The firing of former Cleveland Cavaliers head coach David Blatt has sparked a plethora of rumors about LeBron James, as it’s widely thought that James was the driving force behind the decision. Not only is the Blatt move now in question, but new allegations that James might have attempted to orchestrate the firing of Erik Spoelstra during his four-year tenure with the Miami Heat have surfaced.
At @YahooBDL: Heat part-owner: LeBron James ‘made it clear’ he wanted Erik Spoelstra fired. https://t.co/BvdP6DfJ6Z pic.twitter.com/Ijizov0Uk8
— Dan Devine (@YourManDevine) January 27, 2016
Ranaan Katz, who owns a minority stake in the Heat, was recently a guest on an Israeli sports talk radio show hosted by Ofira Asayag. A panel gathered to talk about the firing of Blatt, and throughout the course of the interview, Katz made quite a few interesting claims and has sparked controversy by saying James “made it clear” that he wanted Spoelstra fired while with Miami.
Katz was a shareholder of Maccabi Tel Aviv when Blatt coached there between 2001-04, so he naturally also had a number of things to say about James and Blatt’s relationship.
“I spoke to David Blatt while he was here in Miami when the Heat played the Cleveland Cavaliers. He didn’t see it coming, but I could tell the situation wasn’t 100 percent working. I thought LeBron James had enough brains to make it work, though.”
“David Blatt’s main problem was LeBron’s attitude. I sat court-side during all the games Cleveland played in Miami, I was a few feet away from the Cavaliers’ bench, and I heard everything. There was no dialogue between Blatt and LeBron. Blatt would talk to Timofey Mozgov and the other guys. LeBron takes advantage of being an NBA superstar, and he needs to realize that it won’t work. Everyone saw how the Golden State Warriors beat LeBron and the Cavaliers a week ago. He has to understand that to win, the entire team has to be in sync.”
Not long after, Katz began to elaborate about the dynamic between James and Spoelstra in Miami.
“With the Miami Heat, LeBron James—before and after his four seasons when his contract was up with the team—made it clear that he wanted to dump head coach Erik Spoelstra. At one point, [Heat president] Pat Riley called LeBron into his office and said that no one will tell him how to run the organization. Riley told James that Spoelstra is his guy and that firing Spoelstra is out of the question. That was the main reason LeBron returned to Cleveland.”
Katz added that James did a significant amount of damage to the Heat’s roster before he left.
“LeBron screwed us badly; we weren’t prepared for his departure from the Miami Heat. We made the wrong decisions because of LeBron James—he told us to draft a point guard [Shabazz Napier] who didn’t meet the expectations, but we chose him because that’s what LeBron wanted.”
James has since been questioned by reporters about Kanaan’s statements. As expected, he refuted the claims.
#Cavs LeBron James full quote when asked if it hurts to have a narrative about not getting along with coaches. pic.twitter.com/M7Jbzw2f1R
— Chris Fedor (@ChrisFedor) January 27, 2016
I don’t think anyone truly believes that James had zero influence on the firing of Blatt, but Katz sounds like a jilted lover exacting revenge. It’s thought by many in the industry that he’s not incredibly in-tune with what goes on inside the Heat on a daily basis, so his claims should be taken with a grain of salt.
