Cavaliers Taking Major Risk With J.B. Bickerstaff Decision

The NBA is a harsh business. Both conferences are top-heavy with loaded squads as stars increasingly look to team up to make deep playoff runs, but that hasn't led to a drop in expectations for other teams.

That includes teams like the Cleveland Cavaliers, who just made a massive coaching move despite having their best playoff finish since LeBron James left.

Cavaliers News: J.B. Bickerstaff Fired

There has been buzz around the Cavs looking to make big changes if they didn't reach the Eastern Conference Finals this year, and while this one isn't a Donovan Mitchell trade, it's still pretty splashy. It also feels incredibly reactive.

Bickerstaff took over as the full-time head coach in the 2020-21 season, after the Cavs went 19-63 and 19-46 in the first two seasons of the post-LeBron era. The minutes leaders on his first squad were Collin Sexton, Cedi Osman, Darius Garland, Kevin Love, Tristan Thompson, Larry Nance Jr. and Kevin Porter Jr. This was not a team that was supposed to win many games. The goal was to improve every year.

And Bickerstaff did just that. Just look at the Cavs' records by year:

• 2019-2020: 19-46 (.292) — the team went 5-6 when Bickerstaff took over to end the season
• 2020-2021: 22-50 (.306)
• 2021-2022: 44-38 (.537)
• 2022-2023: 51-31 (.622) — lost in the first round of the playoffs
• 2023-2024: 48-34 (.585) — lost in the second round of the playoffs

Bickerstaff improved the team's record each season until they made the playoffs, and then made their deepest playoff run of his tenure. But apparently that wasn't good enough.

Now, this isn't necessarily a crazy decision by Cavs management. There is something to be said for different coaching styles being right for teams in different stages.

Bickerstaff was clearly adept at turning around a young rebuilding team. But maybe he's not the right guy to help a squad make the leap from rebuilder to genuine contender. Of course, there's only so much a head coach can do to make that leap.

It's not like this is a Milwaukee Bucks situation where the Cavs had a championship-caliber roster that simply couldn't live up to expectations. They lost to a Boston Celtics team that was massive favorites to win the NBA Championship even when the postseason began. Is coaching really going to make up the difference in talent between the rosters?

Bickerstaff had his issues. There were times Cavs fans were all yelling at their TVs about his rotations. His teams struggled to win road playoff games. There were certainly moments of questionable play calling. But you're not going to find many teams whose fans think their head coach consistently makes the right decisions with rotations and play calling. At the end of the day, it's hard to look at the results of the last four years and say that Bickerstaff didn't live up to what would have been realistic expectations.

It's also not like the best head coaching options are readily available. The question isn't "are there better coaches out there than Bickerstaff?" but rather "are there better coaches than Bickerstaff available who will take the Cavs job?" No matter what you think of the firing, there's a very real risk that a new hiring ends up being a downgrade.

LeBron James isn't coming to save the Cavaliers again, and Cavs management may be about to learn that the grass is not always greener on the other side.

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