Cavs assistant coach Lindsay Gottlieb to be USC women’s HC

The Cleveland Cavaliers/then-head coach John Beilein made a terrific hire in the 2019 offseason in hiring then-California Berkeley head coach Lindsay Gottlieb as an assistant coach.

Gottlieb was an accomplished head coach at other stops in NCAA Women’s Basketball prior to that, including at Cal then, and prior to that, made her presence felt as UC Santa Barbara’s head coach in three years, too. She made the NCAA tourney or WNIT in each of her three seasons at UCSB, and in seven of eight seasons as the HC at Cal following that made the Dance.

She won two Big West titles and made a Final Four as Cal’s head coach, and as a women’s collegiate head coach, amassed a record of 235-128.

Prior to her head coaching days collegiately, she was an assistant coach at Syracuse, New Hampshire, Richmond and Cal, and it’s evident that Gottlieb has definitely aided the likes of Collin Sexton and Darius Garland, among others, in her stint with the Cavaliers.

Gottlieb’s feel for the game and ability to reach players has reportedly helped the Cavs significantly, but as of a report on Monday afternoon, she’ll be a head coach in women’s basketball once again soon.

Per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, Gottlieb has been hired by the USC Trojans to be their women’s basketball HC, of which is set to be a six-year deal. Woj stated in a follow up report that this was “after an aggressive USC pursuit to bring her back to the Pac-12 conference, including a massive upgrade in program salaries and resources with hopes of restoring USC to the elite of women’s college basketball,” from there.

Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor reported how she “was set on staying” in Cleveland, and that she was intent on sticking in the NBA, but USC “kept making offers and she couldn’t turn it down.”

Gottlieb helped out the Cavs in her time here, and we wish her the best of luck at USC; we’ll see on her potential replacement.

As Wojnarowski would go on to stress in his write-up related to that report from Monday afternoon, Gottlieb aided the Cavaliers and head coach J.B. Bickerstaff in a variety of ways, in what was a front bench assistant role. She’ll reportedly be with the Cavs in ending out these last four games to come for Cleveland, per that report from Woj.

"“Gottlieb played a role in everything on Bickerstaff’s coaching staff, including game preparation and player development with the Cavs’ strong young core of Jarrett Allen, Collin Sexton, Darius Garland and Isaac Okoro.“"

As Woj highlighted in the aforementioned report, Gottlieb was “the first female head coach from a Power 5 conference” to be on an NBA coaching staff, and she clearly has set an amazing example for others to come in the near future around the league. Gottlieb has indeed been a trailblazer, and it’s apparent that she’s been an impactful presence to have around.

Cavs players and the likes of Bickerstaff and Beilein before that have raved about Gottlieb’s approach to the game, ability to help guys in getting to sweet spots on the floor, such as the two young guards in Garland and Sexton, among others.

Furthermore, the continued growth of Garland, who looks to be the Cavs primary playmaker of the future, as KJG’s Joey Cornell detailed, and Sexton/Isaac Okoro seemingly is closely aligned with how Gottlieb has made a big difference. Gottlieb will be missed greatly by the Wine and Gold and their players, I’m sure.

Looking onward, though, I wish her the best of luck with the Trojans. Will we see her perhaps with a head coaching gig in the NBA down the road or maybe in the WNBA?

We’ll have to see, but either way, I am and many others are grateful for her stint with the Cavaliers; we again wish her the best of luck in her endeavors in hopefully turning around USC. And we’ll keep an eye out in regards to her potential replacement/the Cavs coaching staff updates from here.