Cavaliers add Cal’s Lindsay Gottlieb to staff as assistant coach

The Cavaliers have made another addition to their coaching staff, adding Lindsay Gottlieb, who had been the head coach of Cal’s women’s basketball team.

The Cleveland Cavaliers and recently hired head coach John Beilein are adding University of California-Berkeley women’s head coach Lindsay Gottlieb to the coaching staff as an assistant. Gottlieb has been at Cal since 2011 and took the Bears to the Final Four back in 2013, making the NCAA Tournament seven times in eight seasons at the university. She earned the Pac-12 Coach of the Year honor in 2013.

The news was broken this afternoon by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

Gottlieb posted an impressive .668 winning percentage at Cal (179-89) and has a career coaching record of 235-128. Prior to being at Cal, she led UC Santa Barbara to two Big West championships and one NCAA Tournament berth in three seasons with the program.

Per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the 41-year-old will sign a four-year contract with the Cavs. Adding a female assistant coach to the bench is significant as is the fact that she was given the security of a four-year deal. Still relatively early in her career, Gottlieb should have the chance to grow in this role and potentially into other opportunities down the road. Gottlieb joins Beilein for his first season as an NBA coach, joining a staff that employs former Memphis Grizzlies head coach J.B. Bickerstaff as the associate head coach.

Wojnarowski reports that Gottlieb is “believed to be” the eighth female to work on the coaching/player development front in the history of the NBA, but notes she’s joining the Cavaliers in a more prominent role than any of her predecessors did. She joins contemporaries Becky Hammon of the San Antonio Spurs and former Sacramento Kings assistant Nancy Lieberman as the only three women to ever have a coaching position in the NBA.