Cavs Interested In Terry Stotts As Head Coach; Kenny Atkinson Considered Favorite For Role

[RealGM Wiretap]

The Cleveland Cavaliers are interested in Terry Stotts for their vacant head coach role, according to Marc Stein of The Stein Line.

Kenny Atkinson remains the favorite for the job. 

Dave Joerger, James Borrego, and Johnnie Bryant are also candidates for the role.

Via Marc Stein/The Stein Line

[MitchB3]

Terry Stotts?

[njknicks]

Kenny Atkinson over Stotts.

He had Brooklyn Nets headed in the right direction until he was unceremoniously dismissed for a coach with zero coaching experience ( Nash ).

[Pickled Prunes]

Kenny Atkinson over Stotts.

Terry Stotts?

Stotts should be more highly regarded throughout the NBA. He got Lillard, McCollum and table scraps into the playoffs 8 consecutive years... in the West! "Can't play Kanter" was their starting center in the WCF. POR overachieved every single year, to the point that many people thought Lillard, (a low-assist, poor-defending PG that can't split a double) was an MVP candidate... or at least in the top 5.

I actually love Lillard, but he owes his career to Stotts. Stotts is probably the best NBA coach that is currently unemployed.

[MitchB3]

Kenny Atkinson over Stotts.

Terry Stotts?

Stotts should be more highly regarded throughout the NBA. He got Lillard, McCollum and table scraps into the playoffs 8 consecutive years... in the West! "Can't play Kanter" was their starting center in the WCF. POR overachieved every single year, to the point that many people thought Lillard, (a low-assist, poor-defending PG that can't split a double) was an MVP candidate... or at least in the top 5.

I actually love Lillard, but he owes his career to Stotts. Stotts is probably the best NBA coach that is currently unemployed.

Is he though?

[Pickled Prunes]

Kenny Atkinson over Stotts.

Terry Stotts?

Stotts should be more highly regarded throughout the NBA. He got Lillard, McCollum and table scraps into the playoffs 8 consecutive years... in the West! "Can't play Kanter" was their starting center in the WCF. POR overachieved every single year, to the point that many people thought Lillard, (a low-assist, poor-defending PG that can't split a double) was an MVP candidate... or at least in the top 5.

I actually love Lillard, but he owes his career to Stotts. Stotts is probably the best NBA coach that is currently unemployed.

Is he though?

Wow, insightful retort. You should be in the fortune cookie business. (Wisdom has no value when unrecognized or unheeded.)

I guess we won't know until Stotts gets another coaching gig and his team begins to overachieve. You know who didn't overacheive... POR post-Stotts.

[MitchB3]

Stotts should be more highly regarded throughout the NBA. He got Lillard, McCollum and table scraps into the playoffs 8 consecutive years... in the West! "Can't play Kanter" was their starting center in the WCF. POR overachieved every single year, to the point that many people thought Lillard, (a low-assist, poor-defending PG that can't split a double) was an MVP candidate... or at least in the top 5.

I actually love Lillard, but he owes his career to Stotts. Stotts is probably the best NBA coach that is currently unemployed.

Is he though?

Wow, insightful retort. You should be in the fortune cookie business. (Wisdom has no value when unrecognized or unheeded.)

I guess we won't know until Stotts gets another coaching gig and his team begins to overachieve. You know who didn't overachieve... POR post-Stotts.

The Blazers stayed the same as they did when Nate McMillan was the coach, the only thing Stotts did was make 1 WCF after that, the team went as expected.

[Pickled Prunes]

Is he though?

Wow, insightful retort. You should be in the fortune cookie business. (Wisdom has no value when unrecognized or unheeded.)

I guess we won't know until Stotts gets another coaching gig and his team begins to overachieve. You know who didn't overachieve... POR post-Stotts.

The Blazers stayed the same as they did when Nate McMillan was the coach, the only thing Stotts did was make 1 WCF after that, the team went as expected.

McMillan was fired in 2012. Lillard was drafted the following summer and CJ was drafted in 2014. They won 28 games in 2012, 33 games in 2013 and exceeded expectations just about every season after. The year Aldridge went to SAS (and every year after) the talking heads were expecting the wheels to fall off. Multiple times roster move were made that seemed to signal a rebuild, but Stotts coached them to a playoff berth, and at a time when the West had never been deeper.

