Report: Cleveland Cavaliers and Larry Drew mutually part ways

The Cleveland Cavaliers realistically got all they could from Larry Drew this season, but he won’t be their head coach for the 2019-20 season, as the two sides reportedly mutually parted ways Thursday.

The Cleveland Cavaliers did not have the 2018-19 season they would have hoped for on the surface, but they did have plenty of positives in relation to their young pieces gaining valuable experience. Nonetheless, the team and head coach (for most of this season at least) Larry Drew mutually parted ways Thursday, according to a recent report from The Athletic’s Shams Charania.

Drew was the acting head coach after the Cavs reportedly fired previous head coach Tyronn Lue just six games into this season (the team was 0-6 at the time), and as WKYC’s Ben Axelrod noted, for the then-assistant to agree to be the head man for a team that was seemingly launching its full-rebuild, Drew had a “second year” added to his contract.

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The Cleveland Cavaliers would end a rough season with a 19-63 record, with Drew’s win-loss record being at 19-57.

That record was anything but all Drew’s fault, though, because injuries decimated his team all season long, and on the plus side, Cleveland’s now tied for having the best odds (a 14.0% chance, per Tankathon) to land the number one pick in the 2019 NBA Draft, thanks to them having a bottom three record.

As the aforementioned Axelrod alluded to, “All-Star forward Kevin Love appeared in just 22 games, with center Tristan Thompson playing in a career-low 43 contests for similar reasons.”

Drew not having those players for a huge part of the year made it very difficult to be competitive in the beginning and middle part of the year, given that Cleveland was forced to often play players such as Cedi Osman and David Nwaba out of position at the 4 spot, for example.

As we’ve discussed, however, the Cavaliers were much more competitive in the latter part of the season, not that the record showed it, but Drew reportedly keeping the team together in a tough year was impressive in itself.

Drew deserves some credit for Collin Sexton‘s incredible scoring outburst and better decision-making (of which our Josh Friedman detailed recently), Osman’s solid offensive production throughout the year (with 13.0 points, 4.7 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game, per NBA.com) and players such as Larry Nance Jr. and Ante Zizic showing considerable improvement.

That being said, Drew is 61, and as Axelrod hit on, Cleveland “will seek a more long-term fit for their head coaching position.”

The Cleveland Cavaliers’ former head man seemed to play an integral part in the progress of players such as Sexton and Osman, and the organization (along with the players he coached this year) should be grateful for that; this was a tough season for everybody, and Drew seemed to see the silver lining in everything even as the losses piled up, which said a lot about the veteran coach.

We wish him the best of luck.