Typically the coach calls the plays and the players execute them. But when one of the players is LeBron James and the coach is in his first year in the NBA, it doesn't always go that way. According to ESPN's Brian Windhorst, David Blatt is just pretending to call a lot of the Cavaliers' plays. Here's what Windhorst said on Bill Simmons' podcast.
LeBron James is actually calling the Cavs’ plays, per report
Cavs coach David Blatt is apparently just pretending to call the plays the team runs -- LeBron is actually the one making decisions.
Casey Sapio-USA TODAY Sports
What typically happens—and this has been happening for like three months now—is LeBron will take the ball, and LeBron will call the play. David Blatt will see what play LeBron calls, and he will repeat it to the team. That happens on a regular basis.
In January -- so, about three months ago, when this apparently started happening -- Windhorst reported that the team was ignoring Blatt’s playcalls and running other stuff. So Blatt must have decided that the team obviously ignoring him was a bad look, and took action to make the play he “called” consistent with the play the team was running.
Blatt’s first year in Cleveland has been a contentious one. As the team struggled early, Cleveland was rife with reports that Blatt wasn’t working out. But the team turned it around -- they’re 15-5 since the All-Star Break -- and now sits second in the Eastern Conference. Of course, if Windhorst’s report is true, that might have relatively little to do with Blatt, though.
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