Entering sports hibernation: While We’re Waiting
July 14, 2015Top Indians prospect Bradley Zimmer earns promotion to Double-A
July 14, 2015Cavaliers head coach David Blatt was a proud, occasionally prickly character during his first year in the NBA. Now that the season is over, he says that adjusting to America’s top basketball league was a little tougher than he expected after spending some two decades coaching overseas. Blatt’s pre-NBA coaching stops included stops in Italy, Russia, Turkey, and Greece, as well as Israeli powerhouse Maccabi Tel Aviv, which he led to the 2014 Euroleague championship.
Blatt commented on adjusting to the NBA while serving as a panelist at a scouting school in Las Vegas on Monday.
“When I came to the NBA I was under the impression that this was going to be a breeze,” Blatt said. “I’ve been coaching for 23 years at the highest level in Europe. I coached in the national-team environment, coached professional teams, coached Euroleague teams, and I thought I knew basketball and I thought I knew how to coach. Which, in my mind, I did.
“But I realized that when I came over here it was a very, very different game with a whole new set of problems and a whole slew of things to deal with inside and outside of the game.”
Part of the adjustment, Blatt said, was the limited amount of practice time allowed. European leagues do not have players unions — “I sure as hell wish there wasn’t one over here, either,” Blatt said to some laughs — and there are fewer restrictions as to how much and how soon coaches can prepare their teams before the season. The NBA schedule is a different beast, and one that took Blatt some time to get accustomed to.
“We’re not allowed the luxury of calling guys in for formal workouts until a very specific date. Then, the moment we get them, we’re limited to four two-a-days in our preparation period, which is somewhere between three and four weeks. We used to have four two-a-days in two days overseas.”
Blatt did not come into the easiest of situations. Taking over any team with LeBron James on the roster is a tall order, and the Cavaliers were under the microscope all season long. Expectations were high with James, Kevin Love, and Kyrie Irving on the roster, and things became yet more complicated when a midseason roster overhaul brought in Iman Shumpert, J.R. Smith, and Timofey Mozgov.
The Cavs rallied in the second half of the season — after a now-famous bowling trip — after scuffling for the first couple months. Things became even tougher in the playoffs, as the Cavs lost both Love and Irving to injury. An undermanned Cavs side represented the Eastern Conference in the NBA Finals, where they fell to the Golden State Warriors.
The injury-complicated nature of the season, and especially of the Finals, was not lost on Blatt.
“We were playing every game with a different team,” Blatt said. “We started off with one team, then we lost one guy so we had to change a little bit of the way we played. Played a few more games and another guy went down, played with a different team, that guy came back, then all of sudden we were playing with half of our old team and it just kind of went like that as we went along.
“I’m really [angry] we didn’t play the final series with all of our players,” he added.
Next season is a long ways away. With a full year of NBA experience (and with LeBron and the Cavs), Blatt could find his second season a touch less taxing than his first.
12 Comments
I like Blatt the Person. I think he’s funny, and when he talks about basketball, he’s direct and informative.
Blatt the NBA Coach left some things to be desired, and it looks like he realizes it. This is a good thing to read/hear. I think it will probably go a long way with the media and players as well.
did the article get cut off? seems like there should be another sentence..
He may have been over his head at first, but I always felt he would figure it out. It’s amazing how many people wanted to bury him because he didn’t get it right away.
Darn word monster ate a few at the end — it’s since been amended. Thanks!
Thank you Tyronn Lue. 😉
Blatt still hasn’t figured out how to lie to the media. He is so very honest. It’s shocking that he would reveal so much of his true feelings to the media.
Much like various other players on that team, after a whirwind year getting to know each other and learning how to play together… I think we’ll see an even better Blatt in 2015-16.
I mean, when you consider how hodge-podged together that team was last year, with new coaches and a whole new identity and dynamic, AND all the spotlight pressure… the fact that they made the finals is astounding.
yes! I’m shocked he admitted he thought the NBA would be a cake walk. Wears his heart on his sleeve. No wonder Dan likes him.
And, he never will. Middle Eastern culture. I loved working with the engineers there because they would tell you exactly what they thought about designs, plans, etc. Maybe not in the tone you would like, but no apologies about that either.
I think he didn’t quickly realize that he had to. You know, in Europe he’s been treated with the deference given to a great coach and he clearly thinks of himself as smart and charming. Looked like he was initially stunned that no one here acknowledges his successful life’s work there.
well, the specific Israeli culture often expects aggressive bantering with a questioner. Zingers are both thrown and expected. Sometimes when he did that playfully it was reported as defensive or argumentative. And sometimes it was defensive – I think he was surprised that his coaching accomplishments are widely viewed as minor league, that he’s a sort of coaching Crash Davis here.
Blatt is a great coach and a real gentleman. I have been a fan since his coaching years in Israel. Thank goodness there is a coach that speaks his mind and is honest to a tee. I am sick of all the PC coaches out there. Blatt is a winner and made the most of a bad situation with two of his star players out for the Finals.
Until I read this interview, I hadn’t a clue regarding the NBA Union rules about practice. That is insane. this is a multi-billion dollar business and the team owners should be able to hold as many practices as they deem fit. These multi-million dollar players are all primadonnas.