[Woj] Michigan’s John Beilein hired to coach Cavs

Lol a group of people getting paid millions are too lazy to endure long film sessions wtf. Maybe their coach is coaching them like a college team cuz they are playing like a college team vs NBA competition.

 

He is like the kiss of death for coaches if he appears on your staff your days are numbered.

 

Spoiler

https://theathletic.com/1619192/202...s-experiment-and-a-franchise-culture-problem/

The relationship with Beilein, meanwhile, deteriorated faster than anyone could’ve expected.

“I don’t even know how things got to this point,” one Cavs player told The Athletic.

Beilein’s unhappiness emerged as early as the preseason and extended into the regular season. Players began tuning Beilein out as training camp wore on, and the feeling of Beilein’s unreadiness to adjust his coaching style was evident.

Beilein’s tone toward the players became an issue, sources have told The Athletic, with him allegedly overly harping his voice in film sessions, nitpicking fundamentals and showing an inability to adapt to the NBA’s offensive and defensive structures. As a 67-year-old coach of a blend of veterans and young players, Beilein is said to have shown no consistency in relating to players or in building lasting relationships with them.

“He was a dictator — not a coach suited for today’s NBA,” one source said.

...

His tenure in Cleveland essentially ended during a film session on Jan. 8 in a Detroit hotel, of all places. That’s when he called his players “thugs” during a film session. He insisted later he meant to say slugs, and he tried to apologize the next day, but a number of the players never really embraced his explanation. In fact, some of them thought it was an insult to their intelligence, one player told The Athletic.

“There was no coming back from that,” he said.

Instead, multiple players began playing songs that included the word “thug” whenever Beilein was within earshot, sources said: Bone Thugz-n-Harmony’s “Thuggish Ruggish Bone” and Tupac’s “Thugz Mansion” among them. As the team boarded the bus a few days after the incident, one player was intentionally playing Trick Daddy’s “I’m a Thug” with Beilein a few feet away. Other players blasted songs with the word “thug” loudly during workouts in the facility. Players did this to make light of a very tough situation, according to one team source.

“The worst part to me was not owning that he said it,” one player told The Athletic.

...

Beilein tried but could never really adapt to the NBA. Even the new arrivals resisted him. Andre Drummond, who just got here two weeks ago, told teammates the situation in Cleveland was worse than Detroit, according to one source with knowledge of the conversation, and that it would factor into his $29 million option decision for next season.

Players never embraced Beilein, but they were still surprised by the timing of his exit. Management may have known he was leaning toward leaving, but the players departed for the All-Star break not having any idea he had likely coached his final game.

The fact he would walk away from so much money was startling to those polled over the last few days, but Beilein previously confided in at least one player that he didn’t care much for money.

“Money isn’t an issue; happiness comes first,” Beilein is said to have told a Cavs player in a discussion.

Weeks later, Beilein stepped away and left tens of millions because he no longer felt suited for the job.

...

Just like the players were turned off by his coaching style, from almost the beginning, Beilein was stunned by the culture of the modern NBA player, at least in Cleveland.

Players missing practices and games for mild soreness, or for no other reason than winning was not the primary goal early in a rebuild. It was something he never got used to. Players failed to retain basic, fundamental information delivered to them by coaches, and their revulsion to lengthy film and practice sessions was foreign to him.

Warning signs for Beilein could be traced to the Cavs’ Summer League schedule, when the rookie coach ran a collection of (mostly) G Leaguers and non-roster invites through extended practices, multiple times a day. This is precisely what Beilein would have done at Michigan, especially with an entirely new batch of players, this early in a season calendar. But players not only complained about the work, they also were drilled in games by opponents who were clearly well-rested. And this was in Summer League.

There was at least one player, though, involved in those early summer workouts under Beilein who was expecting to make a major contribution to the Cavs this season. Rookie Dylan Windler, a late first rounder, was supposed to compete with Cedi Osman for minutes on the wing. But he never played a game this season because of a stress injury in his left leg — which could be traced back at least in part to being overworked during the summer.

In the meantime, training camp in Cleveland was a disaster, and Beilein knew it. Rookie and top pick Darius Garland missed a week after hurting his foot in pre-camp workouts. Kevin Love and Tristan Thompson played sparingly, and Beilein lamented not having more of a chance to build continuity.

 

Spoiler

This is a recurring problem in Cleveland. John Beilein is the symptom. He isn’t the disease.

He’s the second Cavs coach in as many years to want out at the All-Star break, multiple sources told The Athletic. Larry Drew initially refused to take the interim job last year after Tyronn Lue was fired.

Lue, the only coach in team history to win a title, openly resisted the front office’s demands to prioritize time for younger players instead of the remaining veterans after LeBron James left via free agency, and when Lue’s rebellion did not translate into wins, he was dismissed.

