Cavs: Ranking every head coach in franchise history – You Win Some, You Lose Some
6. David Blatt
Record: 83-40
There are two ways to look at David Blatt’s tenure with the Cavaliers. The first is to look solely at the statistics in the record book, and they are certainly impressive. Blatt took the Cavaliers to the NBA Finals in his first season as a coach, increasing their win total by 20 games. In 123 games with the team he won 67.5 percent of his games, the highest winning percentage of any coach in franchise history.
To understand Blatt’s time with the team, though you have to dig deeper. Blatt was hired to oversee a young, rebuilding team, and his ego was large enough that it didn’t fit in a room with LeBron James. He bristled at the idea of anyone not named David Blatt calling the shots, and resented James’ celebrity and authority in the locker room and on the court.
He lost the respect of a team talented enough to win it all, and the front office wisely knew it had to move on from Blatt to take the cap off the team’s ceiling. Firing him in 2016 allowed the team to take a step up and win the title.
5. Bill Fitch
Record: 304-434
Things started slowly for Bill Fitch and the Cleveland Cavaliers. An expansion team in 1970, Fitch was brought in out of the college ranks to build something out of nothing. They went just 15-67 in their first season, which earned them the first overall pick (Austin Carr). They would improve slightly from there, but across the first four seasons they were largely bad.
Then the team started to get traction, and Fitch oversaw their growth from a cellar-dweller to a playoff team. By year 6 they not only made the playoffs as a 49 win team but won a series. They would make the playoffs in three consecutive years, an impressive feat for such a new team in an Eastern Conference loaded with talent.
Despite the optimism of three-straight winning seasons and a talented young core, the wheels came off from there, and the team dropped down to just 30 wins. Fitch paid the price and was replaced, starting a carousel of coaches that would last a decade until Lenny Wilkens was hired. Fitch ranks 11th on the NBA’s all-time wins list, but also second on the all-time losses list, with just a 46 percent career winning percentage.