Raja Bell explains how he once convinced LeBron James to play hard for David Blatt
Bell says his discussion worked, but Blatt was still fired later that season
The Cleveland Cavaliers' latest round of drama has seen things get so bad that teammates were reportedly accusing Kevin Love of faking an illness after he left the team's loss to the Thunder last weekend.
Amid the chaos, LeBron James gave an interesting quote about the future of Tyronn Lue in Cleveland. There really haven't been any reports suggesting that Lue will be fired, but when a team is struggling as much as the Cavs, firing the coach is often one of the first options.
LeBron hopes the Cavs don't fire Ty Lue. Do you? pic.twitter.com/EEy1dpesca
— clevelanddotcom Cavs (@PDcavsinsider) January 21, 2018
In regards to the potential change on the sidelines, CBS Sports' Raja Bell -- who previously worked in the Cavs' front office -- explained on the latest episode of the "Off The Bench" podcast how he once tried to prevent David Blatt from being fired.
Bell says he had a discussion with LeBron James, telling "The King" that he needed to get his teammates to play hard for Blatt, so that the Cavs' front office could properly evaluate the coach.
I knew David Blatt was on the hot seat. I like David, I spent a lot of time with him after games. That was my job, talk to David about the nature of NBA players, what happened in our postgame, just kind of chop it up, give him different ideas and stuff like that -- David Blatt that is.
So David Griffin and I are walking over there, and he's like, 'I think my feet might be to the fire here, I might have to fire David Blatt.'
I'm like, 'don't do it. Don't. Let's not do it, give me a chance to go talk to LeBron.' So I pull LeBron aside after shootaround that morning, and everybody goes to get on the bus. And we spend about 15 minutes talking. I'm talking to LeBron about his legacy, and what, ultimately, that is -- it's not about what you did in Miami, but it's gonna be whether you can get this championship back to Cleveland.
David Blatt is our guy right now, but in fairness to David Blatt, you as a team haven't played hard for David Blatt. [LeBron] had just come back from that little hiatus in Miami, and I said, 'we as a staff can't really judge David on his merits, because we haven't seen you guys play hard for him. So if you can get everybody to play hard for him, and give him the opportunity to show us what he can do, then we can make a judgement, and help you get the guy -- if he's not the guy -- that you'll need to do that.'
And so LeBron, he looked at me and he said, 'I can do that.' They came out and they did that. They rolled the Clippers that night, and things took off a little bit. So the question about whether Ty Lue is on the hot seat, the answer is yes.
While Bell's message worked in the short term, it obviously did not help in the long run. As we know, Blatt was fired in the middle of the 2014-15 season, and replaced with Lue.
