Drew had to be persuaded by management to take over for Lue, multiple sources told The Athletic. He then seriously debated stepping aside again out of frustration at the All-Star break before ultimately choosing to finish out the season, going as far as inquiring about the feasibility of Cleveland simply promoting G League coach Nate Reinking to the NBA to coach the final stretch of games. In the end, Drew stayed on as coach for the entire season as he and his agent, Andy Miller, negotiated new terms to his contract.

Drew felt he could not wield the club of discipline he felt he needed to deliver his message — playing time. Each night he was watching Sexton make mistake after mistake, next to Osman, while the two were exploited on defense. This season, under Beilein, Sexton, Garland, and Osman have started together all season — leaving both guards and the pivotal small forward position to be manned by three players who would all benefit greatly from being flanked by sturdier veterans, instead of being exposed together.

On the other side is Cavs general manager Koby Altman, who was placed in an untenable position when he took over in 2017 and has struggled to maintain relationships with central figures to the organization. He replaced David Griffin, a popular figure within the franchise and an excellent communicator and public relations specialist who was credited with keeping the peace in the locker room during the stressful championship pursuits. He also delivered the pieces necessary to win a ring.

Upon Griffin’s departure, Altman was thrust from third chair into the GM’s seat and was immediately tasked with trading Kyrie Irving, the former No. 1 overall pick who hit the biggest shot in franchise history to deliver Cleveland its first championship in 52 years.

Altman never forged much of a relationship with LeBron, who was angered by Griffin’s departure. Altman had a falling out with Lue and fired him just six games into last season. He has also been at odds with Love since Love signed a mammoth four-year, $120 million extension prior to last season. Those are three central figures to the most important run of success in team history and all of them have had issues with Altman.

Nevertheless, Altman became the first GM since Gilbert bought the team to receive a second contract. Gilbert has methodically reduced the authority of those holding the position since first installing Danny Ferry as GM in 2005. Every executive who has followed has been promoted from within — and stripped of a little more power. When Ferry walked off the job, Chris Grant was promoted. When Grant was fired, David Griffin was promoted. When Griffin and Trent Redden’s contracts expired, Altman was bumped up.

Altman has spoken often about setting a new culture, but that is difficult to do when this is the culture ownership has created. Altman had a seemingly specific set of criteria he wanted with the head coaching hire last summer. The Cavs canvassed the league talking to young coaches with a record of player development: Alex Jensen, Adrian Griffin, Steve Hetzel, Jamahl Mosley and Nate Tibbetts, to name a few. Then the job went to Beilein, who fit the player development component from college, but not much else.

Gilbert has denied that Beilein was his call, but it fits the model the Cavs tried before with David Blatt and Lue. Gilbert wanted Blatt against the wishes of the front office, so Griffin instead made Lue the league’s highest-paid assistant coach to come in as the safety valve for when things imploded.

Similarly, sources said Bickerstaff was paid a whopping $1.6 million for this year, again placing him among the highest paid assistants in the NBA. He was given the title of associate head coach — the same title Lue received under Blatt — and was viewed in a best-case scenario as someone who could ease Beilein’s transition into the NBA. As a worst-case scenario, he was again the safety valve who could clean up the mess in case the experiment imploded.

And it has.

One source with knowledge of the situation told The Athletic this front office was more in line with the Beilein hire than the previous staff was with bringing on Blatt. And yet in hindsight, a separate source said Blatt was more equipped to handle professional players and grasp how a team is expected to be run at this level. After all, Blatt survived one-and-a-half seasons; Beilein couldn’t even survive the All-Star Game of Year 1.

Now Bickerstaff takes over, and the hiring of Beilein will enter infamy in NBA and Cleveland history. Beilein left a cushy Michigan job, where he was well-heralded, for a temporary gig in Cleveland. Across the coaching industry, the belief is that Beilein is positioning himself for a new college coaching job.

 

Although this was downplayed by some in this thread, I pointed out early on that it would be almost impossible for him to come back from this and salvage that relationship with his players. If he hadn't already lost the locker room before this incident, he certainly lost it after. He was a dead man walking. I've coached for 14 years and there are not very many things more powerful in sports than having a coach that players believe in and would do anything for and similarly nothing more destructive and divisive than having a coach that the players don't trust or respect and don't want to play for.

 

LOL This guy...
If he lands on your staff, look out.

Cavaliers Will Keep J.B. Bickerstaff As Head Coach, Won't Conduct Search In Offseason

The Cleveland Cavaliers have promoted J.B. Bickerstaff as permanent head coach to replace John Beilein.

The Cavaliers always had a succession plan for Bickerstaff to replace Beilein upon the latter's retirement.

Because this agreement was essentially built into the contract Bickerstaff signed and a big reason why he came to Cleveland in the first place, there will be no coaching search this offseason for the Cavaliers.

Bickerstaff is the fourth head coach of the Cavaliers since the start of the 18-19 season.

 

Congrats to Rockets interim coaching legend JB Bickerstaff!

 

Jb is a god

 

The Rockets may suck but at least it's not this bad

 

Probably only going to last a season before parting ways and gets bought out. Why not?
You finallly attain a lifelong goal of at least being able to coach in the nba.