John Beilein’s approach with youngsters has been biggest positive in his Cavs’ tenure
By Dan Gilinsky
John Beilein is reportedly unlikely to remain the head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers after this season, but the biggest positive from his tenure in Cleveland has been him sticking with playing youngsters big minutes.
It has been a rough NBA debut season for John Beilein, who is, at least at the moment, the head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Cleveland currently is 14-40 in the 2019-20 campaign, which is the NBA’s second-worst record, but nobody was expecting the Cavaliers to compete for an Eastern Conference postseason berth this season.
With that said, the transition from the collegiate ranks to the NBA has been an especially tough one for the 67-year-old Beilein. Beilein last spent 12 seasons prior to this year at Michigan and made it to two Final Four’s while there, and in totality, had a head coaching record of 571-325 in stops at Canisius, Richmond, West Virginia and Michigan before coming to the NBA, per Sports Reference.
With Beilein proven to be a winner at all his other stops before the Cavs, and also proven to have been a start-from-scratch specialist whose teams were system and not as much player-driven, I was actually hopeful that Beilein could be a viable candidate to turn this Cleveland team around.
Unfortunately, though, the huge pileup of losses, not being able to connect with his players, and additionally with his son, Patrick, resigning before even coaching a game as a head coach at Niagara, Beilein is unlikely to return as Cleveland’s head coach next season, according to a report on late Sunday from The Athletic‘s Shams Charania (also of Stadium), Kelsey Russo and Jason Lloyd (subscription required).
ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and Brian Windhorst echoed that news, and also as of late Sunday, noted that Beilein could be resigning during the current All-Star break, with a decision to be made likely in 24-48 hours from that point on late Sunday, with Tuesday seemingly being a date in which Beilein makes his decision whether to step down or coach through the rest of 2019-20. Beilein reportedly met with Cavs owner Dan Gilbert regarding his choice, too, but no decision has yet been made.
Just recently on Tuesday evening, that aforementioned time span seemed to be right-on, as per a report from Charania and Lloyd (subscription required), a resolution involving Beilein and the Cavs parting ways is expected to come by Wednesday, with Beilein likely walking away from the rest of the years on his contract and $12 million. His deal was originally for four years, with an option for a fifth, per Charania and Lloyd.
In the likely event Beilein’s tenure ends, it’s expected that Cavs associate head coach J.B. Bickerstaff will take the interim head coaching duties through the end of this season, which would be sensible, as Bickerstaff has previous head coaching experience with the Houston Rockets and Memphis Grizzlies.
From there, though, while it would seem that the Cavaliers would feasibly re-assess the head coaching situation for next season, with Bickerstaff likely being Beilein’s successor eventually down the road beforehand, Wojnarowski also reported that Bickerstaff is indeed going to be the full-time, not just interim, head coach.
At any rate, the biggest positive in relation to Beilein’s tenure with the Cavs has been his steady approach with playing youngsters such as Collin Sexton, Darius Garland, Cedi Osman and Kevin Porter Jr. big minutes, and meaningful ones alongside players such as Kevin Love at that.
While it’s evident that the Garland-Sexton backcourt has had their share of problems this season, with both being 20 and 21, which has led to unnecessary turnovers, inefficiency as a shooter with Garland and poor shot selection at times, to go with having issues on the defensive end due to both being small for today’s standards, I’m still glad that Beilein has allowed those two to consistently play big minutes for their growth.
Garland and Sexton have been staggered more since the beginning of 2020, for reference, but either way, it’s been a big plus for the Cavaliers that despite the losses, young players have gotten valuable time. Along with that, Sexton continues to prove that he’s going to get buckets in a variety of ways, as he leads the Cleveland Cavaliers in scoring with 19.8 points per game on an improved true shooting clip of 54.4 percent, per NBA.com.
While Garland has had his ups and downs as a shooter and has definitely been a key reason why Cleveland has had the highest turnover rate this year among NBA teams, he’s flashed big-time range and impressive handling ability throughout the season, and his passing vision for a young guard has been particularly encouraging.
Garland leads Cleveland in assists per game with 3.8, and though I know that isn’t a huge number, in his last 15 games, it’s been nice to see DG average 5.1 helpers per contest even with him having a true shooting clip of just 44.5 percent, as noted by NBA.com.
With the way Beilein emphasizes ball and man movement and making the extra pass, it’s also seemed that the way Garland gets others involved and with that Beilein influence, that Sexton is showing more growth as a playmaker, too, as he’s had 3.9 assists per game in his last 15 outings.
Furthermore, Cedi Osman sticking at the starting 3 I’ve been a fan of, as he’s had pretty steady averages of 10.8 points and 2.3 assists per game, and has shot 38.2 percent from three-point range, and he’s been getting more playmaking chances in recent games as well.
I’ve appreciated that Beilein and company have gotten Porter plenty of burn throughout the season, too, as he continues on an upward trajectory and is flashing his star potential more and more as of late. Since coming back from his absence from his reported left knee sprain, Porter has had 15.3 points per game on 62.1 percent true shooting, to go with 2.1 assists per outing in eight games.
Moreover, though it’s likely to end very soon, the biggest positive under Beilein has been him continuing to stay the course and play his key young pieces big minutes, and not get carried away with playing the likes of veterans such as Matthew Dellavedova and previously Brandon Knight, who was recently traded to the Detroit Pistons, too much, for example.
Even while coaching a team that’s primarily focused on the development of young players, it’s tough to not sit them a bunch in order to help you get more wins.
Fortunately, Beilein has at least stayed the course for the most part as the Cleveland Cavaliers head coach, and I’m grateful for that, and hopefully the rebuild gets going in the right direction further in coming years under the 40-year-old Bickerstaff, who will seemingly soon be starting his third NBA head coaching job.