9:53am: The Cavaliers have confirmed Bickerstaff’s dismissal (Twitter link).
9:27am: The Cavaliers have fired head coach J.B. Bickerstaff, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and The Athletic’s Shams Charania.
Warriors assistant Kenny Atkinson and Pelicans associate head coach James Borrego are expected to be among candidates for the job, Charania adds.
Despite the fact Cleveland advanced out of the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs, Bickerstaff’s dismissal doesn’t come as a surprise. A report from The Athletic last week indicated Bickerstaff’s job was in “serious jeopardy.”
That report indicated that star guard Donovan Mitchell, who is eligible for a four-year extension this offseason, “did not have great confidence in Bickerstaff” throughout the season, and he was “not alone.” It also suggested that a number of players privately and publicly questioned the 45-year-old’s “strategies, game management, practice habits and accountability measures” during the course of the season.
Another incident in the report spoke of how president of basketball operations Koby Altman “admonished Bickerstaff in front of his entire staff” after he played Mitchell heavy minutes in a December overtime victory with two other starters already sidelined by injuries.
Bickerstaff said after his team was eliminated for the postseason that he wanted to return and considered this season an improvement.
“To win a round in the playoffs isn’t easy,” he said. “I thought we faced a tough challenge in that first round, obviously, and to be able to go to seven games and win it showed a ton of growth. I think the play of our guys continued to show their growth. You guys will judge what success looks like. I think we accomplished what we were trying to accomplish but coming up short of a goal of obviously winning a championship.”
The Cavs will begin an immediate search for Bickerstaff’s replacement, with Altman and general manager Mike Gansey formulating a list that is expected to include coaches with head-coaching experience and potential first-timers, Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com reports.
According to Fedor, the Cavs considered making a coaching change during the first month of the season after they got off to a slow start.
Despite the supposed internal turmoil, there’s reportedly growing optimism that Mitchell will sign an extension this offseason. Whether a coaching change impacts that in any way remains to be seen.
Bickerstaff became the Cavaliers’ head coach in February 2020 after John Beilein‘s brief stay in the NBA. The Cavaliers went 22-50 in his first full season as head coach and doubled that win total in a full 82-game season in 2021/22.
The Cavs racked up 51 regular season wins in 2022/23 but were bounced by the Knicks in the opening round of the playoffs. Cleveland won 48 games this season and defeated Orlando in the opening round but got eliminated in five games by top-seeded Boston in the second round. Mitchell missed the last two games due to a calf injury and center Jarrett Allen sat out the entire series with a rib injury.
So now its the head coach’s fault for losing in a tough playoff series?
More the way the regular season went, speaking as a Cavs fan. He had times where the team was operating well, but he never once managed to get the Big 4 to fully mesh. Not even for a single game. That’s not acceptable for a HC for a contending team. Even casual fans would facepalm at his rotations and lack of adjustments. His abject refusal to play or promote certain players *coughIsaiahMobleycough* also rubbed just about everyone the wrong way. He also seemed to lack competitive fire and would let things pass without asserting himself.
JB is a damn good assistant coach, and maybe he can become a better HC in the future. But he’s not right for the Cavs, and it’s pretty obvious.
“He also seemed to lack competitive fire”
I wonder if this spilled over to the players? There were so many people calling this Cavs team soft all year.
Possibly, but most of those people seemed to have watched maybe five cherry-picked games, so they were talking out of their rectums.
Given the way that most everybody who called them “soft” seemed to have only seen maybe five cherry-picked games, I don’t think so.
lol what? It doesn’t take a genius if you pay attention that he isn’t a very good coach
It pretty much says it’s because the players, specifically the 1 that can walk this summer, didn’t care for his coaching style/approach.
Unless it was 1 borderline nba talent, the front office is going to side with the player(s).
Altman needs to hit the mark on this hire or his head should roll.
If he really goes for Atkinson or Borego, he is toast. They are very good rs coaches, but playoff playin, they failed miserably. Cavs are not rebuilding team, they need coach for po, to push them at least on step forward.
Lots of love for Kenny, but he’s not the right fit for the Cavs.
Atkinson failed miserably? he went to one playoffs and lost to Embiid,Simmons,Butler and Reddick.
With a team of mostly young guys with no playoff experience whatsoever. Kinda too soon to call his performance a “failure”. Bickerstaff got outcoached by Thibs last year, and by Mosley this year, winning because his players dragged him over the hump in Game 7. Can’t really call it with Mazzula; the Cavs were destroyed by injuries in that series.
