Cleveland Cavaliers: Don't Panic Over Play-Calling

On a podcast with Bill Simmons, Brian Windhorst said that David Blatt often hears LeBron James call plays out on the court and then relays them to the rest of the Cleveland Cavaliers by yelling out the same exact play.

Some people were upset and/or baffled by this news. For some reason. No, seriously, I don’t get it. Blatt just won the Coach of the Month award for March too.

David Blatt was named the NBA coach of the month for Eastern Conference for March. Steve Kerr won it for the West.
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) April 1, 2015

Blatt was then asked by media if this was true. He confirmed that this did happen, does happen and will continue to happen. LeBron confirmed the reports too, saying that when he’s in the flow of a game he sometimes just calls plays.

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Dwyane Wade went on the record as well, stating that James used to do the same thing in Miami when he played there with the Heat. He reiterated what LeBron said about calling things in the flow of the game and made it out like it wasn’t a big deal.

Indeed, everyone on the Cavs and even outsiders to the team like Wade seemed like it was a pointless thing to get worked up about. They answered the questions about it and brushed it off like a light coat of dust.

Now. Does everyone remember what the last thing people freaked out about was? Oh yes, that’s right. LeBron and Kevin Love having friendship issues. But now that that notion seems shot down, making Blatt out to be a putrid coach is next on the agenda.

And why? Because he lets his players (it was also noted that Kyrie Irving is allowed to call plays) make important decisions of their own on the court.

Sure sounds like a stupid guy to me. Yeesh. What a failure of a coach, letting his players mesh together, take on some extra responsibility and get a feel for what works and what doesn’t in certain situations.

Blatt has taken a lot of heat this season. Most of it was early on and then, of course, it died off when the Cavs started tearing through the rest of the league like rice paper. His relationship issues with LeBron were real, though they certainly weren’t as grand as some people made them out to be.

The two of them have worked together to come to an understanding and give the team a more community-style feel to it.

And now it’s revealed that he is giving his players that freedom, that extra control they desired and suddenly he’s a bad coach?

LeBron didn’t say that Blatt did nothing. He pointed out that the head coach draws things up during timeouts and breaks in the game. His role on the team is arguably the toughest, and he’s managed to adapt and survive as the season has gone along. There are many coaches who would’ve wilted by now, but he hasn’t.

Blatt’s just fitting in within the team’s unique dynamic. As some people have asked, does this make LeBron a player/coach? Is LeBron really the one who’s coaching Blatt?

Not exactly. LeBron isn’t a player/coach. Blatt isn’t just a stand-in for him. We’ve seen by now that the two have had some differing opinions. They are both intelligent people with high basketball IQ’s trying to do their job at the highest level. Each of them has something extremely salient to give; they are both key cogs in the Cavs machine.

While Blatt is coaching LeBron (who admittedly doesn’t need much coaching), he is also learning from him. In that respect, he is being coached by James. But it’s a mutual relationship. As The King pointed out, Blatt draws things up during timeouts that the entire squad pays attention to. Lots of times these plays even work!

Crazy, right?

If anything, this frenzy over Cleveland’s play-calling is giving us great insight into how the team operates on the court. By relaying James’ calls to the rest of the team, Blatt isn’t following an order. He’s working together with his best player to try and win the game.

And at the end of the day, isn’t that what matters?

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Cleveland Cavaliers: Don’t Panic Over Play-Calling

By Joshua Howe | Apr 2, 2015

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