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John Beilein or bust

Goo Punch

By Goo Punch
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cochamps

cochamps 1879

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On 1/10/2020 at 10:18 AM, Wally Fairway said:

Looks like bust, because he isn't coming back to college hoops. Age and money he'll get from Dan Gilbert will get him into retirement (well maybe he will take some ESPN money to announce)

Maybe you should look to another guy from Univ of Mich, and some pro experience - Rudy T. I think he even lives in Austin

About that NBA career...

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Teryor

Teryor 4484

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https://theathletic.com/1619192/2020/02/19/inside-the-failed-john-beilein-cavs-experiment-and-a-franchise-culture-problem/

Spoiler

The NBA was always alluring to John Beilein. No matter how many wins he compiled at Michigan and West Virginia and all stops prior, Beilein was fascinated by basketball’s highest level. Friends and associates tried warning him that he may not fit, that his collegiate style may not translate to the professionals, but Beilein was undeterred. He wanted to test himself and prove he could coach in the NBA.

Now just 54 games into his tenure, Beilein has his answer. He and the Cavaliers are parting ways and he is walking away from the franchise nine months after taking the job. The entire experience has been such a disaster that league sources told The Athletic that Beilein is walking away from the more than $12 million guaranteed on his four-year contract just to get out. J.B. Bickerstaff gets the task of replacing him and trying to put this back together for the final 28 games — and beyond.

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.

Cleveland had started the season 4-5, but the warm feelings from that beginning did not last long. There was losing — and lots of it — and the unhappiness of players toward the losing gradually shifted to Beilein.

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.

Photo: Jason Miller / Getty Images

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 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.

The preseason ended in spectacularly bad fashion. The Celtics clobbered them in consecutive games — once by 46 points and then by 23 — and that second loss was particularly frustrating. Boston trotted out a team with no regular starters and barely any rotation players — but lots and lots of G Leaguers, and crushed the Cavs at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.

By that point, league sources were already suggesting that Beilein was miserable in his new job, questioning his decision to make the jump from college to the pros.

There was also the resignation of Beilein’s son, Patrick Beilein, from Niagara University under tumultuous circumstances in late October that took a personal toll on John, according to sources. It was evident to his own staff that he was impacted by the situation.

While many of these themes persisted throughout Beilein’s short stay, there were a couple of new ones. Things like Love not playing on the second night of back-to-back games was said to be strange to Beilein. And then there was the matter of trades — something he never had to deal with in college.

Beilein struggled for days when the team traded Jordan Clarkson, his top bench scorer and one of the best scorers on the team, trying to figure how a team with not much offensive firepower to begin with was going to survive without one of its few players who could in fact put the ball in the hole.

The one thing Beilein never did during all of this was rip his players publicly, including the ones who were defying him the most. During Love’s roughest patch, which included an explosion toward Beilein on the bench in Toronto, and a shouting match with Altman in January (which also included, sources say, a tirade directed toward Beilein about his age), Beilein either supported his players during media sessions or argued there was room for grown men to be frustrated over the course of a trying season.

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.

Cavaliers GM Koby Altman with team owner Dan Gilbert. (Photo: David Richard/USA Today Sports)

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.

Lue, in fact, became just the third NBA head coach in nearly 40 years to be fired after winning a championship. The only other times it happened since 1980 were when Paul Westhead was fired by the Lakers in 1981 after they won the title in 1980 and when Larry Brown, who was dismissed by the Pistons a year after winning the title in 2004. Westhead was fired after Magic Johnson reportedly put pressure on management and Brown was let go because he kept openly entertaining other job offers — namely from Dan Gilbert and the Cavs.

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 Tibetts, 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.

No one looks good here; not Beilein, nor the Cavaliers. Bickerstaff, 40, was not deemed to be ready as the head man by this regime just one summer ago. Now will he be after another coaching disaster? And yet somehow, Beilein leaves Cleveland without being the shortest tenured coach in franchise history. Don Delaney coached the final 11 games of the 1980-81 season and the first 15 games of the 1981-82 season. He was removed with a career record of 7-19 over two seasons, one of the trademark awful decisions of Ted Stepien’s ownership.

That’s where the Cavs find themselves today: Drawing comparisons to the darkest era in franchise history.

