This is a recurring problem in Cleveland. Beilein is the symptom. He isn’t the disease. Inside what went wrong and led to his quick exit.
theathletic.com
List of grievance Beilein had against the Cavaliers or NBA in general (players/GM):
(1) Players missing practice for mild soreness or missing games (baffled by Love sitting out back-to-back while healthy)
(2) Going off of that winning didn't seem like a priority for the players (struggled to grasp or retain basic fundamental information -- led to long film sessions)
(3) He was thrown off by Clarkson trade. Natural bench scorer off a team that struggled with offensive production.
List of grievances against Beilein mentioned in the article:
(1) Two-a-days practices during SL/Training camp causing injuries (Windler + Garland)
(2) Harping on them in practice and film sessions (Called a dictator by a source)
(3) Called them thugs --- Players ultimately weren't happy with his explanation or not owning up to it being the straw that broke the camels back. He never recovered from this. Maybe that's when he lost the young players too (I doubt Sexton complained about working hard but maybe took a holistic team approach).
His tenure in Cleveland essentially ended during a film session on Jan. 8 in a Detroit hotel, of all places. That’s when he called his players “thugs” during a film session. He insisted later he meant to say slugs, and he tried to apologize the next day, but a number of the players never really embraced his explanation. In fact, some of them thought it was an insult to their intelligence, one player told The Athletic.
“There was no coming back from that,” he said.
Instead, multiple players began playing songs that included the word “thug” whenever Beilein was within earshot, sources said: Bone Thugz-n-Harmony’s “Thuggish Ruggish Bone” and Tupac’s “Thugz Mansion” among them. As the team boarded the bus a few days after the incident, one player was intentionally playing Trick Daddy’s “I’m a Thug” with Beilein a few feet away. Other players blasted songs with the word “thug” loudly during workouts in the facility. Players did this to make light of a very tough situation, according to one team source.
“The worst part to me was not owning that he said it,” one player told The Athletic.
IMO, If this is the case and this incident was never smoothed over with the players then this falls squarely on the Koby. You either get rid of the players who are that immature or you read the locker room (hello Mr. Griffin) and come to a mutual split early January. To be fair to Koby, Dan was unhealthy and it's a big call considering it's his hire (article cites that Gilbert denied he made the call on Beilein fwiw).
This was a terrible culture fit all around. I wish JB luck the rest of the way, hope Beilein lands on his feet with a major program (Texas looks promising) but I also hope I don't have to watch Love in a Cavs jersey for long. The lack of professionalism from that dude compared to his minimal impact on winning is pretty jarring.
