Sources: Why David Blatt was fired

[jackswstd]

Don't understand how these dudes be too shook to call Bron out on something

 

[Osmosis]

How David Blatt never stood a chance with LeBron James and his camp


Before David Blatt ever conducted his first training camp practice in September 2014, Cleveland Cavaliers star LeBron James and his agent, Rich Paul, had the coach's succession plan in place:Mark Jackson.

To become the preferred candidate of the most powerful player in the NBA – and de facto Cavaliers general manager – Jackson understood what he needed to do: Bring on James' and Paul's Klutch Sports agency as his representation, and prepare to deliver those commission fees into the King's coffers. Blatt never had a chance. He never knew what hit him.

From the beginning, the Klutch Sports campaign to puncture Blatt's standing as head coach had been as relentless as it was ruthless. James is one of the great leaders in pro sports, and he directed the Cavaliers how he wanted them: in complete defiance of Blatt.


the Cavaliers firing the coach of the defending Eastern Conference champions and runaway No. 1 seed. Over a season and a half on the job, associate head coach Tyronn Lue fought hard to stay loyal to Blatt, balancing that line of hearing out James' and Paul's barrages on Blatt and yet still urging them to give the coach a chance.


In the end, here was the problem for Klutch Sports' original plan: Cleveland refused to hire Jackson. General manager David Griffin is too well-connected in the NBA, too knowledgeable of the truths inside Jackson's Warriors regime to let that happen. So much of Griffin's job has been to manage the constant demands of James' camp and the volatility of owner Dan Gilbert. As much as anything, his job has been to bridge the chaos above and below him.

Once James' camp realized that Jackson would never be considered as coach – nor would Lue leave his representation to join Klutch Sports agency, despite overtures – Lue became a compromise choice for James' group, sources said. They started pushing for Lue to replace Blatt last season, and grew louder in those calls in recent days and weeks.

Gilbert made Lue the league's highest-paid assistant coach at $2 million-plus a year, forever considering him the head-coach-in-waiting should Blatt need to go. Ultimately, Blatt had little staying power with the Cavaliers, because James had turned Blatt's removal into an inevitability. As the games wore on, opposing players on the floor weren't only watching James constantly wave off plays from the coach – but role players feeling emboldened to disregard the head coach's instructions, too.

James had the Cavaliers existing in open rebellion for over a season now, with no Pat Riley in the organizational shadows to scare everyone into compliance.

Despite winning 11 of 13 games – losing only to the Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs – James had become increasingly vocal in his opposition of Blatt in recent practice sessions and game environments. Within the franchise, it was hard to hear anything else. LeBron James and Rich Paul never had to walk into the GM's office and demand the firing of the coach. All together, they had the capability of making everyone's life hell until the deed was done.

Blatt made mistakes in his transition to the NBA, struggled sometimes to gather the nuances of a complex game of matchups and situations. He had coached in the Euroleague for two decades, and had to sell himself on a new coaching staff, a new roster and the generation's best player.


Tristan Thompson, whom they leveraged into a five-year, $82 million contract. Rival agents find themselves spending more time with clients who end up with the Cavaliers, if only because Rich Paul and his associates work to pilfer players for Klutch Sports, promising the power of James' influence in contract talks with the team.


So here's what's coming now: the trickle of stories on Blatt's incompetence, the fact that no one respected him, and maybe most of all, that James had nothing to do with his firing. For all the fairytales sold on James' return to Cleveland, this was forever about business – the kind of business they couldn't do within Riley's organization, nor Erik Spoelstra's locker room.

LeBron James runs the Cleveland organization, a choice Dan Gilbert made upon the superstar's return to Northeast Ohio. There's no shame there. Nothing that needs an apology out of him. He's constructed a way to maximize his basketball and business interests on Gilbert's dime, and it is possible that James will get all that and win a championship, too.

Once the Cavaliers decided to fire Blatt on Friday, they offered Lue a three-year deal. He considered taking the job on an interim basis for the rest of the season, betting on himself, but ultimately decided on a three-year, $9.5 million contract, sources told Yahoo Sports. This is still the opportunity of a lifetime, a fabulous array of talent that gives a young coach the chance to chase championships.

