David Blatt is a former NBA coach

[2Fluffy4U]

for all those "blatt is irrelevant".. did any of you see the game in which they showed the alley-oop stats? Think about that each game consists of a pool of potential points. 17 is bron team play, additional 15 is his solo..
think of alley oop points - TT and mozgov. that's additional 15 points.
JR, Love, and other 3pts - another 17 points..
what im trying to say is that instead of looking at each personal ppg - try and see how did those points come about - and no doubt in my mind you will come to realize the system behind it..
(check kerrs, heheh.. "checkers" Popovich or any other and will all show different patterns...)
and of course this wont convince others who will keep chanting that its just the players.. but that's my input of things..

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

The problem is that most Cavs fan have been told the last 12 years how it's just all been LeBron in our success. And the truth is, it really still is. I will most definitely give Griffin props for his mideseason moves. But the common denominator in our success has ALWAYS been LeBron. At this point Blatt is nothing more than a prop. Replace him with anyone else and we have the same or even better record.

First, the reality is that winning a title in this league without a superstar, either LBJ or someone else, is virtually impossible.

Second, LBJ has been playing since 2003, and has won a grand total of 2 titles in those 11 seasons. Having LBJ on your team is no guarantee of winning. It takes more.

Third, the LBJ the Cavs have this year probably isn't quite the player he was in Miami, where he still only won 2 titles in 4 years.

And fourth, if "it's all just been LeBron", then the additions of Mozgov, Smith, and Shumpert would have been meaningless. Having Kyrie would be meaningless. Having KL would be meaningless. And Dan Gilbert wouldn't spend millions of dollars hiring Blatt, Lue, and the others. He'd just hire someone like you, pay you $200k or so to keep you happy, and then just have you stand in the corner saying "pass the ball", and "defend harder".

 

[tocov]

Dan Gilbert wouldn't spend millions of dollars hiring Blatt, Lue, and the others. He'd just hire someone like you, pay you $200k or so to keep you happy, and then just have you stand in the corner saying "pass the ball", and "defend harder".

POTY candidate.

 

[Pavlovic3Ball]

We would have the same record with Mike Brown, Randy Wittman, Byron Scott, etc. Give us someone like Rick Carlisle and this team would have given Atlanta a run for the #1 seed. Blatt is a rookie coach. I don't expect perfection. But you aren't going to get me to give him credit for things he has done. He has a ton to prove. And right now nothing he is doing is all that impressive.

 

[cavsfever]

Coaching is far from irrelevant but I don't think Blatt has been the primary driver of the success of this team. Not just Lebron and Kyrie but Griffin deserves a lot of credit for the trade that saved the season. I think Blatt has done a decent/competent job -- it was noticeable how our defense turned around midseason, and he did a good job integrating players. But we still have not achieved complete consistency on either side of the ball.

The problem is that if we are going to be arguing between BLATT IS THE TRUE MESSIAH PROPHESIED IN THE OLD TESTAMENT and BLATT SUX COACHING MEANS NOTHING then both of those views are obviously wrong. The truth lies somewhere in the middle -- in my view Blatt has done some good things but has not proven himself to be a top-level NBA coach so far. But it's hard to have a discussion on an internet message board that doesn't collapse into people yelling at each other about extreme views.

The good news is that we are going into the playoffs and that will show Blatt's qualities as a coach in a whole new way and should settle most arguments. Hoping he will turn out to be as good as his most devoted supporters claim.

 

[Tazoz]

Coaching is far from irrelevant but I don't think Blatt has been the primary driver of the success of this team. Not just Lebron and Kyrie but Griffin deserves a lot of credit for the trade that saved the season. I think Blatt has done a decent/competent job -- it was noticeable how our defense turned around midseason, and he did a good job integrating players. But we still have not achieved complete consistency on either side of the ball.

The problem is that if we are going to be arguing between BLATT IS THE TRUE MESSIAH PROPHESIED IN THE OLD TESTAMENT and BLATT SUX COACHING MEANS NOTHING then both of those views are obviously wrong. The truth lies somewhere in the middle -- in my view Blatt has done some good things but has not proven himself to be a top-level NBA coach so far. But it's hard to have a discussion on an internet message board that doesn't collapse into people yelling at each other about extreme views.

The good news is that we are going into the playoffs and that will show Blatt's qualities as a coach in a whole new way and should settle most arguments. Hoping he will turn out to be as good as his most devoted supporters claim.

I think that Blatt is an important piece of the puzzle but no one is really the primary driver of the team. We depend on all the players and the coach to succeed and that's how it should be, as we are first and foremost a team and no player or coach is above our team - the Cleveland Cavaliers!

 

[Flight479]

LeBron is in the driver seat. Kyrie is in the passenger seat. Everyone else is buckled in for the ride and Love is locked in the trunk lol

 

[Man Called X]

Not bothering to read any more of this thread.

Blatt is the true messiah. I know it was said in jest. But let's go with this for a second. We've got Outback Jesus, LeBron is Basketball Jesus, and Blatt is the one true messiah.

Yes.

I can get behind this.

 

[Pheadrus]

Not bothering to read any more of this thread.

