Here’s why the Cavaliers fired David Blatt

Reports have finally circulated as to just why the Cleveland Cavaliers fired head coach David Blatt.

The Cleveland Cavaliers made a shocking announcement on Friday, when the team decided to fire head coach David Blatt. Blatt was just halfway into his second season as the head coach of the Cavaliers and the team was coming off a trip to the NBA Finals.

While many came out in support of Blatt and were surprised by the Cavaliers decision, it seemed like an association that wasn’t going to last long from the beginning. It might seem crazy on paper that the Cavaliers would fire their head coach when they have the best record in the Eastern Conference, but perhaps they had good reason.

According to Cleveland.com, Blatt was having trouble making decisions and was beginning to lose the locker room as he favored star players in practice and never held them accountable.

"During team scrimmages, players competed aggressively but bit their tongues as Blatt frequently blew his whistle to call ticky-tack or phantom fouls for his go-to players. One player said sometimes Blatt didn’t even have a whistle and would yell at the top of his lungs to stop play and call a foul if one of his stars acted as if he was hit."

If that wasn’t just one reason for the Cavaliers firing Blatt, he also reportedly had a hard time drawing plays up out of timeouts and even drew plays up that didn’t involve players that were currently in the game.

"Word circulated to cleveland.com that Blatt had trouble drawing up plays out of timeouts. He would freeze up and waste precious seconds, one player said. He would even draw up plays for players who weren’t in the game, another player said."

If not being able to call plays or know who was on the floor was bad enough, Blatt also apparently had plenty of trouble with in-game strategy and putting key players in late during blowouts to play unnecessary minutes.

"In the closeout game of the Eastern Conference Finals, a game the Cavaliers trounced the Atlanta Hawks by 30 to sweep the series; Blatt had signaled for Tristan Thompson to reenter in the closing minutes with the game already wrapped up. This was when Thompson was the team’s most valuable big man with Kevin Love out of commission with a dislocated shoulder."

The report also further states that this wasn’t just any recent decision by the Cavaliers to fire Blatt. After the team got blown out on the road against the Portland Trail Blazers, the team had come to the conclusion that they would fire Blatt if they lost the next road game to the Phoenix Suns.

The Cavaliers would escape Phoenix with the win, after Brandon Knight’s go-ahead three was nullified by a Tyson Chandler offensive foul on Iman Shumpert. Even with a less than stellar win over one of the worst teams in the NBA, the Cavaliers decided to give Blatt a little more time as head coach.

Then the Cavaliers would suffer their most embarrassing loss of the season at home to the Golden State Warriors in an NBA Finals rematch and it became clear that the Cavaliers had a lot of work to do if they were going to be championship contenders against a far superior team.

That’s what led to them making the move and replacing Blatt with assistant Tyronn Lue, who hasn’t been afraid to hold his star players on the team accountable. Whether or not it turns the Cavaliers around remains to be seen, but it’s clear now that there was a disconnect between Blatt and the team.