Only now, Ty Lue gets to try and do something that LeBron James hadn't wanted in his final season in Miami, nor his first year and a half back in Cleveland: to be coached. They pushed David Blatt out, and found a compromise candidate. No commission fees for Klutch Sports on Ty Lue, leaving him with no choice but to win big and win now.

You have to take this with the same grain of salt as the article about blatt. Woj is anti Lebron

Basketball's Biggest Reporter Is Waging War on ESPN—And He'll Do Anything to Win
http://deadspin.com/5811311/every-overwrought-thing-adrian-wojnarowski-has-said-about-lebron-james

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[Osmosis]

That wasn't a vendetta piece though. Everyone knows Lebron runs the team

yes but woj has a history of inaccurate reporting when it comes to Lebron.. I find it very hard to believe he knows the ins and outs of the Cavs locker room

When Wojnarowski wasn’t busy writing about James with “prose lifted from Travis Bickle’s diary,” as Tommy Craggs once described it at Slate, he was flailing around for James-related news. Between 2008 and mid-2010 Wojnarowski wrote ten columns about James’ impending free agency. He brought up nearly a quarter of the league as potential destinations—including devoting one column to the ludicrous idea that James would join the Dumars-led Pistons. It was only a little over a month before James’s ill-fated ESPN special “The Decision” that Wojnarowski mentioned James’ eventual destination, Miami, for the first time—and even then, he returned shortly to naming incorrect teams.

Wojnarowski would likely say that he was merely relaying what league sources told him, not definitively saying that James would or would not sign with a specific team. But that’s precisely the problem. Wojnarowski’s reporting is rife with opinion, conjecture, and speculation—whether his own or an anonymous league source’s—and it can be impossible to tell what he is actually reporting. When Wojnarowskiwrote “the Chicago Bulls are still the team to beat, with Cleveland a close second and New Jersey the looming wild card” a week before James chose Miami, there was no indication whether that was sourced information, a guess, or something in-between. Four days before James left Cleveland, Wojnarowski wrote a similarly incorrect and murkily sourced sentence about James meeting with teams: “he needed the threat of leaving [Cleveland], even if there was never truly the intent.” As one beat writer described Wojnarowski’s writing in relation to his peers: “Most of those guys, [USA Today’s Sam] Amick and [Yahoo’s Marc] Spears and [ESPN’s Marc] Stein … just write straight news, and you don’t really get as confused by news and what is their opinion.”

A week after “The Decision,” Wojnarowski wrote a 4,000 word ticktock assuredly describing how James came to choose Miami, a stunning act of hubris. His reporting on LeBron James was consistently sloppy and poorly sourced, yet Wojnarowski had the audacity to present his piece as the definitive account. With just two quotes from anonymous sources and a history of being wrong about James, it doesn’t deserve to be treated as reliable. NBA writer Ethan Sherwood Strauss summed it up well: “If all this was so telegraphed, then Wojnarowski missed multiple Morse code memos. Now Adrian claims retroactive omniscience? My temples throb at the thought. Insiders should prove their status with a hefty helping of named sources. I give leeway to those with impeccable track records, but Adrian just whiffed on a big one.”

Four years later, Wojnarowski whiffed again. Last February he wrote a piece titled “How Cleveland lost its way, and lost a chance at LeBron's return.” LeBron James returned to Cleveland five months later.

Those within the league think Wojnarowski’s criticism of LeBron stems from reporting failures. “I don’t know if LeBron’s whole camp or just LeBron shafted [Wojnarowski], but [Wojnarowski] was having trouble getting to him,” a former team employee he tried to cultivate as a source told me. Somebody else familiar with Wojnarowski and James’ relationship said, “Adrian does not talk to LeBron, or people in LeBron’s camp. He doesn’t do any reporting with LeBron James or his people.” (Both spoke on condition of anonymity, citing fears that Wojnarowski would harm their careers.)

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[ThaRealness]

Uh...the Warriors and Spurs are better basketball teams by a lot. Is that a good excuse?

