Cavs fire Blatt

[Don]

The Cleveland Cavaliers fired their coach and I'm pretty sure this is the best record whether you go by win-loss or some advanced metric stuff where a coach got fired that wasn't because the coach committed a crime or something. Now what I don't get is all the guys talking about Blatt being an international legend in basketball, because international legend in NBA is about as meaningful so far credential is concerned as 'Internet tough guy'. I know he has trouble getting the guys to buy in on his stuff, but there looks to be legitimate reasons as to why people rejected that. The most notable example would be that one game with 1 second left on the clock he decided to have LeBron inbound the ball because nobody would possibly expect to see that, since if LeBron inbounds the ball there isn't enough time for him to get the ball back with 1 second left on the clock and nobody would be prepared for a play where LeBron doesn't even have a chance to touch the ball. He was overruled by LeBron and LeBron ended up taking the final shot and win the game, but that's not really the point. It's fine if you can't inbound the ball to LeBron and you have to pass it someone else, but there's a reason why you try to get the ball to LeBron first if it's at all possible. I also remember in the same series he had the great idea of leaving Pau Gasol completely unguarded in the mid range because he must have heard from the analytics guys that mid range shots at the worst shot in NBA. However that's only contested mid range shots and any decent NBA guy that isn't named Rajon Rondo can make them at a very efficient clip when completely unguarded.

Now of course you can always find something wrong with a coach with armchair quarterbacking but some of his decisions just seem totally clueless. I don't think NBA is fundamentally different from international basketball (rules aren't quite the same), but he certainly did a good job reinforcing the notion that all leagues besides NBA is insignificant.

[Zeus]

They basically felt like they were winning in spite of him than because of him. And they went completely all in this year, no fuck ups allowed. Odd, yes, but there's a reason and it makes sense

[Don]

I actually expected him to get fired. What I don't get is the guys who somehow thought he should've gotten more respect because of his international basketball credentials. Does anyone really think NBA players care about that kind of stuff? The team basically treated him like a rookie coach, and I don't know why anyone was surprised at that. It'd be like if some USA legendary soccer coach went to Premier Leagues and found out that nobody held USA soccer in very high esteem. I think he had about as much expectation for his credentials as I would expect LeBron to listen to me for being a great Internet warrior. I'm not saying he's a bad coach (or a good coach) as a function of his background, but why would anyone be surprised that his credentials is worth next to nothing in NBA?

[Replay]

Coaching professional or college sports of any kind, for all that it's a lionized, highly paid, highly prized job...well, I mean, obviously a lot of people want those jobs and think they have the best job in the world while they're doing it.

That being said, a lot of coaches have to live in fear all the time, because:

1) The system favors shitbags like Tarkanian or Belichick who look the other way on wrongdoing, pass bribes to players, offer bounties, etc. etc. etc. over anyone with an ounce of integrity.
2) Closely related, the fans prize winning over EVERYTHING else...particularly integrity or human decency. Look how many passes Joe Paterno's program got even while Sandusky was raping kids in the showers over and over and over, drunken fucks were still out crying over how unfair it was that the program was getting investigated because hey, they were winning, and so who cared if a bunch of kids got raped to keep the machine going? And the reverse of it - that if you're *not* winning it doesn't matter whether or not the causes are even a little bit beyond your control, the fans will jeer, hate you, burn you in effigy and think they could do better, whether or not they could actually coach so much as a Girl Scouts' cookie display themselves - is also true.
3) As a result coaches have ZERO job security. Less than zero. Start losing for one season even if you've been winning for five - or pull a 70% win rate when you're expected to have 85% - and you will get fired, sometimes in under a month. Get in a pissing match with the owners or any part of the front-office machinery, even if you're in the right, and you will get fired. Mercury goes into retrograde and the owner's bratty son has a bad dream or a fight with his wife or girlfriend or boyfriend and you will get fired.

So...pro coaching of any kind has one of the highest turnover rates in any profession anywhere.

By the way, I know some of the coaches I picked as examples are in football and not basketball, but really on the points I mentioned, it makes no difference.

Sports is a fucked up world in sooooo many ways that the average fan has no idea about.

[Don]

Well, I think people always knew that coaching in terms of decision making is probably overrated which is why teams aren't exactly shy about firing a guy who is likely overpaid. Luke Walton went 39-4 as an interim coach for the Warriors when Steve Kerr is out, and it's hard to imagine he had any significant experience or insight. While it might be an exaggeration to say anybody could've got the Cavs to finals, that's only a slight exaggeration because it's not really that hard to tell LeBron to make something happen and that's probably enough in a weak conference like the East.

Now coaches are probably valuable for being good recruitment (mostly a college thing) though in that case you're hiring someone for being a good salesman, not their coaching expertise. It's true that coaches are valuable for their systems, like whatever system Golden States are running is probably pretty good. Same with San Antonio Spurs, though of course talent still trumps system. It's not exactly rocket science to know that a team of great shooters plus a guy who can create shot opportunities is going to work well in the NBA, and even if you somehow didn't know that, once someone put down the foundation for you it sure is easy to copy that and it's not like the system magically dissolves itself just because the guy who originally implemented it is no longer around.

[Replay]

Don't underestimate a good coach. Look at what happened to the Lakers after Phil Jackson left. Yeah, one can say it was all Shaq, but honestly, I think that's a stretch. Jackson had this cool-headed, court-psychologist style that perfectly mastered and maxed out their potential and fit with the city...the Lakers are now at the *bottom* of the rankings since D'Antoni and the gutting of the team.

Really tarnishing Kobe's legacy more than anything, in my opinion.