You are either underrating Stotts or overrating that roster. Maybe both.

[MitchB3]

Wow, insightful retort. You should be in the fortune cookie business. (Wisdom has no value when unrecognized or unheeded.)

I guess we won't know until Stotts gets another coaching gig and his team begins to overachieve. You know who didn't overachieve... POR post-Stotts.

The Blazers stayed the same as they did when Nate McMillan was the coach, the only thing Stotts did was make 1 WCF after that, the team went as expected.

McMillan was fired in 2012. Lillard was drafted the following summer and CJ was drafted in 2014. They won 28 games in 2012, 33 games in 2013 and exceeded expectations just about every season after. The year Aldridge went to SAS (and every year after) the talking heads were expecting the wheels to fall off. Multiple times roster move were made that seemed to signal a rebuild, but Stotts coached them to a playoff berth, and at a time when the West had never been deeper.

You are either underrating Stotts or overrating that roster. Maybe both.

My apologies, I went back and saw that Nate didn't coach Dame. However, I'm not underrating Stotts, he's an okay coach, however, to get you over the hump he's not that coach. YOU can bring up all the "overachievement" REGULAR season standing you want, I PERSONALLY knew he's one of those 2nd round exist coaches. One of the reasons why, Dame failed in Portland.

[Pickled Prunes]

The Blazers stayed the same as they did when Nate McMillan was the coach, the only thing Stotts did was make 1 WCF after that, the team went as expected.

McMillan was fired in 2012. Lillard was drafted the following summer and CJ was drafted in 2014. They won 28 games in 2012, 33 games in 2013 and exceeded expectations just about every season after. The year Aldridge went to SAS (and every year after) the talking heads were expecting the wheels to fall off. Multiple times roster move were made that seemed to signal a rebuild, but Stotts coached them to a playoff berth, and at a time when the West had never been deeper.

You are either underrating Stotts or overrating that roster. Maybe both.

My apologies, I went back and saw that Nate didn't coach Dame. However, I'm not underrating Stotts, he's an okay coach, however, to get you over the hump he's not that coach. YOU can bring up all the "overachievement" REGULAR season standing you want, I PERSONALLY knew he's one of those 2nd round exist coaches. One of the reasons why, Dame failed in Portland.

The exact opposite is true; without Stotts POR would have been the Western Conference Wizards. Two solid players (with clear weaknesses) surrounded by trash. POR never had a roster that should have been expected to be in the 2nd round. If Stotts was coaching the current BOS roster and never made a Finals run, that would be a failure. The roster in POR was the opposite of that. Their two best players were Dame and CJ, both under 6-3 and both questionable defenders.... and they surrounded them with more small players and questionable defenders. I mean, Melo falls short in OKC and HOU and somehow he's expected to be the answer in POR?

You talk about getting over the hump. Making the playoffs in the West with those rosters was exactly that: Getting over the hump.

If you don't know that Stotts overachieved in POR, it is because you never took a close look at their roster and how it lined up with the depth in the West. They were never playoff locks, let alone (even remotely) legitimate contenders. There was no point during Stotts tenure that POR had even 4 starters that would definitely start on any NBA teams. Go back and look at the depth charts... you may be surprised at the lineups that Stotts drug into the playoffs. Very often, starters that were traded away fell immediately out of the league. In almost every situation they moved to a bench role on their new team.

Then you say, "but they had Dame!" Yes they did, but when you look at the advanced numbers combined with the glaring weakness on the defensive end you will see that... Dame is essentially Trae Young without the court vision. How's Trae doing?

[MitchB3]

McMillan was fired in 2012. Lillard was drafted the following summer and CJ was drafted in 2014. They won 28 games in 2012, 33 games in 2013 and exceeded expectations just about every season after. The year Aldridge went to SAS (and every year after) the talking heads were expecting the wheels to fall off. Multiple times roster move were made that seemed to signal a rebuild, but Stotts coached them to a playoff berth, and at a time when the West had never been deeper.

You are either underrating Stotts or overrating that roster. Maybe both.

