http://www.ohio.com/sports/cavs/rel...lse&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed
Lloyd takes a lot of shots at Blatt in this piece, and he has a tendency again to not really back up much of what he's saying with quotes or anything substantial. Not really sure this is fair. It seems more like Lloyd seeing Blatt is more comfortable and mellow, for now (I mean the season hasn't even started yet), and is attributing that to Blatt feeling he needed to behave better to the almighty media. My feeling is that the media smelled blood in the water last season...they felt Blatt was probably gone and they didn't show Blatt much respect during interviews or within their writing. I'm not saying it was true for all media, but many of them. Here's an except from Lloyd's article:
"PR image
Blatt’s combative style frustrated the organization throughout last season. They often tried getting him to tone down his approach, but typically with little success. Head coaches across the league were irritated with Blatt’s style, and those within the organization believe if he had shown more humility early, his acceptance across the league might have been smoother.
Coaches have egos, and none seemed to like how Blatt walked into his first job his first year in the NBA — coaching a super team, no less — believing he had all the answers.
It got to the point during summer league the Cavs did not let Blatt address reporters. It might go down as the first and only time a head coach (the head coach of a conference champion, no less) was rendered off limits to the media.
Instead, General Manager David Griffin — a terrific communicator with a PR background — handled all of the summer questions despite repeated requests for Blatt."
The way I remember it, and maybe I'm wrong, is that Blatt started the year very cordial and polite with the media, and then once the losses started to pile up and media started criticizing him and calling for his head, he got a bit more defensive and curt (neither of which seem to be out of the usual realm for an NBA coach who is on the hot seat).
That said, I'm glad that more players have spoken out favorably for Blatt. The more they do it, the less Blatt probably feels like it's him against the world. Last year it seems like maybe only Mozgov and Delly were firmly in his camp. Now I think we could at least add Kaun and James Jones and JR to that.