A perennial loser is a perennial loser

 

[Wacky D]

david blatt = chip kelly
just the opposite end of the spectrum.

blatt left his stern dictator ways overseas but he tucked his nuts in the process.

with that said, blatt would be a better college coach. but he can bounce back in a few years. starting with being kerr's top assistant next year.

 

[mson]

He drew plays for players who were not even in the game

That nikka was probably drawing up plays for Tyronn Lue

 

[gtj1982]

Knew this shyt was going down when bron had c00nin A blame the loss to the warriors on Blatt during first take and didn't direct one iota of criticism towards lebron for a 40 point blow out.

Then after the firing c00nin A came out had tried to make us believe that bron had nothing to do with the firing last night




Saturdays game just got more exciting what a way to kick off NBA saturday nights

 

[Broad Street Bully]

the boy is one of the biggest on this mothafukka. man can do no type of wrong in his eyes

 

[Tookalossfellbackcameback]

This has absolutely nothing to do with Bron's BBIQ. It's all about his ego. Lue's going to let him run whatever he wants on offense, and is basically the second-best option after Marc Jackson (who Bron wanted originally upon his return to Cleveland).

Exactly. Bron is a smart, calculating guy on the court and off it. This isn't about anything other than continuing to feed his ego...the same ego he's had since HS. Bottom line is the nicca doesn't want anybody telling him what to do, and his generational talent and physical gifts have given him luxury of dictating to people and rarely vice versa... and being in that situation for a few years with Riley, Spo and Wade had him uncomfortable and vexed as hell. If you want to frame it as a young black man exercising his power as a premier athlete and call it black excellence that's fine...I just think it's a guy who doesn't want anybody telling him shyt, except maybe a couple of his homies that he grew up with.

 

[Mr_X]

No coach will have any kind of power and will merely be a puppet as long as Lebron's hoe ass is in Cleveland.

This whole made up narrative ain't fooling anyone

 

[MJ Truth]

This is also what got Mike brown fired in Cleveland. He was also hesitant to criticize Lebron James as well.

I love Lebron the athlete and the businessman, however he's creating a disaster in Cleveland right now. Blatt gone, That Wiggins for love trade is looking bad right about now, and a lot of the Clevland free agents Lebron wanted aren't working out. This is not looking good for LBJ.

Its looking bad for LeBron that other people are too shook of him to do their jobs? I said it before, you can't blame LBJ for Blatt not being a man as a coach and everyone said he doesn't wanna get fired and Bron won't let him. Well you see where acting like a coward got him.

Classic hit piece. All these stories / anecdotes magically appear after the fact

None of this shyt magically appeared, people have been saying this shyt last season.

 

[Edub]

I'm calling

Funny how we just learning about this now

This isn't fake...these things were talked about last year with Blatt...if u followed the team this isn't that surprising.

 

[Edub]

Lebron James PR team in damage control mode fukk outta here with this bullshyt

What damage is being controlled here...nobody gave a fukk about David Blatt in the first place...most didn't want him to be coach in the first place...it was pretty much everyone taking the word of the front office on him. DUDE IS BLESSED HE GOT THE CHANCE...FOH wit the damage control shyt. No one gives a shyt bout Blatt.

 

[Art Barr]

The funny part in this is.
If blatt was fired for his lack of accountability.
Then, that means lue should get fired as well.
As, lue never coached anyone up.
When blatt was failing in the Gs game.
Lue was not on the sideline coming up with any solutions as well.
That lue never made any actual adjustments in the loss.
This is just an inept call and inept calls have been made.
Ever since the idiot who was STOOPID ENOUGH TO TRADE AWAY ANDREW WIGGNS.


ART BARR

 

[mson]

What damage is being controlled here...nobody gave a fukk about David Blatt in the first place...most didn't want him to be coach in the first place...it was pretty much everyone taking the word of the front office on him. DUDE IS BLESSED HE GOT THE CHANCE...FOH wit the damage control shyt. No one gives a shyt bout Blatt.

Some people gave a fukk. David was in an awful being a novice and coaching Lebron. It is what it is at the end of the day .