Cleveland Cavaliers Must Let David Blatt Build off Lessons from NBA Finals Loss
David Blatt deserves another shot.
It's a shame that a coach who endured one of the most complicated, expectation-laden, pressure-ridden seasons in NBA history—a coach who took a physically broken team to within two wins of a championship—needs such an endorsement.
But the blatant calls for Blatt's job, or at least the whispered questions about his fitness to continue filling it, are coming.
They shouldn't be. They just shouldn't.
Not after Blatt stepped into what he thought was a rebuilding situation in Cleveland and saw it instantaneously morph into a championship-or-bust scenario when LeBron James showed up.
Not after he successfully incorporated three new rotation players—J.R. Smith, Timofey Mozgov and Iman Shumpert—into a group that was still searching for chemistry.
Not after he withstood heaps of criticism, the widespread belief that assistant coaches were doing the heavy lifting and very public instances of James undermining his authority.
And not after he lost his second- and third-best players during a bumpy playoff run.
The way Blatt reconfigured his team's identity on the fly speaks to his coaching acumen more than anything else. These Cavaliers were an offensive machine during the late stages of the regular season. They played fast, moved the ball and featured so many viable offensive threats that Kevin Love, one of the league's most skilled scoring talents, struggled to find touches.
The plodding, lock-it-down grit that defined the Cavs in the Finals was as different from the team's season-long identity as anyone could have imagined.
Actually, scratch that. Nobody would have ever dreamed of Cleveland pushing a historically good Golden State Warriors team to six games on the strength of disciplined defense and deliberate, minimalist offense.
After the Cavs took an improbable 2-1 advantage against the Dubs, SB Nation's Ricky O'Donnell offered some much-needed perspective:
"The Cavaliers wouldn't be in this position without David Blatt. He's coached a masterful series that should silence his many critics.
Cleveland is playing at the slowest pace of any playoff team, and it's all by design. Talent wins out in the open floor, and the Warriors have a huge edge in talent with Love and Irving on the sideline. Instead, the Cavaliers have reinvented themselves as a team that grinds out possessions, plays suffocating defense and never wavers from a concrete game plan.
"
Much was (rightly) made of Steve Kerr's bold decision to swap Andrew Bogut out of the starting lineup in Game 4, largely because Finals MVP Andre Iguodala took his place and swung the series. But that was one tweak made by a coach with embarrassingly deep resources at his disposal.
Blatt changed everything about his team's philosophy. In the Finals. Against a 67-win team. And it almost worked.
Imagine what we'd be talking about right now if Shumpert's game-winning attempt in Game 1 hadn't been two inches short. Cleveland was remarkably close to holding a 3-0 lead.
That the Cavaliers couldn't solve the downsized Warriors in Games 4, 5 and 6 was no failure of Blatt's. It was the predictable result of a roster too thin and fatigued to compete.
The Cavs have a lot to think about next year. Love can opt out of his contract this summer, and James, who also holds a player option, will want substantially more help on the roster than he had this season. Personnel changes, whether great or small, seem imminent.
Shumpert is a restricted free agent, and Smith will likely opt out of the final year of his deal to test the market as well, per ESPN's Chris Broussard.
Cleveland must also address the identity crisis created by its defensive success in the Finals. The Cavaliers couldn't have defended so effectively with Irving and Love in the rotation. We know that because they never did with those two playing major roles during the year.
At the same time, we know the Cavs offense fell apart without James' key running mates.
Fortunately, Blatt has now shown the world—and more importantly, James and the front office—that he can coach a team built either way. Given a full offseason to prepare, perhaps he can bring out the best in the Cavs on both ends.
Fair or not, Blatt will probably need James' endorsement before his job is truly safe. You'd have to assume James, as cerebral a basketball mind as we've seen, recognizes and appreciates the wholesale trust Blatt placed in him, as well as the obviously brilliant stylistic changes he made when injuries forced his hand.
Blatt had precious few buttons to push in the Finals, but he pushed the right ones.
When the fog of disappointment lifts in a few weeks, James is going to realize that. Or at least he should.
Recently, NBA teams have shown a startling willingness to toss aside good coaches when they believe there's a better one out there—one who could elevate, say, a playoff team to a title-winner.
Kerr just did it. And during the Warriors' run, the Oklahoma City Thunder, Chicago Bulls and New Orleans Pelicans fired successful coaches in hopes of finding better ones. Trends like that mean Blatt may not be able to relax until he's sitting on the bench for the 2015-16 season opener.
Blatt endured a remarkably difficult year, and if he failed, it was for reasons beyond his control. The greatest living authority on winning in the NBA told him so after Game 6, per Turner Sports' Rachel Nichols:
We don't know if Blatt's a genius or if he has the locker room-swaying power to lead the Cavs on a multiyear championship run. But we know he did more with this roster than anyone could have reasonably asked.
"This is a process," Blatt said after Game 6, per Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today. "You don't wake up one morning and fall out of bed and expect to win the NBA championship. You hope that you can, but it doesn't always work that way, and our guys did more than anyone could expect to put themselves and put our organization in this situation."
Hoping for an offseason talent infusion, a more cohesive identity and better fortune, Cleveland can build something great.
Blatt has done enough to be a part of the ongoing construction.
Grant Hughes covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @gt_hughes.
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