Cavs hoping connection with players pays off with J.B. Bickerstaff as next HC

The Cleveland Cavaliers and John Beilein have reportedly parted ways as of late Tuesday, and the team is hoping that successor J.B. Bickerstaff being able to better connect with their players will pay off.

The Cleveland Cavaliers will have yet another new head coach when they return to action on Friday at the Washington Wizards.

After there were reports on late Sunday that the Cleveland Cavaliers and head coach John Beilein were reportedly considering parting ways over the All-Star break, it’s no shock that according to The Athletic‘s Shams Charania (also of Stadium) and Jason Lloyd (subscription required), the two sides were likely to part ways by Wednesday.

Per Charania and Lloyd, that was to likely result in Beilein walking away from the rest of the following years’ compensation on his deal, which is $12 million; his initial contract was for four years, with an option for the fifth.

In the event that Beilein was likely no longer leading the Cavs, it was expected that associate head coach J.B. Bickerstaff, who was seen as the 67-year-old Beilein’s eventual successor down the road, was going to step in and take over the full-time, not just interim, head coaching duties, per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. Wojnarowski then followed up that report on late Tuesday, as Beilein is indeed leaving as the Cavs head coach, and will say his goodbyes to the team/the coaching staff on Wednesday.

Did anybody really think going into the 2019-20 season that there would be another mid-season transition, such as was the case early on last season with prior head coach Tyronn Lue being fired and interim head coach Larry Drew eventually taking over, or when Lue took over for prior head coach David Blatt mid-season in 2016?

No, even with the Cavs changing head coaches so often under owner Dan Gilbert, I wouldn’t have expected this to happen in Beilein’s first season with general manager Koby Altman and Cleveland being sold on Beilein as their “culture driver” to turn things around in this full-rebuild.

The task for Bickerstaff, who has previously been a head coach for the Houston Rockets and Memphis Grizzlies and reportedly is very well-respected by Cavs’ players and is going to be the new head coach, though, I’d hope should be a much smoother transition than it was for Beilein coming to the NBA from the collegiate ranks.

Beilein had since last coached at the University of Michigan for the previous 12 seasons, and had quite a successful track record at other stops at Canisius, Richmond and West Virginia before that, too, albeit the NBA is different.

Beilein was an outstanding collegiate head coach, and I was initially hopeful that he could eventually instill better ball and man movement and team-oriented play to aid in a Cavs’ turnaround, but Cleveland’s players have reportedly been tuning out Beilein as the year has progressed.

He clearly could not relate to professional players well, and that played a crucial role in Cleveland only having a 14-40 record in 2019-20 and often seeming out-of-sync.

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One could see that based on Kevin Love‘s less-than-stellar body language for much of this season, and Beilein reportedly saying that Cavaliers players were playing “like a bunch of thugs” accidentally instead of his then-intended term, “slugs,” in a film session last month didn’t exactly help foster a great relationship with the team.

Again, though, with Cleveland players reportedly having tons of respect for Bickerstaff, who can clearly relate to them as a 40-year-old more than Beilein ever could and also has been around the NBA a long time, as Forbes‘ Evan Dammarell recently highlighted, I’d hope the rest of 2019-20 at least goes smoother for the Cavaliers.

On the bright side, I did appreciate how Beilein continued to play key young pieces such as Darius Garland, Collin Sexton, Cedi Osman and Kevin Porter Jr. big minutes this season, even with the losses amounting more and more.

Garland and Sexton have had their ups and downs as a tandem, which wasn’t unexpected, but DG has shown his deep range a bunch this season, and his passing vision has been particularly encouraging, and Sexton, though he still is learning the playmaking side of things, is getting better lately there and has led Cleveland in scoring this year with 19.8 points per game, per NBA.com.

Additionally, Osman has shot 38.2 percent from three-point range this season and Porter has grown in his overall game throughout this season, and since returning from his left knee sprain absence, he’s posted 15.3 points per game on 62.1 percent true shooting, to go with 2.1 assists and 1.1 steals per outing in eight games, as noted by NBA.com.

So will Cleveland’s young pieces keep progressing in their development under Bickerstaff seemingly in coming years? That remains to be seen, but his ability to relate to youngsters and veterans alike is what Altman and the Cleveland Cavaliers are hoping will pay off.

Hopefully, Cleveland can add some quality defensive help in the 2020 NBA Draft such as Auburn’s Isaac Okoro, Dayton’s Obi Toppin or potentially USC’s Onyeka Okongwu to help out the defensive-minded Bickerstaff and other young pieces, too.

That also feasibly includes Andre Drummond as the team’s current defensive anchor on the interior to help set the right mindset the rest of this season in terms of team defense as well.

Drummond is reportedly likely to pick up his $28.8 million player option for 2020-21, too, per Sports Illustrated‘s Sam Amico, so that could aid Bickerstaff in his efforts to improve the Cavs’ D, which currently has the league’s second-worst defensive rating. Granted, given his potential value as an expiring trade piece next season, I still believe if Drummond picks up his player option, the Cavs should eventually move him near the 2021 deadline.

Moreover, let’s not expect the Cavaliers to be drastically improved record-wise under Bickerstaff the rest of this season, but a realistic expectation is that the young pieces will continue to grow playing meaningful minutes and the focus can be on the floor the rest of the way.

Is Bickerstaff the long-term solution to this head coaching conundrum for Cleveland?

That remains to be seen, but hopefully it doesn’t get worse than with the issues that came with Beilein, who obviously proved to be an awful fit for this job and could not relate to his professional players at all.