Cleveland Cavaliers: LeBron, Blatt Need Compromise
By Joshua Howe
There is a quote by one Lord Acton that perhaps you’ve heard. It goes like this: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”
That is exactly how people have been viewing both LeBron James and Cleveland Cavaliers head coach David Blatt ever since ESPN’s article concerning the rookie coach’s “ability to reach the team” went live.
Certainly neither of these men are truly “bad”, but in the eyes of the public their actions or lack thereof have resulted in a bunch of head-scratching and wrinkled noses.
The central issue appears to be the relationship between James and Blatt, and the difference in their ideas about how to reach the ultimate goal of winning a title as quickly as possible.
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And, of course, in their differing levels of power through position and respect.
To this point, Blatt has had no real positive impact on the club from what can be seen by the outside viewer. He’s had problems (even when his squad was healthy) with rotations, out of timeout plays and more. The most notable is perhaps the fact that the Cavs haven’t played hardly a lick of his system. Instead, they’ve been running the pick and roll style game that LeBron enjoys playing.
The coach has never seen himself as disempowered to this point, according to him, despite his new team apparently neglecting his authority. Instead, Blatt has often come across as arrogant and dismissive of comments meant to be advice.
Blatt still feels empowered. Perhaps he deserves to, with all of the accolades he’s collected throughout his broad coaching career. But this power that he’s feeling seems to blind him to some disturbing facts, mainly that this issue of lack of control isn’t vanishing anytime soon and that LeBron has been saying a lot of surprising, yet somewhat ambiguous statements that refute his coach’s words.
The most recent quotation from James on Blatt being, “Yeah, he’s our coach, I mean, what other coach do we have?”
Ouch. Should Blatt be getting his bags ready after that one?
James, too, has a level of power within the Cavaliers organization. One that is understandably large: players respect him, coaches respect him, the owner respects him. Heck, he’s even looked like the general manager of the team in helping orchestrate the deal that brought Kevin Love to town.
By no means should we consider James un-coachable, but his power within the inner workings of the franchise can’t be understated. When he returned to Cleveland, James knew he’d be able to basically build up his own team and, with the support of all those around him, wade his way towards a championship knowing that the brunt of the work would lie upon his own shoulders.
It is clear that Blatt, who was hired before James made his announcement that he was returning to Cleveland, was never an essential factor in LeBron’s decision on whether or not he was coming home. James didn’t care who the coach was at the time because everything was to be on his shoulders; the weight of a winless city his burden to bear.
And now that same, previously shrugged-off factor has clashed with James’ vision through the first part of the 2014-15 season.
It is a sort of power struggle between two men who both deserve and need it to be successful, yet it is also painfully obvious neither are trying rid the other of their role in the organization. Each of them has the same goal: to win a title.
Yet, the path to get there, ah, therein lies the rub. Do they take LeBron’s yellow road or Blatt’s blue one? The answer is undeniably neither when a green road presents itself, only this one takes a bit more effort to reach in the first place.
Unfortunately, while Blatt has allowed his players to walk all over him, and given them inordinate amounts of praise, most of the problems seem to be coming not from him, but from his superstar player.
James’ apparent disregard for Blatt has not set a good tone for the rest of the immediate team, nor the organization as a whole. He has, besides saying things that contrast with Blatt’s statements, also taken to treating Tyronn Lue almost like the head coach, often seeking him out rather than Blatt himself. The other players have followed suit and thus Lue is the more beloved coach in the locker room.
It seems the line of respect between James and Blatt is so brittle that a pin drop could snap it.
Here lies the irony, for though LeBron wants ever so badly to win a championship for Cleveland, he won’t be able to without buying in to what Blatt wants to do and giving him a full acceptance. It is James that must do this, first and foremost, because not only is he the best player on the team, he’s the face of the NBA today. Other players around the league, and especially those on his own squad, respect him immensely. If he does not give Blatt his own unabridged respect, then the rest of the team won’t either.
And despite believing that his methods will work in Cleveland’s favour better than Blatt’s, time has revealed that it only leads to chaos. So, back to the metaphor …
Go down James’ yellow road, and you are led into what we have now: chaos. Go down Blatt’s blue one, and you’ll have an unhappy LeBron who will eventually clash with the coach anyways, leading once again to chaos.
The green road involves respect for both sides, a mutual understanding of what the other wants to do and a method of compromise. Blatt absolutely should be allowed to give his offensive system a try. James absolutely should be allowed to take over from time to time.
Working together is how a basketball team wins titles. It seems silly to reiterate, but in times like these I feel it must be. It doesn’t just mean the players on the floor working together, it means the entire organization uniting as a group.
Franchises like the San Antonio Spurs and the Miami Heat understand this and have obtained high levels of success because of it. Cleveland has never had that kind of cohesion.
When LeBron went to Miami, a similar situation occurred to the one that plagues Cleveland now. He and Erik Spoelstra (now rightfully considered one of the NBA’s best coaches) did not instantly hit it off.
Who could ever forget “The Shoulder Bump”?
Luckily for James and Spoelstra, both Dwyane Wade and Pat Riley were there to back Spo, even when some fans were also calling for his head on a silver platter. Each of them had won a title before (multiple in the case of Riley) and understood that things take time to mesh.
It took James about a season to warm up to Spoelstra in Miami. The team then won two straight titles.
They found that green road.
Even a team with great players on it will falter without belief in the coach that’s supposed to be, for lack of a better term, running things. And by contrast, teams that don’t necessarily look strong on paper can flourish with the collective attribute of full confidence in their coach.
Look no further than Dwane Casey in Toronto or Mike Malone (until recently) in Sacramento as examples.
If you’re reading this, Mr. Gilbert, it’d probably be a good idea to put James and Blatt in a locked room together until they figure something out, because until they do, Cleveland is going to remain as title-less as ever and the team will be driven slowly into the cold, dead ground.