The Comeback: LeBron, the Cavs & Cleveland: How LeBron James Came Home and Brought a Championship to Cleveland by Terry Pluto

Author:Terry Pluto [Pluto, Terry]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: 2016 NBA Championship, Tyronn Lue, Kevin Love, LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, Cleveland Cavaliers
ISBN: 9781938441899
Publisher: Gray & Company, Publishers
Published: 2016-10-09T04:00:00+00:00

The View From the Sideline

Chapter 14

Here Comes David Blatt

The coach.

Before LeBron came back to the Cavs, they needed a coach.

They had the first pick in the 2014 draft, which was to be held on June 26. NBA free agency didn’t open until July 1. That was the first day the team could talk to free agents such as LeBron.

Gilbert and Griffin correctly believed they needed a coach in place before the draft. It just made sense. The top pick could be a franchise-changing player. Or at least, a very important player to the franchise. The Cavs were looking at Kansas guard Andrew Wiggins, Kansas center Joel Embiid and Duke forward Jabari Parker. While Griffin had a strong preference for Wiggins, there was no immediate consensus about the draft’s top player. This was not a replay of 2003, when LeBron was the top pick . . . period.

Griffin had two jobs.

He and his scouts had to evaluate the draft. He also had to bring coaching candidates to Gilbert. Griffin could make recommendations, but the final decision rested with the owner.

It always has been like this with Gilbert, and with many other NBA franchises. It’s true that owners generally follow the lead of their general manager when it comes to coach selection. Former Cavs owner Gordon Gund did that. He allowed Harry Weltman to hire and later fire coach George Karl.

When Gund replaced Weltman as general manager with Wayne Embry, it was Embry’s decision to hire Lenny Wilkens as coach.

One of Gilbert’s biggest challenges as an owner is how often and exactly when should he step into a situation such as hiring a coach. Three weeks after taking over as major owner of the Cavs in the spring of 2005, Gilbert fired Paul Silas as coach with 18 games left in the season and a 34-30 record.

Gilbert has several sayings that are sort of like proverbs. One of them is: “Take the roast out of the oven.”

At some point, preparation must stop, dinner should be served. Gilbert would rather the meal be under-cooked a bit than burned to dried-out shoe leather.

Near the end of that 2004–05 season, the Cavs were starting to struggle. Gilbert planned to replace Silas as coach after the season — so why not fire him now?

That was especially true because the Cavs had Brendan Malone as their top assistant. Malone had been an assistant coach with the Detroit Pistons under Chuck Daly. Gilbert grew up in Detroit and was a Pistons fan and a season ticket holder. He knew a lot of people in the Pistons front office and on the coaching staff. Many of them told Gilbert that Malone would be a good head coach.

Malone took over and finished with an 8-10 record. The Cavs missed the playoffs despite a respectable 42-40 record.

After the season, Gilbert fired Jim Paxson as general manager. It was Paxson who’d hired Silas to coach a prized rookie named LeBron James in 2003. While the Cavs made progress under Paxson and Silas, Gilbert wanted his own management team.

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