By Joe Vardon, Shams Charania and Jason Lloyd
The Cleveland Cavaliers dismissed J.B. Bickerstaff as their coach after 4 1/2 seasons, three postseason appearances and 170 regular-season wins with him at the helm, league sources confirmed Thursday.
Bickerstaff, 45, guided the Cavs to their first second-round playoff series since 2018 and their first without LeBron James on the roster since 1993. He has two years and roughly $10 million remaining on his contract.
Golden State Warriors assistant Kenny Atkinson and New Orleans assistant James Borrego — both with head-coaching experience — are considered leading candidates to replace Bickerstaff.
The firing came eight days after the Cavs were bounced from the second round of the playoffs by the Boston Celtics. It was after the series-clinching Game 5 loss when The Athletic reported Bickerstaff’s position in Cleveland was in “serious jeopardy.”
Though Cleveland improved every season under Bickerstaff, his teams scuffled after the All-Star break in each of the last three years. Also, and perhaps most importantly, Cavs star Donovan Mitchell, among other players, did not have great confidence in him as the coach for the future, numerous league sources have said for most of the season.
Fairly or not, those players questioned Bickerstaff’s strategies, game management, practice habits and accountability measures, privately and publicly, throughout the season. Bickerstaff had to manage a roster that was constantly plagued by injured players missing games, as well as the pressure throughout the organization to convince Mitchell to accept a four-year, $208 million extension.
Cleveland was on its way to the worst record in the NBA over a three-year stretch when Bickerstaff replaced John Beilein just 11 games before the league shut down in March 2020 due to COVID-19. The Cavs returned to the postseason as a Play-In Tournament team in 2022 but lost both games and failed to make the playoffs.
Last season, Cleveland was a No. 4-seeded team, but it was bounced in five games in the first round by the New York Knicks. This season, the Cavs beat the Orlando Magic in seven games as the fourth seed before losing to the Celtics in five games of the conference semifinals.
Bickerstaff, 45, coached his last game without Mitchell, Jarrett Allen or Caris LeVert in uniform — three key players who were nursing nagging injuries. He finished with a record of 170-159 as Cleveland’s coach.
Sources said Bickerstaff was nearly fired around Thanksgiving after the team’s poor start. He also was admonished by team president Koby Altman in front of his entire coaching staff for playing Mitchell too many minutes in a December win over the Houston Rockets in overtime while both Darius Garland and Evan Mobley were out.
Cleveland was 13-12 when it was announced both Garland and Mobley would be out for up to two months due to injuries. Their absence might have permanently sunk Bickerstaff. Instead, he did some of his best work while the Cavs won an NBA-best 22 games from mid-December until the All-Star break and ignited the team’s campaign to get Bickerstaff elected as NBA Coach of the Year (he finished with one third-place vote).
But just as it did in Bickerstaff’s first two full seasons, Cleveland slid backward down the stretch. They went 12-17 after the break, which included some ghastly defeats. His players expected he would be fired at season’s end unless the team somehow made it past Boston in the second round.
Mitchell’s two best seasons as a pro, at least statistically, have occurred with the Cavs. The 27-year-old made his fifth consecutive All-Star team this season, averaging 26.6 points and career highs of 6.1 assists and 4.3 rebounds per game. He played for most of the second half of the campaign on a nagging bone bruise in his left knee.
The injury required multiple absences and a platelet-rich plasma injection in early March and at times hobbled appearance on the court. He ended the playoffs in street clothes due to a left calf strain, missing the final two games against the Celtics — the last of Bickerstaff’s tenure in Cleveland.
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(Photo: Jason Miller / Getty Images)
