The Cleveland Cavaliers have a had a whirlwind summer, with a new head coach in David Blatt, adding forward Kevin Love from the Minnesota Timberwolves, and oh yeah, some guy from Akron, Ohio, named LeBron James decided to come back home from the Miami Heat to the team that drafted him. But apparently before settling on Blatt as the team’s head coach, the Cavs were trying to land a star coach from the college ranks, and while an offer to Kentucky coach John Calipari was highly publicized (and later declined), but there wasn’t much publicity surrounding Kansas coach Bill Self, in part because Self denied that the talks were ever very serious between him and the Cavs. But it turns out, there’s a chance at least the Cavs were serious about bringing Self into the fold.
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But ESPN.com’s Brian Windhorst said recently that the Cavs actually offered the job to Self (as well as Calipari), and presumably at close to the same pay rate Calipari was offered – reportedly more than $10 million per year.
The Cavs eventually signed veteran Euroleague coach Blatt to a four-year, $20-million-dollar deal about a week before the NBA draft, and a couple of weeks after that the Cavs, and Blatt, hit the real lottery when James announced his intentions to return to Cleveland.
While the news regarding the offer to Self is interesting, it’s unlikely the Cavs regret that he (or Calipari) turned the job down. Blatt seems to be pretty respected for a rookie NBA coach, and it will be interesting to see how he juggles a suddenly stacked Cavs team with James, Love, and returning star point guard Kyrie Irving, who signed a max contract extension with Cleveland during the Cavs’ busy summer.
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