Cleveland Cavaliers: David Blatt, Unofficial Coach of the Year?

This doesn’t get talked about enough. There are only three coaches who are mentioned as being in the Coach of the Year race: Mike Budenholzer, Steve Kerr and Gregg Popovich. Each one of them is a great coach, don’t get me wrong. They’re all deserving and should be given credit.

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The argument for Bud is that he turned an eighth seeded team from last season that lost to the Indiana Pacers in seven games into the top ranked team in the East. Kerr took what Mark Jackson started and molded the Warriors into a more perfect form. Pop is simply the best coach of the three and if that’s how you cast your vote (by giving it to the guy who’s best at his job), then he’s going to win every year.

The Coach of the Year award can be viewed a lot like the MVP. Do you want to give it to the guy who is the best (LeBron James), the guy who’s capitalizing on the best team (Stephen Curry), or the new up and comer who’s been a bit of a surprise and shocks us out of voter fatigue (James Harden)?

Awards like these just depend. They really do. They just depend. And this year perhaps more than any in recent memory that’s true. There are a bunch of coaches doing great jobs that get overshadowed by the few that have been deemed the cream of the crop since the early part of the season.

Does that mean we should ignore the others because they don’t have a chance anyway? Hell no.

David Blatt is one of these guys. He has zero chance of winning Coach of the Year. He may get a vote or two, but he won’t win. The fact that he isn’t even being mentioned at all concerning the award, however, is criminal.

Unfortunately, Blatt has to deal with what I like to call “The Erik Spoelstra Effect.”

Remember when the Big Three got together in Miami in 2010? Spoelstra and his team started off rough, then managed to patch things up and eventually became something great for a span of four years. When the team was losing, it was Spoelstra’s fault, but when they won? Well, it was the Big Three of course!

During those four seasons, Spoelstra never once won a Coach of the Year award. He should have. The 2012-13 Miami Heat are debatably one of the greatest teams of all time. He was at the helm during all of it: running timeout plays, motivating his guys during the 27-game streak, and making adjustments in a chess match with Pop during the NBA Finals.

But was he ever even talked about for Coach of the Year? Not really. He was overshadowed by other coaches doing things with less, or who ended up with a higher seed, or what have you.

Blatt is like Spoelstra. No matter what he does (or has done), he will not be recognized like other coaches in the league. Even if he wins a title. Perhaps, if his Cleveland Cavaliers do win it all, then he’ll at least get the, “Oh, he’s actually really good” nod of embarrassed acceptance just as Spoelstra did.

I am pleading for us to be smarter than that this time around. We need to recognize that Blatt is a great coach and that he’s done a wonderful and impressive job with these Cavs. Again, he has zero chance to win the Coach of the Year award, but here’s a few reasons of why he should be thought about:

In his rookie year as a head coach, he’s managing the best player in the world and two other big name players. Not an easy feat.
He’s helped move the Cavs from being 10th in the East last season to second this season and has a 63.9 win percentage.
His team had little chemistry when he began, not only with him but with each other. The whole roster was basically scrapped over the summer.
He figured out how to incorporate new pieces again after the mid-season trades and get them to work.
He’s getting a starting lineup that features Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love to play well defensively.
He’s dealt with various injuries to LeBron, Love, etc. and kept his team afloat during their absence.

When you have a retooled team shoved in your face that includes a picky LeBron James and it’s your rookie coaching year, you deserve to be considered. People will always return to “But he had LeBron, Love and Kyrie!” no matter what the Cavs end up accomplishing.

That’s unfair. And even if after reading this you still would cast your vote for one of Bud, Kerr or Pop, that’s fine. I’m not here to dispute what they’ve done.

But let’s open our eyes, folks. David Blatt has done an impressive job with his club. It’s time we recognized it.

Next: NBA: 50 Greatest Players Of All Time

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Cleveland Cavaliers: David Blatt, Unofficial Coach Of The Year?

By Joshua Howe | Mar 23, 2015

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