The 2023-24 season was another step in the right direction for the Cleveland Cavaliers. They advanced to the Eastern Conference semifinals, but that wasn’t enough for head coach J.B. Bickerstaff to keep his job.
On Thursday morning, the team decided to move on from J.B. Bickerstaff. It is a bit of a surprising move when taking a look at what he was able to accomplish with the franchise. They have qualified for the postseason for two straight years and have had their best regular season without LeBron James since 1993.
Bickerstaff deserves a lot of credit for the work he did. He took the team over after John Beilein started 14-40 during the 2019-20 COVID-19 shortened season. The Cleveland Cavaliers went 5-6 under Bickerstaff and he was named the full-time coach that offseason.
After going 22-50 in his first season at the helm, things started to turn around. The team won 44 games the following season and then broke through during the 2022-23 campaign after being the winners of the Donovan Mitchell sweepstakes.
The Cavaliers earned the No. 4 seed in the Eastern Conference in consecutive seasons. After losing in five games to the New York Knicks in 2023, they defeated the Orlando Magic in seven games this season.
But, they were eliminated in the Eastern Conference semifinals by the Boston Celtics. Jarrett Allen didn’t play in that series while Mitchell missed the final two games. Being that short-handed, an already difficult series became impossible for Cleveland.
This is the first of what will be several major moves for the Cleveland Cavaliers this offseason. There were rumors that some of the veterans, namely Mitchell, weren’t huge fans of J.B. Bickerstaff. Could this have been a move made to convince him to sign long-term? Only time will tell and provide an answer to that.
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