Here's an update/response from Blatt and LBJ:
INDEPENDENCE, Ohio -- LeBron James says he has "freedom" to call plays for the Cleveland Cavaliers during the course of a game, and coach David Blatt says that the superstar dictating the action is business as usual.
"I don't think that's peculiar," Blatt said after Cavs practice Wednesday. "When the game is going on and you are in the heat of the battle at times, you can't get a message through or you don't want to stop the flow, so a guy may [call the play on his own].
"We have sets that we know what we're going to use going in. You know, we have a package that we're going to use going in and at times, according to the flow of the game, somebody may call out a play. I don't think that's unusual..."
....James elaborated on his leeway to call plays Wednesday.
"Well, we have a package," James said. "If I see something, I have the right to call plays. Kyrie [Irving] does as well. We kind of do that play calling. Coach Blatt does the play calling obviously throughout the game in timeouts, but it's great to be able to have some type of freedom out there with Kyrie to be able to call sets that we feel best suit our team."
http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports....ing-plays-yeah-so/?ocid=Yahoo&partner=ya5nbcs
What was overlooked from the beginning of this story was that regardless of who is calling the individual plays --
the plays being run are Blatt's plays. It's his offense, his sets, and his packages. Within that framework, who actually decides
which play to run is much less important.
One nice nugget in McMenamin's updated story is LBJ's tone. He's not just making crap up as he goes along -- "
well, we have a package" indicates that he's understands the offensive scheme devised by the coaching staff, and isn't fighting against it the way he was his first year or so in Miami. He may still call his own number a lot, but he's not objecting to the concepts and underlying sets.