially re-signed with the Cavaliers. As Basketball Insiders' Alex Kennedy was told ahead of free agency:
It would be convenient to dismiss past anecdotes and reports as baseless with James back under contract and Blatt still in town. But this issue won't entirely go away. It will creep up when the Cavaliers start slumping, or when Blatt's and James' public sentiments don't perfectly align, or when the camera catches a lukewarm exchange between the two during games.
As Bleacher Report's Ethan Skolnick underscored, James' "culture shaping isn't close to finished," and he will be "equally relentless next season." His mission to transform the Cleveland organization won't necessarily result in any more basketball casualties than it already has (Andrew Wiggins, Dion Waiters, etc.), but it could.
Where James learned to work with and even like Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra, this situation is different. James has more power in Cleveland. The Cavaliers are his pet project.
And Blatt, for all the Cavaliers did under him last season, must still reach a point where he's more than someone just along for the ride.
Leaving His Mark
Gaining James' unconditional endorsement and respect isn't just about bending to the future Hall of Famer's prerogatives.
Make no mistake: That's part of the process, and it was an underrated aspect of Blatt's NBA debut. Other coaches, be they Association veterans or those with extensive overseas experience like Blatt, may not have made it through the year without calling James out or displaying obvious signs of frustration.
Blatt arrived in Cleveland trumpeted as a pioneer of positionless roundball, someone who ensured the ball kept moving amid a frenzy of pick-and-rolls. But the Cavaliers instead became an isolationist's delight.
They led the league in isolation frequency, and they ranked a mediocre 13th in assist percentage. The offense finished in the top four of efficiency, so it's not as if we're talking about a dumpster fire. Still, Cleveland's attack bore little resemblance to what Blatt was supposed to implement.
And that's OK. It's something Blatt stomached well, and something he must continue to accept, as both Kyrie Irving and James need the ball in their hands and the freedom to make plays.
Where Blatt has some freedom of his own is with Love. Though the power forward is now under contract for the next half-decade, he still looked sullen on the court at times last season and bemoaned the widespread assumption that to succeed in Cleveland, he must become a spot-up gunner.
Almost 39 percent of Love's shot attempts last season came inside the paint and restricted area, which is comparable to his proportions with the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2013-14 (41.7 percent). But a career-high 41.2 percent of his looks still came from beyond the arc, while nearly 47 percent of all his attempts were catch-and-shoot opportunities.
There is nevertheless room for Blatt to increase Love's role in the offense, as Fear The Sword's Scott Recker explained:
"I understand the value of primarily either getting him easy looks in the paint or stretching the floor with him standing at the three-point line, creating spacing and lanes for LeBron and Kyrie, but, as the league changes with teams going smaller, life is going to be harder for the stretch four, and easy looks will be harder to come by without off-the-ball movement. Getting him going with good looks in the paint early is important, a trend that seemed to take a while to develop.
But, I think that feeding him the ball on the elbow and running the offense through him a little more would be an option to consider, or possibly running a high screen pick and pop with Kyrie to force a point guard to switch on him — similar to what the Warriors do with Curry and Green. Love could be dangerous in those scenarios, not only because of his ability to shoot, but because he’s an underrated passer and decision maker.
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Love's assist percentage, in addition to his usage rate, plummeted during his first season with the Cavaliers—as in, cut in half. Finding him more touches in an offense with so many mouth to feeds isn't easily done, but it becomes slightly easier knowing Cleveland plans to limit Irving, who is rehabilitating a fractured kneecap, early on, according to Pluto.
Mostly, though, Love isn't someone you stash in the corners as a glorified onlooker to James and Irving. And that happened much too often last season, usually to the degree shown below:
Diversifying the offense doesn't have to take the ball out of James' and Irving's hands, nor does it force James to relinquish his on-court power. It's all part of making sure Cleveland's gaggle of high-profile pieces can coexist without marginalizing any one of them—which, in the grand scheme, is one of the most valuable marks Blatt could leave.
Rising To A Different Occasion
No matter what happens next season, Blatt finds himself in a precarious situation.
If the Cavaliers win a title, James and friends will receive the lion's share of a credit. If they lose, blame will be dispersed in all different directions, with Blatt positioned to withstand the bulk of the blows.
That's how it works in these situations, in which both the payroll and expectations they spawn are sky-high. And unlike last season, Blatt knows it, as he admitted in July, via the Associated Press' Tim Reynolds:
"When I came to the NBA I was under the impression that this was going to be a breeze. I've been coaching for 23 years at the highest level in Europe. I coached in the national-team environment, coached professional teams, coached Euroleague teams and I thought I thought I knew basketball and I thought I knew how to coach. Which, in my mind, I did.
But I realized that when I came over here it was a very, very different game with a whole new set of problems and a whole slew of things to deal with inside and outside of the game.
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Blatt should have a better grasp of the NBA game, putting him in line to relieve James of certain coaching duties, even if by force. He should have a better idea of what works and what doesn't when drawing up plays, outlining roles and concocting lineups.
And he darn sure understands that the Cavaliers are financially invested in winning now.
For Blatt, last season was a necessary grace period and, even in Finals defeat, a pleasant surprise. There will be none of that in 2015-16.
There is only winning with the excess of talent and salary the Cavaliers have placed in his care—a job for which he wasn't originally hired but is now expected to finish.
Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com unless otherwise cited. Salary information via Basketball Insiders.
Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter, @danfavale.
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