The Cleveland Cavaliers just clinched a playoff berth for the first time since 2018, and for the first time without LeBron James since 1998. They will likely not only make the playoffs but clear 50 wins and have home-court advantage in the first round.
A lot of the credit for that success goes to the players, from home-grown talents like Evan Mobley and Darius Garland to trade acquisitions like Donovan Mitchell and Jarrett Allen. Even so, plenty of the credit should go to head coach J.B. Bickerstaff and the work he has done molding this group into a winning team.
The Cleveland Cavaliers could decide to replace Bickerstaff as coach
Yet there continue to be a lot who doubt Bickerstaff as a high-end coach. They point to an ever-changing rotation, too many minutes for the core players, late-game failures and other cracks in the facade. In his only playoff experience as a head coach, he went 1-4 with the Houston Rockets in 2015-16.
We detailed last week why the Cavaliers are a candidate to replace their coach despite making the playoffs, following the example the Golden State Warriors and others set: often the coach to take you from bad to good is replaced to take a team from good to champion.
This piece is not advocating for Bickerstaff’s replacement, but rather looking at the coaching landscape if the Cavaliers move on. Who could be on the market to fill that role and try to elevate the Cavs to true contention? Let’s look at four candidates who could replace Bickerstaff.
The Cavaliers could hire Nick Nurse as their new head coach
The Toronto Raptors replaced a successful coach in Dwane Casey, hiring Nick Nurse to replace him in 2018. The team also traded for Kawhi Leonard that same offseason, and together they led the Raptors to an NBA title in 2019, Nurse’s first season as head coach.
Nurse is known as a tactician, and he rolled out a variety of creative schemes to make it out of a tough Eastern Conference and to overcome Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors. He not only helped the growth of young players like Fred VanVleet and Pascal Siakam, but he also managed to mesh veterans like Leonard and Danny Green into what the Raptors had already built.
Nurse won 58 games in his first season and 53 in his second, but things have been shakier over the past few seasons. After going 23-12 in the playoffs those first two years, Nurse missed the playoffs his third year, then went 2-4 in a first-round exit last season. A middling year this season that will require a Play-In Tournament win just to make the playoffs could lead to Nurse being dismissed as coach.
There is no perfect coach on the market, and Nurse has struggled with some of the interpersonal dynamics of the role. With that being said, his tactical brilliance could take this Cavaliers’ core to a new level. The defensive schemes he could develop with a player like Evan Mobley are downright scary to consider, and offensively he will have on-ball creation the likes of which he has never seen in Toronto. Nurse has proven that he can take a great team all the way to a title, and the Cavs could use someone with that experience to get them to the finish line.
The Cavaliers could hire Steve Nash as their new head coach
One Steve Nash is a two-time MVP, one of the greatest offensive players in NBA history and the linchpin of the Seven Seconds or Less system that revolutionized NBA basketball. He is personable, well-spoken and a maestro at drawing up after timeout plays. That Steve Nash was hired to be the head coach of the Brooklyn Nets.
The other Steve Nash is one who struggled to lead a team when the franchise put all of the authority into the hands of his star players. Perhaps a coach with more experience or a stronger voice could have kept the Nets together, but by the end, Nash proved wholly unable to make his voice heard over the endless drama embroiling the team. The Nets were right to let him go, and the team played much better for his replacement, Jacque Vaughn.
That doesn’t mean that Nash isn’t a great head coach, however, or that he couldn’t thrive in a different situation. managing egos is certainly part of the job as a head coach, but Nash seems like the kind of coach who could do that reasonably well in a normal situation. The Cavs have a roster of stars who are all bought in, playing for a franchise that hasn’t done any abdicating of authority to its players.
Nash could take an offense with both Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland to the next level, pouring into each and helping to raise their games to elite status. He has principles of the Suns’ wide-open pick-and-roll offense as well as the read-and-react system of Steve Kerr after spending time with the Warriors. He can bring both of those successful schemes to bear in helping a team that is already elite defensively take the next step on offense.
The Cavaliers could hire Becky Hammon as their new head coach
This is the head coaching candidate on this list who could raise the most eyebrows, as the NBA has not yet had a female head coach in the history of the league. That is a “hurdle” that is much more built of theoretical issues than real ones. Excepting the fact that there hasn’t been one before, there is no substantive reason why a woman could not be the head coach of an NBA team.
With that out of the way, Becky Hammon has an incredible track record. A former WNBA star, Becky Hammon has spent years as an assistant coach, many of them under Gregg Popovich on the San Antonio Spurs. She developed under one of the greatest head coaches of all time, a “school” that has produced numerous coaches all across the league. She even served as the acting head coach in one game against the Los Angeles Lakers in 2020.
Hammon then took a job last season as the head coach of the Las Vegas Aces and positively revolutionized their team. She introduced modern principles of shooting and pace that she brought over from the NBA and an analytical look at the game and saw instant success. She took a really good team and made them absolutely elite (sound familiar?), going 26-10 in the regular season and then 8-2 en route to winning the WNBA title.
The Cavaliers could absolutely benefit from her offensive acumen and her overall demeanor. She has been beloved by players and fellow coaches alike at every stop in her career, and she brings a lot of energy to the sideline. She has plenty of experience maximizing talented bigs, which would be a boon for Evan Mobley, but her work last season unlocking a whole new level for Kelsey Plum bodes well for the futures of Mitchell and Garland as well. Becky Hammon would make an excellent coach.
The Cavaliers could hire Ty Lue as their new head coach
We end our look at potential head coaching candidates by coming full circle. In 2016, coming off of a trip to the NBA Finals, the Cavaliers organization decided that head coach David Blatt was not going to get it done overseeing a contending team. They replaced him with assistant coach Tyronn Lue, and the rest is history: Lue guided the Cavaliers to the NBA Finals and ultimately to the first title in franchise history.
Lue took the Cavaliers back to the Finals in each of the next two seasons, constantly adapting to a changing cast of characters around LeBron James. It’s impossible to extricate Lue’s success from LeBron’s impact, but he seemed to maximize the players he had. That carried over to his next job in Los Angeles with the Clippers. With stars Kawhi Leonard and Paul George in and out of the lineup, Lue has had to constantly adjust to the players available for any given game.
Under his watch, the Clippers reached the Western Conference Finals for the first time in franchise history. He has shown that he can adjust during a playoff series, even making bold changes in the lineup, rotation or scheme. He has excellent leadership skills, a good tactical mind and a championship track record.
Even so, it’s very possible that he and the Clippers part ways this summer, either because of another disappointing season or because of a desire to be a bit closer to home (his family lives in the Midwest). If Lue is back on the market, could he be a candidate to return to the Cavaliers?
The Cleveland Cavaliers have a really good coach already in J.B. Bickerstaff, but if the team moves on there are some excellent candidates on the market or potentially available who could help this team take the next step. Whether it’s a return for Ty Lue or a bold hire in Becky Hammon, the Cavs have the kind of team that should attract top coaching talent.