The Chicago Bulls handed the Cleveland Cavaliers an opening day defeat to start this NBA season.
For Tyronn Lue’s debut as the new head coach of the Ohio franchise, the Bulls gleefully repeated the favour.
Given the sudden – and dramatic – switch from David Blatt to Lue, it was perhaps not that big a surprise the Cavs looked disjointed, and at times, dispirited, as the Bulls used a 28-19 third quarter run on their way to a 96-83 win at Quicken Loans Arena.
Chicago feasted on a miasma of mediocrity from the Cavs, with Cleveland all too often relying on ugly iso-ball, which saw a litany of missed layups, three-pointers and even free throws, misfiring on 13 of their 22 attempts from the charity stripe.
In the grand scheme of things the loss isn’t cataclysmic for Cleveland, indeed, the Cavs won eight straight after the opening day defeat to Chicago, and without Kyrie Irving and Iman Shumpert for that matter.
Not that that was enough to save Blatt, and nor was a 30-11 record, making the 56-year-old the first to be fired while holding such a dominant spot in the standings.
But he’s hardly the first successful coach to be given his marching orders either.
The obvious historical NBA analogies are Paul Westhead at Los Angeles in late 1981 and Doug Collins at Chicago following the end of the 1989 playoffs.
Westhead was the victim of a Magic Johnson-led player revolt, a petulant act that saw Johnson heartily booed at the Great Western Forum in the immediate aftermath.
It was as shocking a dismissal the NBA could have had at the time, given the Lakers won the 1980 title less than 18 months earlier under Westhead, who was himself initially given the top job only because incumbent Jack McKinney suffered serious injuries following a bicycle accident just 14 games into the 1979-80 campaign.
At a memorable press conference after firing Westhead, Lakers owner Jerry Buss tried a convoluted replacement, installing Jerry West and Pat Riley as co-coaches. When West publicly baulked at the idea, Buss tried to name West as “offensive captain”. The no-nonsense West wanted no part of such contretemps and the job was all Riley’s.
By season’s end, however, those boos were but a distant memory as the Lakers surged to the 1982 title (the first of four under the relentless Riley), led by Johnson’s finest all-round season that saw him average 18.6 points, 9.6 rebounds and 9.5 assists.
Meanwhile, the emotionally volatile Collins wore out his welcome in Chicago, fired despite the Bulls pushing the eventual champion Detroit Pistons to six games in the Eastern Conference Finals in 1989.
Indeed, the Bulls put up more of a fight than the Lakers did in the Finals that year; Los Angeles blown away by the blunt force trauma of the Bad Boys at their brutal peak.
It went unnoticed at the time, but it was also the beginning of the end of the Riley era at the Lakers, with both Magic Johnson and Byron Scott crippled by torn hamstring injuries that were entirely attributable to a tortuous pre-Finals mini-camp Riley insisted on putting the team through.
Within a year, Riley was gone too, perversely a victim of another player revolt, thanks to his own incessant thirst for success, no matter the cost.
Collins had nursed and developed a young Bulls team on the cusp of greatness, but the roller-coaster of emotions and his behind-the-scenes battles with general manager Jerry Krause – a man who had given him his job no less – meant principal owner Jerry Reinsdorf had little choice but to find a more stable replacement.
As Sam Smith noted in The Jordan Rules, the players, too, had wearied of Collins raging at them one day, hugging them the next – Michael Jordan memorably telling his fellow all-stars at a charity exhibition, “You may think you’ve got problems with your coaches, but, well, mine cries every day”.
The search for a replacement didn’t go far, with assistant Phil Jackson getting the nod, and the rest, as they say in the classics, was history.
But Blatt had no such cachet, his European honours and credentials counting for very little among a veteran group of NBA players who want or need nothing more than a firm, respected hand on the tiller. Be that from a former player turned coach or, like in Miami, a coach who has the iron-clad backing of the front office.
Blatt was and had neither, despite Cleveland owner Dan Gilbert reportedly being an unabashed fan.
Even his appointment, just days before LeBron James returned to the Cavaliers, was an indictment on the Cavs’ front office, who were in no way prepared for even the possibility of James coming home.
Blatt was hired for one job, to develop the likes of Andrew Wiggins, Kyrie Irving and even Dion Waiters; the moment James signed on to return to the Q and Wiggins was traded for Kevin Love, the fit went from glass slipper to a pair of left-footed clogs three sizes too small.
And then there is James, who is damned if he did knife Blatt and just as damned if he didn’t.
The four-time NBA MVP will regardless have to wear the black hat for Blatt’s dismissal, despite Cavs general manager David Griffin strenuously, repeatedly stating James was not consulted prior to the firing.
At a press conference to discuss the move, Griffin said, “So, I’ve got a problem in general with this narrative, and those of you that have been with us for a while understand this.
“LeBron plays for this team. And he’s the leader of this team. And he desperately wants to bring a championship to this team. LeBron doesn’t run this organisation. LeBron is about this organisation, and he is of this organisation, and he’s of our community.
But this narrative that somehow we’re taking direction from him, it’s just not fair. It’s not fair to him in particular. But frankly, it’s kind of not fair to me and our group anymore.”
It has been interesting to note the deafening silence coming from all of Cleveland’s players regarding the sacking, not a hint of any player leaping to his defence.
Indeed, even Lue inadvertently condemned his predecessor, saying in his opening press conference that he wouldn’t necessarily do things differently, “just better”.
Oooof. Ouch.
James, for his part, had been positive in his comments about Blatt throughout this season, a notable difference to last year when there was plenty of ambiguity at different times, but especially early, when everyone was still finding their feet.
It’s easy enough to blame him but look a little deeper and if there was ever a peace accord, it was an uneasy truce at best, the only thing that was truly surprising was the timing.
Easy to say in hindsight, admittedly, but the better question is – would the Cavaliers have hired Blatt if James had already returned? Almost certainly not and if there is blame to be apportioned, surely much of it should go to the front office and especially Griffin, who were never properly prepared to begin with.
So where to from here for the Cavs?
They still have an elite defence and a potent offensive cast (Lue’s prediction of using Love more at the elbows should help immeasurably there).
There is still trade chatter about Timofey Mozgov (although that has faded and the Cavs would no doubt be hoping the Spurs upend Golden State in the playoffs, allowing them to go big). And they still have that handy $10.5 million trade exception – although who they use it on is another question altogether. Courtney Lee or Jeff Green would fit like the aforementioned glass slipper.
Championship or bust was always the expectation for Cleveland this year; after going so close without two of their best three players last season, a long-awaited title for not just the team but the city itself was the only acceptable result in 2016.
Where Blatt failed, Lue simply must succeed. He has to galvanise the locker room, chemistry cannot be manufactured and it all starts with James.
Apparently, “pretty good” doesn’t cut it and the only way we’ll know if this was the right move is in June. If nothing else, it raises the intrigue levels and then some.
Buckle up, there’s a wild ride ahead.
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