LeBron James has had to endure claims that he’s the villain who ended David Blatt’s coaching tenure with the Cleveland Cavaliers this past week.
After denying his involvement in Blatt’s firing by saying he was “surprised and caught off-guard” by the decision, James was again put under the gun by Raanan Katz. The co-owner of James’ former team, the Miami Heat, appeared to accuse the superstar of wanting to fire coach Erik Spoelstra while he was with the franchise.
“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,” Katz said on an Israeli sports talk radio show, as transcribed by Bleacher Report.
“At one point, (Heat president) Pat Riley called LeBron into his office said that no one will tell him how to run the organisation. 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.”
However, both the Heat and Katz denied the comments, with the Heat co-owner saying his quotes were incorrectly translated, according to the Miami Herald. James enjoyed two championships with Miami under Spoelstra before returning to his hometown Cavaliers in the summer of 2014, after the team had already hired Blatt as coach.
According to Yahoo Sports, James’ camp preferred former Golden State Warriors coach Mark Jackson and eventually settled on then-associate head coach and now head coach Tyronn Lue. Cavaliers general manager David Griffin refuted that notion by saying the four-time MVP “doesn’t run this organisation” following Blatt’s dismissal.
James defended himself, but admitted he isn’t concerned with the narrative that’s formed. “For me, I can’t get caught up and worried about what other people are thinking,” James said. “I stopped doing that a long time ago in my career.”
