Tag: David Blatt

Big Night Looms for Cavs Tomorrow.

Tomorrow night could be a huge new beginning for the Cleveland Cavaliers.  They have a new GM in David Griffin making the selections, including the first pick in the draft.

They also introduced a new coach in David Blatt.  In his introductory press conference today, he proclaimed himself, not an offensive coach or a defensive coach, but a basketball coach.  That is music to the ears of all critics of Mike Brown.

We still remember Brown’s ridiculous comment when the Cavs were struggling on the offensive end early in the year, and he said they didn’t spend any time on offense during training camp.

The new head coach realizes you have to play well on both ends of the court.

We believe the new team of Griffin and Blatt will make wholesale changes to the current roster, with at least 1/3 of the players (that’s at least five guys) being turned over this summer, and it could all start tomorrow night.

Will the wine and gold hold on to the pick or will they make a deal to bring in a proven young player to add to Kyrie Irving.

If they keep the number one choice, we feel they should take Duke forward Jabari Parker.

Parker, listed at 6’8″ and 241 pounds (although it has been reported he weighs 15 more than that) averaged 19.1 points and almost nine rebounds for the Blue Devils last season.

Why take him over Kansas forward Andrew Wiggins?  Because although Wiggins is the better athlete, Parker is the better basketball player.

Many experts say Wiggins has a huge upside, but will he reach that vast potential?  He shot just 44.1% from the floor for the Jayhawks last season.  Parker shot 47% from the floor and has a better mid-range and post up game than his Kansas counterpart.

Of course, if Joel Embiid hadn’t broken his foot, it would be a moot point.  Embiid might be the best big man to enter the league in many years, but the injury factor is too much to ignore.  He also missed time this season due to a stress fracture in his back.

Still, Embiid may have impressed Griffin enough that he would trade down to the 4th to 6th pick range, pick up another young player and still take the big man later in the first round.

If the Cavs’ brass truly think the injuries are not career threatening, then they may do just that, thus having their cake and eating it too.

One thing the front office needs to ignore is the temptation to make moves on draft day to entice LeBron James to come back to Cleveland, because if he doesn’t sign with the Cavaliers, it could set the franchise back a few more years.

If James wants to come back to the Cavs, and we feel he will either do that or go back to Miami, then that will just be icing on that cake.

Cleveland has several good young players and could move some depth at the power forward and point guard spots to get another big man and a shooting guard.  Even if James doesn’t return, they would still be set for the future.

After having the top choice in the draft in three of the last four seasons, here’s hoping we don’t have it again for a long, long time.  That is, of course unless James leaves the Heat and we get it again through their first round pick.

JK

On Surface, Choice of Blatt is Outstanding.

The Cleveland Cavaliers made a bold choice yesterday and we love it.

They hired David Blatt as their new head coach despite the fact that he’s never been a head coach on American soil.  He has however, been very successful in the European circuit and on the international level.

Now, no one can be totally evaluated until he starts coaching games in the regular season, but there is no question that he is able to handle professional players and he has coached men, not college kids.

And as for the argument that he will have a lot to learn because he’s never coached in the NBA, not many people made that argument when the Celtics hired former Butler University coach Brad Stevens last season, and let’s face it, there isn’t a lot of imagination in the NBA game anyway.

Most teams run isolation and pick-and-roll based offenses in the association, and defending that is something that every basketball coach learns early in their career.  It’s more about getting players to want to play on the other end of the floor.

But what has us excited is Blatt’s reputation as a superior offensive mind.  The new coach’s system is predicated on ball movement, much like the Spurs, and that is the way the game is supposed to be played.

Many have speculated that his approach will not mesh well with Kyrie Irving, but we disagree.  Irving has grown frustrated in the past two years because in his second season, the whole burden was put on him, and last year, there basically was no offense.

It has to be frustrating when there is no movement away from the ball to free players up for good shots.  In Blatt’s system there will be constant movement of the ball and players who don’t have it won’t be standing in one place, making it easy to be defended.

If Irving doesn’t love playing in that system, then we know what kind of player he is, and he can be moved on while he still has a tremendous amount of value.

The other reason hiring Blatt is the correct move is that it has everything to do with moving with the future.  GM David Griffin hired a coach who is an actual coach, meaning he will try to make everyone better and will develop young talent.

They didn’t try to do anything else with the hire, and by that we mean trying to kiss up to LeBron James, which we think the Mike Brown hire was partially about, and the pursuit of John Calipari was all about.

If James wants to return here, great.  But the Cavaliers needed to start moving forward and needed to stop making moves designed to lure the four-time MVP to come back.

We still believe that Blatt’s hire is just the first step in trying to get the wine and gold back to the playoffs.  Griffin needs to restructure the roster and get away from the point guard/power forward heavy group assembled by former GM Chris Grant.

That means we will likely see a busy couple of weeks on the basketball front in Cleveland, as we think about one-third of the current 15 man roster will be turned over before training camp opens in October.

That’s because the way Griffin envisions his team and the way Blatt coaches is a match.  That’s another thing to like about this hire.

Finally, there is a direction at Quicken Loans Arena.

JK