[Wojnarowski] ESPN Sources: The Cleveland Cavaliers dismissed coach JB Bickerstaff on Thursday. Bickerstaff led Cavs to conference semifinals and won 99 regular-season games in past two years, but change comes with hope of advancing deeper.
by UnbiasedNBAFan_
48 Comments
it happened
LETS GO
This day is for you Pigeon
WOOO
HALLELUJAH
I hope we made the right decision. I just don’t know who else is out there that’s better
HALLELUJAH
I really am not excited about anyone they might replace him with at this point. I get it probably needed to be done. I just hope this means Mitchell is more likely to re-sign.
Today is officially r/clevelandcavs Christmas
He can’t hurt us anymore
Thanks for everything you’ve done JB. I will miss you. It’s time for a new voice in the locker room.
ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!!!!!!!
I used to pray for times like this
The first of many hopefully good offseason moves. Thanks for getting us back to the playoffs JB, but we got bigger fish to fry.
Finally. Finally.
THIS IS OUR FINALS!!!
Odds Mitchell signs an extension just went up even further
We’re free!
Who’s gonna replace him is the most important question
Nothing but respect for JB. He was great for the rebuild but once we got Mitchell it was clear he wasn’t the right coach to win now.
Wish him the best.
I agree, Go Cavs
this fanbase is already sharpening their teeth for the next poor coach to come in here. JB had his flaws but I’m very grateful for him and his contributions to the franchise.
Has this team ever had a coach that people liked? Even Mike Brown, who’s going CRAZY now was hated when he was here
He was almost fired earlier in the year. He did a good job with bringing a team up, but once we had Mitchell it just wasn’t enough.
Good luck to JB. He did a good job the last few years with coaching the turn around but he had some pretty glaring downsides.
This is one of those moves you have to make, even if JB’s resume doesn’t seem to warrant it.
One of the few moves you can make amidst the uncertainty of the roster that could have upside without touching the cap sheet.
I think JB ultimately fell victim to a team construction that just was not ideal. But at the same time, he didn’t show enough to give you confidence that the ceiling would continue to get higher for the team.
Appreciate him for the role he played in bringing the Cavs back to relevance.
JB exceeded expectations his first 2-3 years by quickly instilling a good defense and getting young guns to play respectable ball.
The Cavalanche days were fun, but that turned out to be mostly a function of Ricky Rubio’s maestro like ability to guide an offense.
The fear was that he couldn’t lead a mature, contending team and that was confirmed leading up to and during the Knicks series.
That’s always when this should have ended.
There’ll be no more Bickering with the Staff.
Thank goodness. It was painfully obvious that the locker room was losing respect for JB.
Wish him the best but his time in Cleveland had to come to an end.
I think he was an okay coach. Not bad, but also not great. Which can be said about just about every Cavs coach in the past 30 years. Most think the grass will be greener and literally anyone would be better. Guess we’ll see..
I bet JB has another job within two years, some rebuilding team is going to see what happened here and hire him
I really hope we like who we hire next, not a lot of obvious candidates out there
Cavs have gone to college to find coaches a few times (Bill Self was offered the job, obv so was Beilein) I wonder if that’s the plan
I know he had his faults, but I appreciate JB. We weren’t able to maximize our potential with him, but he led us through the rebuild and for that I am thankful.
Pretends to be shocked
Pour a drink or a spark a joint for JB folks
Best of luck JB! You took us out of the post LeBron dark ages, just couldnt get the stone over the hill.
Man JB really built up this squad and created a great locker room. I think overall he developed a hungry and great defensive team and he deserves credit for that.
That said, his offensive scheme drove the cavaliers into the ground the past 3 playoff series.
I hope he finds another team to build up. Better yet I hope he gets to coach in college or something. He’s a good guy, just not a great NBA coach.
After receiving the fired call id assume JB is probably standing still with his arms crossed making 0 adjustments to his day to day life.
Honestly a lot of these moves are a year two late and it’s very sad seeing the state of the East. The amount of highly qualified coaches last year that were available compared to now is drastic
Congrats to the cavs for bringing their offense into the 21st century
Hey siri play “party rock anthem”
hopefully this means the front office will be willing to make some real squad changes this season and stick their necks out to push for a ring next few years
I get the reason why they made the move. Most of us were pulling our hair out with some of the disjointed rotations, game plans, and lack of adjustments. Hope they have a clear upgrade. Have not heard and don’t know of anyone available that would be a clear improvement. We have 2 times taken a flier on a bad hire. I would suggest that Gilbert has not had a great track record. Ty Lue, Mike Brown and JB have been the best with Blatt and College dude being disasters.
A year late but better late than never. I don’t hate the dude but it’s just clear he was never gonna get us where we needed to go, and hopefully it means we have a better chance of keeping Mitchell and building around him and Mobley
I was never the biggest JBB fan and I was never his harshest critic. Do I think he lacked vision and adapted on the fly well? Yes. Do I think the team took one step forward each season? Yes. But if your players don’t get along with you and you’re not resignated with them – you’ll only get so far. He did get the team the furthest it’s been without LeBron but to that I’d also say they have a top twenty player now. The problems lay deeper then anyone who isn’t in that locker room 24/7 know.
Thank you but it was also time to go. I think we peaked for how far we can advance with him