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David Blatt — LeBron James' new coach — has been shaped
by his summer on a kibbutz and Jewish "life lessons."

Robert Gluck
I JNS.org

I

nfluenced by his Jewish upbringing
and a summer on a kibbutz, basketball
coach David Blatt is embarking on
his highest-profile challenge yet: coach-
ing LeBron James, the four-time National
Basketball Association Most Valuable
Player who has made waves for returning
to his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers.
The team, of course, is majority owned
by Detroit's Dan Gilbert, chairman and
founder of Rock Ventures and Quicken
Loans Inc., who tweeted upon hiring Blatt:
"Welcome to Cleveland, David Blatt! From
Russia to Israel and at several prominent
head coaching jobs in between, Coach has
done one thing: Win."
Coming off guiding Israel's storied
Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball franchise to its
51st Israeli league championship and sixth
Euroleague title (during his four years
as Maccabi head coach, he compiled a
225-55 record), Blatt landed the Cavaliers'
head-coaching job in June. Just weeks
later, northeast Ohio native James rocked
the NBA universe by leaving the Miami
Heat for Cleveland, where he had spent his
first seven seasons in the NBA.
Blatt, 55, grew up in Framingham,
Mass., listening to the raspy radio voice of
Boston Celtics' announcer Johnny Most.
During his sophomore year at Princeton
University, where he played for legendary
hoops coach Pete Carril and majored in
English literature, Blatt was recruited to
play for a basketball team at Kibbutz Gan
Shmuel in Israel over the summer.
"I really had not had designs on making
aliyah growing up or well into my college
experience, but I was invited to spend a
summer in Israel by a nice gentlemen and
a coach in Israel who saw me play with
Princeton, and I fell in love with Israel,"
Blatt said in an interview with JNS.org.
"That was a life-changing experience
because I ended up spending 33 years
there:' (Blatt's playing days for Israel ended
after 12 years when he tore an Achilles
tendon. In 1991, he married an Israeli
woman, Kineret, with whom he has four
children.)

The six-week kibbutz experience had
"an influence on helping me to enter into
Israeli society and life recalled Blatt.
"Beyond that, I can tell you that some
elements of the communal living [on
kibbutzim] certainly can be found in the
dynamics of team sports, most important-
ly that all should work for the common
good, and the better we do as a unit, the
more the individual will benefit:' he said.
Blatt, who coached the Russian national
basketball team to a bronze medal at
the 2012 Summer Olympics in London,
is known as an excellent communicator
(he speaks English, Hebrew, Russian and
Italian), who gets the best out of his play-
ers and teams.
At a press conference introducing the
new coach, Cavaliers' General Manager
David Griffin called Blatt "an authentic
leader."
Might Jewish values be the secret to his
success?
"The lessons of Judaism are life lessons
to begin with," Blatt said. "Without ques-
tion, the values, the morals and the ethics
I have taken from my Jewish upbringing
have greatly influenced me in every walk
of my life. Above all, the basic respect for
people, accepting people for who they are,
and what they are, is a guiding force in all
of my relationships and all forms of com-
munication:'
Additionally, Blatt credits his parents
for instilling in him the right attitudes and
habits.
"I was born to two very intelligent par-
ents:' he said. "The best things they taught
me were to read and to pay attention to
what was going on around me. So I had a
good start, and I tried to develop it with
good habits:' (Blatt's dad left the family
when the future coach was 8; he often
credits the example set by his special-
education teacher mother for helping him
to work with players of all backgrounds.)
In May, Blatt led underdog Maccabi
Tel Aviv to a stunning comeback from a
15-point deficit against CSKA Moscow
in the Euroleague semifinals, followed by
another upset victory in the championship
game over Real Madrid. Maccabi's win
prompted massive celebrations in Israel.

"Certainly the Jewish community will
understand the parallel to David and
Goliath:' Blatt said of the Euroleague title
run. "One of the differences being, from
our perspective, we did it twice in a week-
end and not once"
Less than a month after Maccabi's
championship, Blatt announced that he
would leave the Israeli team to pursue his
dream of coaching in the NBA. About a
week later, he was hired by the Cavaliers,
becoming the first coach to move directly
from the European leagues into an NBA
head-coaching job.
"I'm proud to bear that distinction, but
more importantly, I feel responsible going
forward and hope I can open the door
wide enough so others can do the same,"
he said.
Blatt said there are obvious cultural dif-
ferences among all the societies in which
he has coached: Israel, Russia, Greece,
Turkey and Italy.
"Each country has a somewhat different
style of basketball; he said. "It's played a
little differently, officiated a little bit differ-
ently, followed a little bit differently, man-
aged a little bit differently and therefore is
coached a little bit differently.
"There certainly are differences in
the rules between the NBA game and
European game. Each situation requires
education and attentiveness to where you
are and how you need to act:'
Now, Blatt's focus shifts to coaching a
young Cavaliers squad that will be led by
the man widely considered as the best bas-
ketball player on the planet.
"Obviously, we are all thrilled to have
LeBron coming back home Blatt said. "It's
great for our team, it's great for the city
of Cleveland and it's great for the state of
Ohio. He raises the bar without question,
in terms of his greatness as a player, his
ability to raise those around him, as well
as his character and his drive to succeed,
and his ability to play the game at a high
standard and high team standards:'
When it comes to winning an NBA
championship, something the Cavaliers
have never accomplished since their
founding in 1970, Blatt is preaching
patience.

Coach David Blatt

"We have to be very smart and
deliberate in building our team into the
highest-quality team possible and to
compete every night:' he said.
"We will see what happens. Talking
about a championship on Day 1 is a little
premature. Certainly we will come to
compete and be the highest-level team we
can be right away."
Blatt was a Celtics fan while growing
up in Massachusetts. At the time,
the team was led by Jewish coach
Red Auerbach, who won nine NBA
championships in 10 years.
"I was very young when Coach
Auerbach was winning championships,
and I didn't understand all his tactics
back then:' Blatt said. "But I did
understand that teamwork was above
all, and that the power of the team was
greater than the power of the individual.
That stuck with me throughout my
career."
Much like LeBron James returning
home, so is Blatt. He has come full circle,
landing back in America and realizing
his dream. Can he make the transition
from decades of coaching overseas to the
pressure-packed NBA?
"I'm used to the pressure," he said. "In
Israel, if you do not win [a game] by 20
[points], they seem to feel you lost. But
if you come prepared and work hard, you
don't feel the pressure as much. If you
play the game right, it doesn't make a
difference where you play it."

❑

Arts Editor Gail Zimmerman contributed to this

story.

August 7 • 2014

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