While it’s been reported that John Beilein will be the Cleveland Cavaliers head coach for the Salt Lake City Summer League team, Lindsay Gottlieb should be the head coach for the Las Vegas Summer League team.
The Cleveland Cavaliers will be participating in the Salt Lake City Summer League for the first time this year, which will be at the beginning of next month.
During that time, that squad will reportedly be getting together for practices in Park City, Utah, and exhibition play will run from July 1-3, as was noted by Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor.
More from King James Gospel
- 3 possible starting lineups for Cleveland Cavaliers in 2023-24
- The Cavaliers may have snagged a hidden gem in Craig Porter Jr.
- 4 players the Cavaliers should pursue in 2024 free agency
- 6 players Cavaliers might replace Jarrett Allen with by the trade deadline
- This stat is one to keep an eye on for Cavaliers’ Max Strus in years ahead
The head coach of that SLC team (which will seemingly be filled out in the next few weeks) will, per Fedor, be new Cleveland head coach John Beilein, and that probably is a good dip in the water for NBA head coaching for Beilein.
Cleveland’s rookies (which are at for now picks fifth and 26th overall), will likely get their first dose of Beilein’s influence at that time, along with other players that will likely be auditioning for a potential 2019-20 two-way slot with Cleveland and their G League affiliate, the Canton Charge, too.
While he was very successful at other levels of basketball, Beilein does not have any previous NBA coaching experience, even as an assistant, so this is probably a nice way for him to acquaint himself with the NBA landscape, even if the vast majority of players he won’t be coaching in regular season game action next year.
Flipping the focus to the Las Vegas Summer League (which runs from July 5 to potentially July 15, per Fedor), of which the Cleveland Cavaliers are more than familiar, it’s uncertain according to Fedor, who will be the head coach of that squad at this time.
Taking that into account, I believe the head coach of that team should be recently-hired 41-year-old assistant coach Lindsay Gottlieb, who reportedly is signed on for four years.
The news of the hiring, which reportedly happened on Tuesday and was officially reported by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski on Wednesday, showed that the Cleveland Cavaliers are completely focused on their coaching staff in the coming years having an extensive player development background, as we demonstrated here at KJG.
In the team’s official Gottlieb hiring announcement on Wednesday, general manager Koby Altman and Beilein essentially highlighted how Gottlieb’s success and track record as the head coach of the women’s basketball teams at UC Santa Barbara and the University of California-Berkeley demonstrate how she has done a great job without top-end talent.
Her career head coaching record at the collegiate level (an 11-year run) was 235-128 (h/t Bleacher Report’s Mike Chiari), and she’ll be a key member of the Cavaliers’ coaching staff in the coming years, which also includes former Memphis Grizzlies and Houston Rockets head coach J.B. Bickerstaff as Beilien’s associate head coach/top assistant.
With the Cleveland Cavaliers (who had a 19-63 record in 2018-19, per NBA.com) having a team that is going to be focused on continually developing key young pieces such as Collin Sexton, Cedi Osman, Ante Zizic and plenty of rookies in the next few years, allowing Gottlieb to get a taste of head coaching in the Vegas summer exhibition would be a sensible move.
The hiring of Gottlieb was the first time in NBA history that a women’s collegiate head coach went straight from that role to an NBA coaching staff, according to Wojnarowski, and Gottlieb clearly seemed thrilled to be a part of Cleveland’s organization, based on her comments in the team’s official announcement, and she looks to be a promising addition to Beilein’s staff.
Having her be the head coach of the Cavaliers squad in the Vegas Summer League seems like an easy decision to me, as it would enable her to make more of an imprint early on from an X’s and O’s and potentially player-coach relationship perspective.