Every NBA franchise hopes to hire a coach that will lead their team for a very long time. Unfortunately, not too many teams are lucky enough to have someone like Greg Popovich lead them for close to twenty years and five NBA championships. The Warriors are hoping Steve Kerr will be that type of coach in Golden State, but first he must hire a coaching staff that will help him bring this team together.
The Warriors were hoping to hire former Maccabi Tel Aviv head coach David Blatt as an assistant coach, but according to Mary Schmitt Boyer of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Blatt has agreed to become the head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers:
David Blatt, who just resigned as coach of Maccabi Tel Aviv last week, has reached an agreement to become the 20th head coach of the Cavaliers, replacing Mike Brown who was fired on May 12, an NBA source told The Plain Dealer on Friday.
This will be the first NBA job for the well-respected Blatt, an American who played for Pete Carril at Princeton and has played and coached in Europe the past 33 years. He also will become the first European head coach to be picked to run an NBA team.
After an extensive coaching search, the Cavs surprised everyone with the hiring of Blatt. Like some of the recent head coaches hired this off-season, Blatt has no NBA head coaching experience, but he has been a very successful head coach in Europe. Blatt had been waiting for the perfect opportunity to make the transition to the NBA and the Warriors were hoping he could come to Golden State and make his mark here.
Blatt is considered one of the best offensive minds in the game and the Warriors could have definitely used him to run a more efficient offense. Many believed he would use the Warriors as a catapult to a head coaching gig, but he was able to avoid that and land his dream job. Blatt will have a tough job in Cleveland, who haven’t been the same team since LeBron James took his talents to South Beach.
Now, the Warriors must look elsewhere and they wasted no time by hiring former Clippers assistant Alvin Gentry. They had to double his salary to steal him away from Los Angeles, but he is considered on of the better assistant coaches in the league.