 

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Chuckie Finster

Chuckie Finster 22756

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These are the kind of opportunities that we watch other schools get and wonder why we never have the luck.  Getting a coach of Beilein's caliber WITHOUT having to worry about a buyout is basically unheard of these days.  Obviously we can't guarantee that Beilein is interested, but I will lose a lot of faith in CDC if he doesn't attempt to make this happen.

Edited by Chuckie Finster
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Burt Macklin

Burt Macklin 19053

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31 minutes ago, Chuckie Finster said:

These are the kind of opportunities that we watch other schools get and wonder why we never have the luck.  Getting a coach of Beilein's caliber WITHOUT having to worry about a buyout is basically unheard of these days.  Obviously we can't guarantee that Beilein is interested, but I will lose a lot of faith in CDC if he doesn't attempt to make this happen.

I think the real question is whether Beilein wants be a college HC again at age 67. He had a lot of negative things to say about other college programs recruiting dirty and the grind that he found college coaching to be. A big part of why he went to the NBA was that he’d get to focus more on just coaching and not all the other stuff that comes with being a college coach. So it’s not clear whether he’s going to want to jump back into all that less than a year later. 
 

Maybe he still wants to coach and his stint in the NBA made him realize the grass isn’t always greener, so he re-commits to college coaching, but it’s also possible he decides he’s done with both college and NBA coaching. 

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Catdaddyhorn

Catdaddyhorn 3448

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20 minutes ago, Pig Bellmont said:

 Coaching in the NBA sounds terrible. You can’t point out fundamentals in film sessions or implement your philosophy without being told “you don’t understand the NBA?”  Basically if you aren’t down with hero ball and pick and rolls on offense you can’t hack it in CLE?

Much of it seems like a Cavs specific problem. 

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Juicy

Juicy 727

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Posted (edited)

https://nba.nbcsports.com/2020/02/19/report-cavaliers-players-played-songs-like-thuggish-ruggish-bone-around-john-beilein/

 

Quote

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.

I can only imagine how annoyed Beilein was getting everytime this happened. 

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Horn80

Horn80 6135

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2 hours ago, Pig Bellmont said:

 Coaching in the NBA sounds terrible. You can’t point out fundamentals in film sessions or implement your philosophy without being told “you don’t understand the NBA?”  Basically if you aren’t down with hero ball and pick and rolls on offense you can’t hack it in CLE?

Might be a well established culture that head coaches have no cred until they win a championship.  

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aggie08

aggie08 21560

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1 hour ago, texaslong said:

LMAO at Colin Sexton's comments. I guess that's what separates championship teams from those like the Cav's.

 We’ve had to tell him, like, Coach, we’ve got 82 (games), we can’t kill ourselves.

I mean, he's not wrong, but Colin fucking Sexton shouldn't be the one saying that 1.5 years removed from college with zero skins on the wall.

Championship teams barely practice, but they usually earn that right by proving that they can be professional and get their work in on their own.

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jimmyjazz

jimmyjazz 46259

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4 hours ago, Burt Macklin said:

I think the real question is whether Beilein wants be a college HC again at age 67. He had a lot of negative things to say about other college programs recruiting dirty and the grind that he found college coaching to be. A big part of why he went to the NBA was that he’d get to focus more on just coaching and not all the other stuff that comes with being a college coach. So it’s not clear whether he’s going to want to jump back into all that less than a year later. 
 

Maybe he still wants to coach and his stint in the NBA made him realize the grass isn’t always greener, so he re-commits to college coaching, but it’s also possible he decides he’s done with both college and NBA coaching. 

Well, I think it's pretty obvious he's not interested in NBA coaching.  UT would tend towards the cleaner end of the scale as far as recruiting dirt goes, although he'd have to contend with the shitweasels in Waco, so yeah, who knows?  You have to ask the question, though.

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Burt Macklin

Burt Macklin 19053

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24 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Well, I think it's pretty obvious he's not interested in NBA coaching.  UT would tend towards the cleaner end of the scale as far as recruiting dirt goes, although he'd have to contend with the shitweasels in Waco, so yeah, who knows?  You have to ask the question, though.

Obviously the NBA’s out. His comments about recruiting were complaining about other programs cheating and generally finding recruiting to be a pain in the ass, so he’d still have to deal with that at Texas. 
 

I agree CDC needs to ask him, no matter what.  I was just pointing out that it may no go anywhere, because it’s not a given Beilein wants to return to college. 

