Cleveland Sports Forum

Speculation is that he wants to go back to being a college head coach. Getting out now would allow him to be the popular choice for a number of college jobs. Finishing the season with the Cavs will eliminate a lot of those jobs.

Hayden Grove @H_Grove

Cleveland coaches since 2013:

Browns:
-Mike Pettine
-Hue Jackson
-Gregg Williams
-Freddie Kitchens
-Kevin Stefanski

Cavs:
-Mike Brown
-David Blatt
-Ty Lue
-Larry Drew
-John Beilein
-(We’ll see)

Indians:
-Terry Francona

Successful college coaches have their system and the really good players know that
they (players) will not be there long.

Final Thoughts: John Beilein, David Blatt and the valuable lessons they teach us


By Jason Lloyd Feb 21, 2020 37


1. Whether John Beilein was Dan Gilbert’s idea or Koby Altman’s choice is irrelevant to this discussion. I have my thoughts on the whole thing, and I’ve made them clear previously. The overwhelming lesson to take from the Beilein disaster is actually quite simple.

2. Stop trying to outsmart everyone else.

3. The Cavs do this all the time. Gilbert loves thinking outside the box. It has made him a fortune in his personal life. It has not served him well with NBA head coaches.

4. Gilbert dislikes retreads. So the last two times the Cavs had a wide-ranging coaching search, it has left them with two outside-the-box hires. Both choices blew up in their face.

5. In 2014, Gilbert went across the Atlantic to find his head coach. He plucked David Blatt out of Israel against the wishes of his front office. Blatt lasted 1 1/2 years, but they were a painful 1 1/2 years for everyone involved. Blatt might have had a wonderful basketball mind, but he spent 20 years coaching overseas and had zero experience with the NBA. He was so flustered at times that he often couldn’t diagram plays in huddles, and he lost track of timeouts in a playoff game.

6. And in their first wide-sweeping coaching search since Blatt, the Cavs did the same thing last year. The exact same thing. They did it again.

7. I didn’t get to know John Beilein well, but from everything I’ve been told and witnessed, he’s a very nice man. He didn’t deserve to be treated as poorly by some of his players as he seemed to be. But he had zero NBA experience after 40 years coaching in college. And his NBA experience was an absolute disaster.

8. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. That’s Cavs insanity.

9. I never ripped the Beilein hire at the time it was made. Those I spoke to around the league praised him for having a terrific basketball mind and being a wonderful man. The people I spoke to wondered if the Cavs would give him enough time to implement his system. Turns out, Beilein bailed on himself before the Cavs could.

10. Let this be a lesson for all fans, teams and particularly Cavs ownership and management. They’ve tried twice now to make splashy hires that sounded good in theory and helped them win news conferences, but neither had any NBA experience and — this is the important part — had spent too long coaching in other venues to be able to adapt quickly enough.

11. The NBA moves fast. The game is played fast, teams change fast, dynasties end fast and players can tune out their coach fast. And once they’re gone, it’s hard to get them back. The NBA is unlike any other league on the planet. The money, the egos, athleticism and exhausting schedule make it a unique animal. The travel is relentless. So are the losses on a rebuilding team.

12. Beilein lost exactly 40 games in his last four seasons at Michigan. He lost that many in five months with the Cavs. And now he’s gone.

13. I thought it was extremely poor form for GM Koby Altman not to take questions after Beilein stepped down, and it again showed a lack of leadership within the organization. Just like Altman found the thugs/slugs fiasco serious enough to shuffle his travel schedule and fly to Detroit, then didn’t bother to address it with reporters. This one was worse. Hiding behind a quote in a news release is not showing leadership.

14. When the head coach quits 54 games into his first season, it certainly appears as if the organization is on fire. It’s up to the GM to answer for what happened and figure out a way to show that it is not. Leaving J.B. Bickerstaff to answer the questions his first night on the job isn’t fair to him.

15. The Cavs need leadership. Right now, it’s hard to find any. Anywhere.

Thanks to his 31-point outburst, Sexton is averaging 20.1 points on the season. He ranks 28th in the NBA. He sits 15th in the Eastern Conference. He’s the third-best scorer from his acclaimed 2018 NBA Draft class, trailing just Dallas MVP candidate Luka Doncic and Atlanta All-Star Trae Young. And he is hitting those marks efficiently and often within the flow of the offense.


His shooting percentage is up to 46.1% overall, more than three percentage points higher than last season. His 3-point numbers have risen after a slow start, now hitting a respectable 38.2% from deep. He has scored in double figures every game since Dec. 23 -- the night Jordan Clarkson was traded to Utah and more scoring responsibility was heaped on Sexton’s shoulders. During this stretch, Sexton has been one of the conference’s best, ranking seventh in scoring. He has 29 games already with at least 20 points, surpassing last season’s total with 23 games still remaining. Not bad for a chastised sophomore.

So, is Bickerstaff right? Is Sexton, at just 21, too often taken for granted?

