CLEVELAND, Ohio — The next Cavs coach will have an elite defense before he blows the whistle. He’ll inherit a core that won 99 games over its last two seasons. He’ll have three rounds of playoff film to build from, and he’ll have his predecessor to thank for all of it.
Cleveland fired former coach J.B. Bickerstaff on Thursday after a five-game series loss to the Celtics last week. The decision capped a five-year coaching stint during which Bickerstaff won about 52% of his games and one playoff series in two appearances. And the end of his tenure will likely color this fan base’s perception of his success or failure, which I understand.
You want to call Bickerstaff’s 6-11 playoff record a disappointment following the Donovan Mitchell trade? I get it.
Want to call general manager Koby Altman reasonable for wondering if another tactician could reach a higher ceiling with this roster? I agree.
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But calling Bickerstaff’s tenure anything short of a success would be discrediting the work he did during this franchise’s darkest days in recent history.
So instead of kicking a coach while he’s down, let’s shine a light on the highs he enjoyed, which adds necessary context to Cleveland’s Bickerstaff Era.
Bickerstaff earned this job 54 games into a nightmare season after John Beilein’s resignation in February 2020. The Cavs owned the Eastern Conference’s worst record (14-40) and the NBA’s worst vibe just two years removed from their fourth consecutive Eastern Conference title.
Cleveland’s young players (Collin Sexton, Darius Garland, Kevin Porter Jr.) needed guidance as they learned the pro game, but its most seasoned veteran (Kevin Love) hated being stuck in a rebuild.
Welcome to your new job, Coach. Care to tell us how you’ll fix this?
“Every night when we step on the floor, our goal is to be the most competitive team and the most unselfish team,” Bickerstaff said then. “What that results in? We’ll see. But giving guys an opportunity to go out and compete and play for one another, those are things that can happen quickly because those are conscious decisions that we just have to make.”
That’s what coaches say when their team lacks direction, or talent, or both. And to Bickerstaff’s point, he coached 22 different players who played at least 15 games and 10 minutes per game from his interim stint until the end of his first full season in 2020-21.
Even after Cleveland drafted Evan Mobley the following offseason, nobody saw the Cavs winning 44 games during his first year. Nobody saw the Cavs’ defensive rating ranking fifth with six of their top seven rotation players aged 24 or younger. And nobody saw this franchise doubling its win total in one season, thus emboldening Altman to trade for Mitchell.
By nobody, I also mean the Cavs fans who discredit Bickerstaff’s pair of playoff seasons because he coached a talented roster. Yes, Mitchell supercharged Cleveland’s offense when he arrived in September 2022. And yes, Mobley and Allen have become a dominant defensive duo that can succeed in many contexts and under many coaches.
Evan Mobley, left, and Jarrett Allen, right, became a formidable duo playing for J.B. Bickerstaff.John Kuntz, cleveland.com
But Mitchell wasn’t around when Cleveland climbed out of the lottery, and we didn’t realize Mobley’s and Allen’s defensive potential until Bickerstaff showed it to us.
Know why? Because young teams are usually bad on defense. They usually need more time to gel as a core. And small-market front offices are usually hesitant to accelerate a core’s timeline by trading for a star who wants to play somewhere glitzier.
But Bickerstaff bucked those trends because he built a strong defensive culture and Cleveland added two elite rim protectors. The Cavs became a playoff team because Bickerstaff helped Garland become an All-Star and the Cavs traded for Mitchell. And Cavs fans should consider their former coach’s strengths and weaknesses when evaluating his tenure.
Bickerstaff’s offense grew stale around two star guards. He couldn’t solve the spacing problem created by playing Allen and Mobley together. And his pair of playoff losses raised concerns about his schematic adaptability, which is why Altman wants to replace him.
Fair enough. The next coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers needs to help Mitchell and Garland improve their backcourt partnership. He needs to find the right balance between spacing and rim protection, and he needs to push the right playoff buttons next spring.
But first, he needs to thank Bickerstaff for the first-world problems that the former Cavs coach left behind.
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