Edited by Burt Macklin
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d2o

d2o 1602

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1 hour ago, aggie08 said:

I mean, he's not wrong, but Colin fucking Sexton shouldn't be the one saying that 1.5 years removed from college with zero skins on the wall.

Championship teams barely practice, but they usually earn that right by proving that they can be professional and get their work in on their own.

Word is plenty of coaches talked to Bielien about his style and how it was not going to work in the pros for multiple reasons.  He pushed on with it anyway.    Some have to learn the hard way.

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Jhawk

Jhawk 1075

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1 hour ago, Teryor said:

 

Think it's fair to assume this won't affect him going after jobs 

Could be brutal news, but maybe they rework his contract so if he leaves he doesn’t get his money or not is offset instead of guaranteed. Would love him in the big12. 

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Juicy

Juicy 727

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This really couldn't be lining up better for Texas. With Yak already there,  unless JB decides he is done with the recruiting grind and dealing with players going pro who have no business leaving early (Jordan Poole, Iggy Brazdekis) and decides to take a low major job to just teach basketball, Texas makes the most sense. 

People up here are living the pipe dream that he is going to come back and be on Howards staff. That is such a dumb idea for so many reasons, not to mention (in case you havent heard) JB has never been an assistant at any level before. 

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LTtxfan

LTtxfan 49378

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2 hours ago, Jhawk said:

Could be brutal news, but maybe they rework his contract so if he leaves he doesn’t get his money or not is offset instead of guaranteed. Would love him in the big12. 

Correction....

Would love him at TEXAS 🤘 

 

Maybe Cavs could still pay part of their gty'd money to Beilein while he coaches at  The University of Texas..😀

Edited by LTtxfan
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Goo Punch

Goo Punch 4275

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I'm gonna throw out a name that I haven't heard yet, and one that I would love to have: Mark Turgeon. Now, with that being said, I have zero clue what his situation at Maryland looks like re: his contract, his projected team for next year, etc. But he would be a huge upgrade who would bring stability to the program instantly. 

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Teryor

Teryor 4484

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37 minutes ago, Goo Punch said:

I'm gonna throw out a name that I haven't heard yet, and one that I would love to have: Mark Turgeon. Now, with that being said, I have zero clue what his situation at Maryland looks like re: his contract, his projected team for next year, etc. But he would be a huge upgrade who would bring stability to the program instantly. 

I can tell you from experience that Maryland fans have a very rocky relationship with him.  He's failed to get them deep in the tournament and has underperformed their expectations basically every season.  His offense is incredibly suspect, his recruiting is very strong (Texas prototype right there). Yes, they are having a fantastic year this year, but had it played out where they were ranked 20-25th with a 1st weekend exit this season they would have called for his head in March.  Hell, if they get bounced early it'll happen regardless with how talented this team is.

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Goo Punch

Goo Punch 4275

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1 hour ago, Teryor said:

I can tell you from experience that Maryland fans have a very rocky relationship with him.  He's failed to get them deep in the tournament and has underperformed their expectations basically every season.  His offense is incredibly suspect, his recruiting is very strong (Texas prototype right there). Yes, they are having a fantastic year this year, but had it played out where they were ranked 20-25th with a 1st weekend exit this season they would have called for his head in March.  Hell, if they get bounced early it'll happen regardless with how talented this team is.

shit, that sounds like good news to me. he would be a massive upgrade over Shaka, and if he isn't feeling the love in College Park then he can come on down to Austin as far as I'm concerned. 

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hobbes2702

hobbes2702 13082

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7 hours ago, Goo Punch said:

I'm gonna throw out a name that I haven't heard yet, and one that I would love to have: Mark Turgeon. Now, with that being said, I have zero clue what his situation at Maryland looks like re: his contract, his projected team for next year, etc. But he would be a huge upgrade who would bring stability to the program instantly. 

giphy.gif

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Goo Punch

Goo Punch 4275

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I don't know who you guys think we're capable of getting, but Turgeon would be as good of a hire as pretty much any other realistic candidate. We aren't hiring anyone who's won a title, and we're probably not even hiring anyone who's even been to an Elite 8. Hiring a guy who has proven that he can win at a major D-1 level is as good as we can hope for, and there isn't some long and distinguished list of available candidates who fit that bill. Turgeon, Musselman, Howland, etc- this is most likely the class of coach we will be choosing from. Sucks, but it's what's out there. 

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