Here’s a shocker: It sounds like LeBron James is running the show in Cleveland.
It should come as no real surprise that the Cleveland Cavaliers superstar — not first-year head coach David Blatt — apparently is calling the team’s offensive sets. In a podcast with Grantland’s Bill Simmons, ESPN NBA writer Brian Windhorst revealed James is the one making the call in games.
“The Princeton offense that David Blatt installed in the preseason, they just threw that out,” Windhorst explained during the podcast, via Deadspin. “What typically happens — and this has been happening for like three months now — is LeBron will take the ball, and LeBron will call the play. David Blatt will see what play LeBron calls, and he will repeat it to the team. That happens on a regular basis.”
Again, this isn’t necessarily Earth-shattering stuff. Everyone already assumed James is calling the shots — or at least helping to do so — when it comes to just about anything basketball-related, on or off the court.
This also seems to back up a December report from Windhorst and ESPN’s Marc Stein claiming James and his teammates had started to tune out their head coach. This certainly is one way to fix that.
Whatever the Cavs are doing now seems to be working. Cleveland’s won eight of its last 10 and is 29-7 since Jan. 15.
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