Cavs: Ranking every head coach in franchise history
Cavs: Ranking every head coach in franchise history – Incomplete Resumes
Eight of Cleveland’s 23 head coaches were given less than a season’s worth of games to prove their value. Some were fired in their first season with the team, while others stepped in as interim head coaches for a partial year. One, Don Delaney, technically did both in logging just 26 games with the franchise.
23. Bob Kloppenburg
Record: 0-3
In 1981-82, Bob Kloppenburg was in his first season with the team after coming over from Lenny Wilken’s staff in Seattle (more on Wilkens, a future Cleveland coach himself, later on). Head coach Don Delaney was fired 15 games into the season after going 4-11, and Kloppenburg stepped in for just three winless games while they located and hired another coach, Chuck Daly.
22. John Beilein
Record: 14-40
After a wildly successful career college career that included
21. Chuck Daly
Record: 9-32
Years before he would lead the Bad Boys Pistons in Detroit to two titles, or the “Dream Team” Men’s Olympic Basketball Team to the Gold Medal in Barcelona, Daly got his first head coaching chance in Cleveland. Brought in midseason for a team that was 4-14, Daly was unsurprising unable to turn them immediately around. He went 9-32 before the team fired him, resulting in the team bringing back Bill Musselman to close the year.
20. Keith Smart
Record: 9-31
Keith Smart was an assistant coach for the 2002-03 season in Cleveland, when both fans of the team and national media was obsessed with Cleveland native LeBron James, a high school senior who would be the No. 1 pick in the upcoming draft. Whether or not the front office intentionally tried to tank, head coach John Lucas had a roster that did not fit together well and he failed to improve it, leading to a midseason firing.
Smart took over the team and could do nothing with it. He went 9-31 down the stretch, a record poor enough to result in the Cavs landing that top overall pick and thus the rights to draft LeBron. Smart didn’t get to stick around and see how that went, as the team replaced him with veteran coach Paul Silas, and Smart moved on to the Golden State Warriors.
19. Don Delaney
Record: 7-19
Don Delaney seems to have simply been coaching in the right place to get a shot in the NBA. He was the head coach for a local Ohio community college and then a small school (Dyke College) in Cleveland proper when Cavaliers owner Ted Stepien hired him to take over the team in March 1981 from Bill Musselman. Delaney went 3-8 over the rest of that year and 4-11 to start the next one before he was fired, the first of four coaches who would coach the team that year.
18. Gene Littles
Record: 4-11
The Cleveland Cavaliers made it to the postseason despite a 36-46 record in 1984-85 under head coach George Karl. When it became clear they would not make it again the following season Karl was fired and Gene Littles was given the helm to close the disastrous year. He stood on the sidelines for the final 15 games, when the Cavs went 4-11. Littles was not retained as the team brought in Lenny Wilkens the following year.
17. Larry Drew
Record: 19-57
LeBron James left the franchise for the second time in 2018, and Ty Lue was not willing to oversee a rebuild and was fired six games into the 2018-19 NBA season. That left Larry Drew, the former Atlanta Hawks and Milwaukee Bucks head coach, to step in as the interim. He shrewdly negotiated a permanent title and corresponding pay raise to coach the team for the rest of the year. The talent vacuum and organizational mandate to angle for the draft led to a paucity of wins, and he went just 19-57 and was not retained at the end of the year.
16. Brendan Malone
Record: 8-10
Brendan Malone took over as interim head coach when Paul Silas was fired midway through the 2004-05 season. The Cavs, who had started strong in LeBron James’ second season, had floundered a bit to sit just above .500. Malone was unable to keep them at that level, with a finish just bad enough to drop them out of the playoffs. Even so he had a very young team and didn’t completely fall apart down the stretch, landing him at the top of the interim group.