Byron Scott inherits a Cavaliers team that lost its way, in part because superstar LeBron James blazed new trails in apathy and denial. Can the new coach with the impressive record (three NBA championships as a player, two Finals appearances as a head coach) fill the void?
Cavaliers GM Chris Grant introduces the team's new head coach Byron Scott at a press conference on Friday.Independence, Ohio -- Byron Scott inherits a Cavaliers team that lost its way, in part because superstar LeBron James blazed new trails in apathy and denial.
Can the new coach with the impressive record (three NBA championships as a player, two Finals appearances as a head coach) fill the void?
Scott said Friday at his meet-and-greet with the media that he's "Old School" enough to do just that after playing for the demanding Pat Riley with the "Showtime" Lakers. Riley's need to win and his blunt appraisal of players' flaws are both pronounced.
Scott said he learned from his mistakes in his confrontational relationship with Jason Kidd in New Jersey and is now "New School" enough to "make players productive on the floor without losing myself."
He also said most superstars want to be coached and pushed to their limits. He even offered the opinion that James, without a ring on a single finger, is more talented than the Lakers' Kobe Bryant, who now has a handful.
No debate on that here.
The difference is in the quality of James' supporting cast, in part, and in his own inner drive.
The Cavs' season ended with a shrug when the players, the young King included, let the Celtics run out the clock in the last two minutes of the sixth game.
The math against them was formidable, but not impossible. An epidemic of missed free throws has happened before. With so many hopes and dreams on the line, it was almost inconceivable that they would simply give the game up and not foul.
At one point, doomed coach Mike Brown leaped off the bench, clapping his hands angrily, demanding, pleading, imploring and, by the end, almost begging his players to foul.
"Him again?" the players might as well have said.
Brown trudged back to the bench, ignored again, which maybe beat being openly contradicted in tone by James, but not by much.
Anyway, "New School" was out. So much for the "partnership" between Brown and LeBron James. So much for James "allowing me to coach him," as Brown often said. If Brown was any kind of partner at all by the end to the season, he was a silent one.
A firmer hand is what Scott seems to promise, and it is also what is needed at this time. No franchise in the league has given more latitude to a player than this one has to James and his "team," to use the unwittingly insulting term he employs for his posse.
Some will excuse it as a slip of the tongue. But while this may sound very retro, his team is the Cavaliers. Not Nike, not the LRMR sports agency, not the guys from the 'hood.
It would probably be good for James to be around a franchise authority figure who does not bow before him. Someone who has been to the summit of the game, not once but three times, someone who knows what it takes to get there. Someone who can challenge his stunning view that his lack of leadership amounted only to "three bad games in seven years."
"I think you have to give Boston some credit," said Scott, who cited Detroit's inability in his playing era to get past Boston, and Chicago's inability to get past Detroit.
It is true, in part. The Celtics played very well. It is also true that the Cavs could not get past the obstacle of their own lack of passion.
"This team is knocking on the door. It is ready to win it all," said Scott.
That is true of course only with James.
We have always been told that LeBron James was given so much so soon, more than anyone else ever. Scott's biggest, happiest challenge might become that of giving him what he lacks.