Cleveland Cavaliers superstar and franchise player Lebron James has been known to be difficult with coaches. From his first tenure with Cavs and head coach Paul Silas to Miami Heat's Erik Spoelstra, his clashes with coaches has been very much publicized.
It was reported by Yahoo! Sports that James and his head coach struggled in their first year in building their relationship.
As ESPN's Marc Stein reported during last season's NBA Playoff run, "There was James, in one instance I witnessed from right behind the bench, shaking his head vociferously in protest after one play Blatt drew up in the third quarter of Game 5, amounting to the loudest nonverbal scolding you could imagine -- which forced Blatt, in front of his whole team, to wipe the board clean and draw up something else."
And now, as Adrian Wojnarowski reported, the Cavs have fired head coach David Blatt. According to the article, assistant head coach Tyronn Lue will take over head coaching duties.
As per ESPN, James has finally responded to the allegations of him being a "coach killer."
"I think it does suck that people want to throw my name in the dirt," James said.
"It sucks," James said about the allegations. "But what can I do about it? I've never, in my time since I picked up a basketball, ever undermined a coach, ever disrespected a coach. You ask any of my little league coaches, my high school coaches, coaches I've played for in tournaments, camps, my NBA coaches. I've always respected what they wanted to do. And I'm not the owner of a team, I'm not the GM of a team. I'm the player of a team."
"If I feel I got something that will help our team, ultimately, I like to give it," James added. "It helped me get two titles. So, but I think it does suck that people want to throw my name in the dirt for no particular reason, because of speculation or whatever the case may be. But you can't worry about it too much. I got 14 guys here."
"I got a fan base here and a fan base all over the world that loves what I do, and they respect what I do, and I can't worry about a select group of people that wants to use their negative energy to take away my positive energy. I can't allow that to happen," he concluded.
