Introductory presser highlights why Cavs hired John Beilein as head coach

Based on how his introductory press conference went on Tuesday, it became more clear as to why the Cleveland Cavaliers hired head coach John Beilein to steer their rebuild.

The Cleveland Cavaliers have been stressing the importance of teaching when it comes to their next head coach, and did seemingly praise former head coach Larry Drew for his efforts in teaching young players the right habits, too, by the way.

When it comes to that sort of thing and leading Cleveland back to relevance, it seems as though new head coach John Beilein is the right man for the job long-term, even at 66.

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We’ve touched on how the former Michigan head coach (of the last 12 years, and who has reportedly never been an assistant coach) has had a winning track record throughout all levels of basketball not including the NBA, and how he has been able to adjust time and time again here at KJG.

While it’s unclear if Beilein will ultimately work as a head coach of NBA talent, the prospects are promising, and you could see why the Cavs, general manager Koby Altman and others in the front office wanted him to be the person to kick-start this next Cleveland player development era.

Beilein seems to clearly embody what Cleveland has been preaching for a while now, in terms of having a tremendous work ethic, being of the highest character, and being team-first. You could see a glimpse of his work ethic before his introductory press conference on Tuesday at the Cleveland Clinic Courts (courtesy of the Cleveland Cavaliers’ Official Twitter).

https://twitter.com/cavs/status/1130842952266338310

We’ve emphasized how Altman and the organization has been looking for a “culture driver” for their next head coach, and you could see why the Cavs believed that is going to be Beilein in his press conference. Altman touched on that in his introduction of Beilein, which was nice to hear, courtesy of Marla Ridenour of the Akron Beacon Journal/Ohio.com.

Building relationships with players will be perhaps the most important thing for Beilein in his first and hopefully only NBA head coaching endeavor, and right off the bat, team chairman/owner Dan Gilbert noted how that’s been a crucial part of Beilein’s success as a head coach at so many levels (his career collegiate record was 829-468, h/t ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski) courtesy of Basketball Insiders’ Spencer Davies.

Having the extensively-experienced J.B. Bickerstaff now as his associate head coach (but who is only 40) should help in that regard, too. Beilein also noted how he’s excited to get to work with players such as Collin Sexton and Larry Nance Jr., who attended Beilein’s presser and were practicing, and praised both’s work ethic (again, per Davies).

Additionally, Altman expressed how Beilein has been able to get the most out of his talent, even with his former players not being highly recruited, such as Caris LeVert (who is a good young playmaker on the Brooklyn Nets), and it’s clear that Beilein’s team is going to be about making the right play overall, and that includes embracing analytics, which is a crucial part of what will determine whether or not the Cavs can turn things around in the coming years (last season they finished just 19-63, per NBA.com).

When it comes to efficiency and how that correlates to his coaching style with the Cleveland Cavaliers, Beilein gave a potential example for Collin Sexton (who was recently named to the NBA All-Rookie second team, per Wojnarowski), who showed signs of making better reads down the stretch of last season, but has a ways to go still as a playmaker (courtesy of Davies).

Beilein mixed in some humor as well, which was an encouraging sign that pressure probably won’t be too much to handle for him on the day-to-day end of operations in what will be long, 82-game (and hopefully more in due time) seasons for him and of course everyone involved.

Overall, it was only an introductory press conference (of which you can watch in its entirety here, courtesy of Cavs.com/NBA.com), but you could see why the Cavaliers went with Beilein, who seems to have the makings of a leader ready to lead Cleveland in their franchise “renaissance,” as he coined it, not a “rebuild.”