“Yeah. For sure,” Kevin Love told cleveland.com. “He can score the s--- out it. More goes into being an all-around player, but he’s such a good scorer. He’s doing it consistently for us.”

Sexton has plenty of room to grow. He still gets torched on the defensive end. Friday night was the latest example. Sexton, Darius Garland and Cedi Osman were often targeted by the Pelicans -- both in the half court and in transition. That’s been a running theme throughout the season, one of the pratfalls of an unconventional, undersized and young backcourt.


“Just taking the one on one challenge. That’s it,” Sexton said. “Don’t allow your man to beat you and create rotations. Once your man gets past you then someone has to help. Once it sprays out then everyone is in a rotation. When it’s like that it’s tough.”

Sexton also has to improve his decision-making. His shot creation for others remains a work in progress. While he’s not a true point guard -- the Cavs recognize as much, drafting Garland to fill that role -- Sexton admitted recently that playmaking is part of his evolution. Scoring is his foundation. It always will be, and he’s really good at it. But he continues to make encouraging strides as a distributor.

Teammate Larry Nance Jr. pointed to one example following Wednesday’s win against the Philadelphia 76ers, as Sexton dropped the ball off to Nance late in the game instead of attempting a more difficult left-handed finish in traffic.

“It might seem trivial, but that goes a long way,” Nance said that night.

On Friday, Sexton finished with three assists. He’s seeing the floor better, recognizing passes that are available. In 11 February games, Sexton is averaging 4.1 assists -- his best passing month ever. He has multiple assists in 18 consecutive games.


At this stage of his development, Sexton is ahead of where many thought he would be. He continues to raise the figurative ceiling.

His second-year scoring numbers are in proximity with second-year Damian Lillard, Kyrie Irving and Devin Booker. The sophomore numbers are better than those put up by Bradley Beal, Russell Westbrook -- a guy one Cavs coach recently used as an interesting comparison -- D’Angelo Russell, Kemba Walker, DeMar DeRozan and De’Aaron Fox, among others.

No matter how bad the team is, no matter what the opponent looks like, scoring at such an efficient rate shouldn’t be taken for granted.

“Collin is a rare guy where he can roll out of bed and get you 20 and it’s not common in the NBA. He has the ability to do that,” Bickerstaff said.

The 36th annual NBA Draft Lottery will determine the order of selection for the first 14 picks of the 2020 NBA Draft. Drawings will be conducted to determine the first four picks in the NBA Draft. The remainder of the “lottery teams” will select in positions five through 14 in inverse order of their 2019-20 regular-season records. The actual lottery procedure will take place in a separate room just before ESPN’s national broadcast. Select media members, NBA officials and representatives of the participating teams and the accounting firm of Ernst & Young will be in attendance for the drawings.

Cavaliers will have 14% chance of getting the first pick and can pick no lower than #6.

TFIR, if you are still doing NBA fantasy. LaMelo Ball for the Hornets is going to be a superstar.

Might be time to start watching the Kiddie Cavs again. Team is fun to watch and they play hard !

Sure was a great first week! Ball did ZERO against them in the opener, while Okoro looked good.
Rallied twice from big deficits to tie at the end of 4, and 5, and then wiped out the Pistons in the 6th quarter.
Destroyed the Sixers, who played without Embiid, but Cleveland lacked Love for 3 quarters and also had no Okoro, Windler or Porter.

Sexton has continued what he started in the last months of last mini season
Garland has been dramatically better, with 25 assists and 6 turnovers; the ratio was 1/5/1 last year when he rated as statistically the worst player in the NBA
Drummond has done his job
Osman off the bench has been scoring well.
Exum looks like a solid backup guard
Okoro didn't score a point in game 2 and missed game 3 but is doing what he's supposed to on defense.

They will probably not go undefeated, and may not make the playoffs, but sure play hard and are fun to watch.

wild NBA day yesterday; besides the Cavs trouncing Philly by 20+ [had been up as much as 32]; the Clippers were down by 50 at halftime to Dallas; and the Knicks mashed the Bucks by 20.

In ESPN weekly ratings the Cavs soar 8 spots, from last to No. 22, noting this is the first 3-0 start in a season without LeBron since 2000. That means since Sexton was 1 year old, Garland just born and Okoro not yet

rusty2 wrote:TFIR, if you are still doing NBA fantasy. LaMelo Ball for the Hornets is going to be a superstar.

Yesterday LaMelo Ball became the youngest player to ever have a triple double in NBA history !

Too bad everyone on the Cavs is hurt, they're playing pretty well. Beat terrible Memphis a couple nights ago with their top 4 guards as well as Love and a cople others hurt. Having a real NBA coach doesn't hurt a bit.

rusty - curious on your take on the Cavs part in the Harden deal.

Seems to me Jarrett Allen (22 years old) is a great get for their future at the center position.

that's what I'm reading; Bleacher Report had four "experts" grade each team in the deal and Cavs got an A- two A's and an A+. Nets across the board got the lowest grade.