21 of the last 25 NBA championships were won by teams coached by the following coaches:
Phil Jackson
Pat Riley
Gregg Popovich
Larry Brown
Pat Riley
Erik Spolstra
Steve Kerr
Rick Carlisle
Michael Malone
The thing all these coaches have in common are the fact that players didn’t get to push them around or shift blame to them. The front office and ownership backed them up and the star players had to listen to them. It doesn’t matter how many stars you have teams don’t win it all without a good coach with high job security.
How can you include Carlisle, Malone, and brown on this list with the rest if they each have exactly one title each.
Because they all were coaches who had strong support from ownership and the FO. Look at how many years Carlisle and Malone coached their respective teams and if I have to explain Larry Brown to you then you probably started watching basketball in 2010.
He never mentioned multiple championships.
And you know what those coaches have in common? MJ, Pippen, Rodman, LBJ, Wade, Bosh, Magic, Kareem, Worthy, Kobe, Shaq, Gasol, Duncan, Kawhi, Durant, Jokic, Curry, Klay, Dirk and Kidd. Almost all top 75 guys. Great players go along way to make great coaches.
That being said I don’t know if firing JB is a precursor to signing Mitchell to an extension but it does show the ineptitude of the front office and their history of instability. I think Altmam might be overrated
You have to have good players but that’s not enough. Look at the KD and Westbrook Thunder with Brooks as a perfect example. Look how talented the Clippers have been for years. Look at the Brooklyn Nets and Phoenix Suns. Look at the current Lakers.
“Good” coach being the operative word.
What’s changed is mid-tier coaches are no longer afforded job security.
Excellent point.
It doesn’t matter how many stars you have yet these teams pretty much all had multiple stars and some of the best players of all time.
Out of all of those teams only the 04 Pistons didn’t have a top 25 player of all time and they had a stacked lineup (and didn’t seem to win any titles with Carlisle). Not sure how Brown, a great coach, is an example for this anyways considering he had so much support from ownership that he lasted two whole seasons in Detroit.
@BlackAce – I agree that an empowered HC can be a great asset for a team in achieving success. I do think using championship teams might not be the best way to prove the point, because, as has been pointed out, those teams tend to share something far more unique with each other, namely All NBA talent in volume and/or generational talent.
Nevertheless, your point holds, and your list (omissions aside) suggest it’s better to have an empowered HC than not, regardless of your talent level. Even at the highest level, it can be difference making. Of course, the FO comeback might be that some HC’s are harder to empower than others. Which is certainly true as well.
@ Ace what an oddly specific stat that completely fails to mention the correlation between those championships and the generational talent that backed those squads. If you want to argue that those coaches are the reason those talents progressed they way they did you might have a case but otherwise you cherry picked numbers to fit your narrative. The math might be there but the logic isnt.
People don’t understand this move and it is so clear, LeBron James will be the next player/coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers and most definitely the Cleveland Cavaliers will draft Bronny James in this coming NBA draft.
Lebron is not coming to Cleveland. He will
Be a laker. Nobody wants him but they no
Matter what ESPN spins.
Nobody in the NBA wants the most famous basketball player of all time on their squad? Do you know how stupid that sounds?
That kid Altman will be the down fall of this Cavs team …I mean what really has he done in college or the pros? Be an assistant for some D3 schools be in the front office office when the cans drafter a couple of 6’2 players Garland and Sexton ..draft Okoro. Hus pick of Mobley was but was he he done to build this team? But he wants to go at J.B. in the locker room in front of other coaches to show he’s “the man”?????? Net just another low level front office dude that can’t perform holis duties and throw it on the head coach
Altman should be fired. He basically undercut JB by tearing into him in front of the team, and once you do that, you can’t expect your players to respect your HC anymore. You have to do that stuff behind closed doors.
On the surface, this appears to be (yet) another Fall Guy firing. The only caveat is that it’s unclear why CLE feels they need a Fall Guy after this season. Certainly, there’s been “stuff” going on with CLE this year, and this off season is an inflection point, no doubt. Maybe together there was a real basketball analysis that suggested the team would do better going forward with another HC. Anything is possible. Still, it’s close enought that Altman shouldn’t get his Fall Guy chip after this firing. This is it. He should have to own it going forward.
This is more likely just a sign that Mitchell is staying..
This firing not as bad as the bucks firing last year…tough to be a coach
Future LA Lakers HC!