My apologies, I went back and saw that Nate didn't coach Dame. However, I'm not underrating Stotts, he's an okay coach, however, to get you over the hump he's not that coach. YOU can bring up all the "overachievement" REGULAR season standing you want, I PERSONALLY knew he's one of those 2nd round exist coaches. One of the reasons why, Dame failed in Portland.

The exact opposite is true; without Stotts POR would have been the Western Conference Wizards. Two solid players (with clear weaknesses) surrounded by trash. POR never had a roster that should have been expected to be in the 2nd round. If Stotts was coaching the current BOS roster and never made a Finals run, that would be a failure. The roster in POR was the opposite of that. Their two best players were Dame and CJ, both under 6-3 and both questionable defenders.... and they surrounded them with more small players and questionable defenders. I mean, Melo falls short in OKC and HOU and somehow he's expected to be the answer in POR?

You talk about getting over the hump. Making the playoffs in the West with those rosters was exactly that: Getting over the hump.

If you don't know that Stotts overachieved in POR, it is because you never took a close look at their roster and how it lined up with the depth in the West. They were never playoff locks, let alone (even remotely) legitimate contenders. There was no point during Stotts tenure that POR had even 4 starters that would definitely start on any NBA teams. Go back and look at the depth charts... you may be surprised at the lineups that Stotts drug into the playoffs. Very often, starters that were traded away fell immediately out of the league. In almost every situation they moved to a bench role on their new team.

Then you say, "but they had Dame!" Yes they did, but when you look at the advanced numbers combined with the glaring weakness on the defensive end you will see that... Dame is essentially Trae Young without the court vision. How's Trae doing?

YOU can bring up all the "overachievement" REGULAR season standing you want, I PERSONALLY knew he's one of those 2nd round exist coaches.

[Pickled Prunes]

My apologies, I went back and saw that Nate didn't coach Dame. However, I'm not underrating Stotts, he's an okay coach, however, to get you over the hump he's not that coach. YOU can bring up all the "overachievement" REGULAR season standing you want, I PERSONALLY knew he's one of those 2nd round exist coaches. One of the reasons why, Dame failed in Portland.

The exact opposite is true; without Stotts POR would have been the Western Conference Wizards. Two solid players (with clear weaknesses) surrounded by trash. POR never had a roster that should have been expected to be in the 2nd round. If Stotts was coaching the current BOS roster and never made a Finals run, that would be a failure. The roster in POR was the opposite of that. Their two best players were Dame and CJ, both under 6-3 and both questionable defenders.... and they surrounded them with more small players and questionable defenders. I mean, Melo falls short in OKC and HOU and somehow he's expected to be the answer in POR?

You talk about getting over the hump. Making the playoffs in the West with those rosters was exactly that: Getting over the hump.

If you don't know that Stotts overachieved in POR, it is because you never took a close look at their roster and how it lined up with the depth in the West. They were never playoff locks, let alone (even remotely) legitimate contenders. There was no point during Stotts tenure that POR had even 4 starters that would definitely start on any NBA teams. Go back and look at the depth charts... you may be surprised at the lineups that Stotts drug into the playoffs. Very often, starters that were traded away fell immediately out of the league. In almost every situation they moved to a bench role on their new team.

Then you say, "but they had Dame!" Yes they did, but when you look at the advanced numbers combined with the glaring weakness on the defensive end you will see that... Dame is essentially Trae Young without the court vision. How's Trae doing?

YOU can bring up all the "overachievement" REGULAR season standing you want, I PERSONALLY knew he's one of those 2nd round exist coaches.

Once again, top notch dialogue. Slow clapping for you as we speak!

YOU can bring up all the "underachievement" in the PLAYOFFS you want, I PERSONALLY know he's one of those coaches that drags a LOTTERY team to the 2nd round.

Stotts got to the third round with a roster that should have been in the lottery. I apologize that you and Barkley expected more. Maybe you should both check out some film of the sets Stotts ran to get those perpetually "too small" lineups open looks. He's an absolutely brilliant coach, despite your wildly unrealistic expectations of drastically flawed rosters. (Actually, Barkley already knows that Stotts is a bad ass!)

Tell you what, I'll bet you a pizza (sight unseen) that when Stotts gets his next HC gig his team beats the Vegas under/over. Put your pizza where your mouth is!