Cavs: Ranking every head coach in franchise history

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Mike Fratello, Cleveland Cavaliers. Mandatory Credit: Ezra O. Shaw /Allsport /

Cavs: Ranking every head coach in franchise history – Winning Ways

4. Mike Fratello

Record: 248-212

After a successful tenure coaching the Atlanta Hawks in the 1980s, Mike Fratello went into the broadcast booth and played a prominent role with NBC alongside Marv Albert. Looking for a fresh voice to help a really good core elevate the Cavaliers lured him back to the coaching chair in 1994.

He would coach the team for six seasons, winning 53.9 percent of his games, fifth-best in franchise history. The Cavs made the playoffs four times with Fratello but never got out of the first round, losing to Eastern Conference powerhouses like Michael Jordan’s Bulls, Patrick Ewing’s Knicks and Reggie Miller’s Pacers. The team fell flat on its face in the lockout-shortened 1998-99 season and Fratello paid the price as he was fired after a 22-28 record.

3. Lenny Wilkens

Record: 316-258

Lenny Wilkens was a successful player in the NBA, with nine All-Star appearances, even finishing second in MVP voting in 1967-68 (to Wilt Chamberlain), but his playing career was eclipsed by a long and successful coaching career. He began that career in Seattle as a player-coach, and years later went back to Seattle when his playing days were over. There he led the SuperSonics to the NBA Finals twice, winning a title in 1979.

In 1986 when he left Seattle the Cavaliers were quick to offer him a contract, and he did in Cleveland exactly what he did in Seattle, almost immediately turning around a franchise stuck in the muck. By his second season the team was above .500 for the first time in a decade, and they would make the playoffs in five of the next six seasons.

The Cavs won 50 or more games three times in Wilkens’ seven seasons, three more than any other coach in franchise history to that point. After the 1992-93 season the team decided to bring in a fresh voice to try and break through in an Eastern Conference dominated by Michael Jordan and hired Mike Fratello. Wilkens would go on to become the winningest coach in NBA history with 1.332 wins, a title he eventually relinquished to Don Nelson and will shortly see Gregg Popovich slip past him as well.