Blatt is the true messiah. I know it was said in jest. But let's go with this for a second. We've got Outback Jesus, LeBron is Basketball Jesus, and Blatt is the one true messiah.

Yes.

I can get behind this.

 

[Frank Stallone]

Windy on Blatt:

The Princeton offense that David Blatt installed in the preseason, they just threw that out. What typically happens—and this has been happening for like three months now—is LeBron will take the ball, and LeBron will call the play. David Blatt will see what play LeBron calls, and he will repeat it to the team. That happens on a regular basis.

 

[Tazoz]

Windy on Blatt:

The Princeton offense that David Blatt installed in the preseason, they just threw that out. What typically happens—and this has been happening for like three months now—is LeBron will take the ball, and LeBron will call the play. David Blatt will see what play LeBron calls, and he will repeat it to the team. That happens on a regular basis.

The funny thing is that Blatt's offense has never really been the Princeton offense and the offense that the Cavs are playing at the moment is, in fact, Blatt's. That's the strength of a media created narrative, it makes people believe things that have no real basis in reality.

What actually happens is that Blatt calls the play and Lebron, as the PG, calls the play for the rest of the team as he is supposed to. I mean, why would a coach need to call the play for the rest of the team if Lebron has already called it? Not to mention that when Lebron calls plays, they are undoubtedly plays created by Blatt as he is the team's coach. As usual, Windy is seeing what he wants to see, not what is actually happening on the court.

 

[Douglar]

http://espn.go.com/espnradio/play?id=12594321

At about the 24 minute mark, here's some paraphrasing of the conversation:

Windy: I've lost track of the number of times Lebron has directly contradicted Blatt in 45 seconds. Lebron might have to have a talk with Blatt asking him to tone down the post game interviews before the playoffs.

Bill Stein: The Lebron / Blatt dynamic is bizarre. Seems like Lebron communicates with Lue & Cavs bench acts like Lue is the coach instead of Blatt.

Windy: Guys that have been advanced scouts for 20 years have been asking "What's up with the Cavs bench? I've never seen anything like that"

Bill Stein: In huddles, it seems like players are locked in, but they are not locked in on the coach. Very strange. It is going to be fascinating in the playoffs.

Windy: Blatt's preseason offense was a Princeton offense and it looked good. Blatt has been dropping some nice plays out of timeouts lately. Maybe he'll win Lebron over.

 

[crabbyshark]

Win Bill Stein's money.

 

[Tazoz]

http://espn.go.com/espnradio/play?id=12594321

At about the 24 minute mark, here's some paraphrasing of the conversation:

Windy: I've lost track of the number of times Lebron has directly contradicted Blatt in 45 seconds. Lebron might have to have a talk with Blatt asking him to tone down the post game interviews before the playoffs.

Bill Stein: The Lebron / Blatt dynamic is bizarre. Seems like Lebron communicates with Lue & Cavs bench acts like Lue is the coach instead of Blatt.

Windy: Guys that have been advanced scouts for 20 years have been asking "What's up with the Cavs bench? I've never seen anything like that"

Bill Stein: In huddles, it seems like players are locked in, but they are not locked in on the coach. Very strange. It is going to be fascinating in the playoffs.

Windy: Blatt's preseason offense was a Princeton offense and it looked good. Blatt has been dropping some nice plays out of timeouts lately. Maybe he'll win Lebron over.

While Blatt might have run the Princeton offense during the beggining of the season. it doesn't mean that the offense is Blatt's normal offense. Because it wasn't an offense that Blatt has a large amount of experience coaching, he struggled to teach the offense to the players and the beginning of the year was a disaster. In the end, Blatt is not immune to media hype and it is reasonable to think that he tried to prive the hype correct by going out of his comfort zone.

We know there were isolated cases of Lebron not agreeing with Blatt but does that mean that every play is called by Lebron and Blatt repeats it. It's easy to create a narrative out of an isolated incedent and project it on the rest of the games. As I said, the coach is usually the one who is responsible for writing plays, so even if Lebron calls a play and Blatt agrees it is logical to conclude that the play was Blatt's. It is ususlly considered something positive that a PG calls a play!

 

[gourimoko]

http://espn.go.com/espnradio/play?id=12594321

At about the 24 minute mark, here's some paraphrasing of the conversation:

Windy: I've lost track of the number of times Lebron has directly contradicted Blatt in 45 seconds. Lebron might have to have a talk with Blatt asking him to tone down the post game interviews before the playoffs.

Bill Stein: The Lebron / Blatt dynamic is bizarre. Seems like Lebron communicates with Lue & Cavs bench acts like Lue is the coach instead of Blatt.

Windy: Guys that have been advanced scouts for 20 years have been asking "What's up with the Cavs bench? I've never seen anything like that"

Bill Stein: In huddles, it seems like players are locked in, but they are not locked in on the coach. Very strange. It is going to be fascinating in the playoffs.

Windy: Blatt's preseason offense was a Princeton offense and it looked good. Blatt has been dropping some nice plays out of timeouts lately. Maybe he'll win Lebron over.

Amazing that this late in the season, well the season is basically over, that Blatt has still been tuned out.

I honestly thought he had made inroads and had begun to win over the players....

Guess I was wrong?