Cleveland Cavaliers general manager David Griffin emphatically came to the defense of head coach David Blatt, whose job security has been questioned as Cleveland struggled through the first part of the season.
Cavaliers GM insists David Blatt’s job is not in jeopardy
Speaking to reporters on Sunday, David Griffin called reports suggesting coach David Blatt may lose his job “truly ridiculous.”
David Richard-USA TODAY Sports
Speaking to reporters Sunday night prior to his Cavaliers' eventual loss to the Dallas Mavericks, Griffin fired back at recent reports suggesting Cleveland may make a head coaching change and that some of the team's players, especially LeBron James, haven't been responding to Blatt. The Cavaliers are 19-15 after falling by 19 points to the Mavericks and have fallen way short of their lofty expectations so far.
Nevertheless, Griffin ensured that Blatt is in no danger of losing his job.
“The narrative of our coaching situation is truly ridiculous,” Griffin said. “It’s a non-story. It’s a non-narrative.”
Griffin said that before fielding any questions. Here's part of the rest of Grffin's opening statement, via Cleveland site Waiting for Next Year.
"Coach Blatt is our coach, he's going to remain our coach. Do not write that as a vote of confidence. He never needed one. It was never a question. So don't write it that way. I heard the entire audio file of LeBron James' [recent] comments. No more than three different times, he said ‘we are growing together every day; the team grows together every day; and I am happy with who we have at the helm.' But that wasn't a sexy pull quote, so we kept looking for something else until we found something that could sound negative. That narrative is done. No change is being made, period."
Reports about Blatt’s job security first surfaced on Dec. 31 when ESPN cited league sources suggesting that there was a “level of worry within the Cleveland Cavaliers organization about first-year coach David Blatt and his ability to reach the team.” When asked about the report, LeBron James offered only tepid support for Blatt, saying “Yeah, he’s our coach. I mean, what other coach do we have?” But Griffin read James’ comments differently and doesn’t appear to be ready interested in making a change.
"Every member of our organization from top to bottom -- ownership, myself, the players, the coaches, LeBron himself -- signed on for the long haul. This is something we're doing over time. Yes, we've had some bumps; we've had it look really, really bad at times. We've also beaten every team ahead of us in the Eastern Conference. As of three games ago, we had played the sixth-hardest schedule in the league, in terms of winning percentage against, and the toughest in the East. Doing all of that against the backdrop of losing 15 games from our back-up point guard, losing our starting center and now LeBron's been out, Kevin [Love] had been out, Shawn Marion had been out...
Guys, this is a really difficult recipe to get right. Everybody needs to just settle down and let it happen. I can promise you that [Blatt rumor] is not a narrative that has validity, nor will it."
The Cavaliers are now fifth in the Eastern Conference and 5-5 in their last 10 games.
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