This is pretty simple: sometimes, college coaches who get hired to the NBA ranks are not cut out for the pros.
There are success stories everywhere — Brad Stevens and Billy Donovan are thriving — and some failures (we miss you, John Calipari).
It feels like John Beilein is in the latter category.
Late on Wednesday night, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that Beilein told players in a film session “they were no longer playing ‘like a bunch of thugs.'”
“Beilein was wrapping up what had been an off-day film session in Detroit,” Wojnarowski wrote, “and a hush fell over the room when his players and staff heard the words come out of his mouth, sources said.”
Beilein later claimed he hadn’t realized he had used the word, and said that he meant to say “slugs.” He reportedly reached out to individual players to clarify what he had said.
It would be one thing if this was the first time there was a complaint like this one.
Back in December, The Athletic spoke with several anonymous Cleveland Cavaliers players who said that the team had looked toward assistant coaches and not Beilein “for guidance.” There were complaints about him that painted a picture of a coach clueless about how to work with professional athletes, and of course that’s going to happen when you’ve never done that before.
But this is now twice that this has come up. That can’t happen when you’ve got a trove of young players you’re trying to mold to be competitive in a few years. Or when you have very tradeable veterans like Kevin Love, whose recent frustration bubbled over in an extremely public manner when he grabbed the ball from Collin Sexton and hurled it toward a teammate when the young guard didn’t recognize Love had a mismatch to exploit.
Kevin Love has absolutely had it with Collin Sexton 😳 pic.twitter.com/lib6gql0mx
— Everything Cleveland (@EverythingCLE_) January 5, 2020
It’s unclear if Love’s unhappiness has anything to do with Beilein or if he’s just disgruntled while playing on a clearly rebuilding team, but the head coach has some responsibility to keep his stars invested. Love looks like he wants out of Cleveland. While it may not be fair, that in part falls on Beilein.
Look, maybe Beilein just isn’t the right guy for the job. And that’s fine! The Cavaliers gave it a try, hiring a college legend who won 571 games in Division I, who took all five teams he coached to the NCAA tournament at least once. They could choose to stick with him through this bumpy first year, and convince the locker room that they all have to grow together.
But it’s clear from what we’ve seen in the past few months, from these reports and the play on the court, that Beilein is struggling with his control over this Cavaliers team.
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