{"id":81094,"date":"2024-06-11T10:53:23","date_gmt":"2024-06-11T14:53:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=81094"},"modified":"2024-06-11T10:53:23","modified_gmt":"2024-06-11T14:53:23","slug":"cavs-to-interview-highly-sought-after-head-coach-candidate-james-borrego","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/06\/11\/cavs-to-interview-highly-sought-after-head-coach-candidate-james-borrego\/","title":{"rendered":"Cavs to Interview Highly Sought-After Head Coach Candidate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Cleveland Cavaliers are working diligently behind the scenes as they look to fill their head coach vacancy. Indeed, they\u2019re meeting with New Orleans Pelicans associate head coach James Borrego on Tuesday, per The Stein Line\u2019s Marc Stein.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">James Borrego is scheduled to meet with the Cavaliers about their head coaching vacancy in Cleveland today, league sources say.<\/p>\n<p>Borrego is also back at the forefront of the Lakers&#8217; search after Dan Hurley passed on L.A.&#8217;s offer to stay at UConn.<\/p>\n<p>More: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/A6ycVmnZ8Y\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/A6ycVmnZ8Y<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheSteinLine\/status\/1800518255112769665?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 11, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Borrego also remains part of the Los Angeles Lakers\u2019 coaching search after UConn men\u2019s basketball head coach Dan Hurley <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/06\/10\/breaking-dan-hurley-turns-down-lakers-returns-to-uconn\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">declined their six-year, $70 million offer<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Lakers were initially rumored to have <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/06\/08\/lakers-preparing-nine-figure-contract-offer-head-coach-dan-hurley\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">prepared a nine-figure contract<\/a> for Hurley. To paraphrase the great Marlon Brando, it\u2019s an offer that he may not have been able to refuse. However, money is said to not have been the deciding factor in his desire to stay at UConn. Instead, it\u2019s the opportunity to win his third straight NCAA championship. A feat that hasn\u2019t been accomplished since John Wooden was coaching the UCLA Bruins, the trifecta would lift him into the ethereal realm of basketball immortality.<\/p>\n<h2>Cavs to Interview Highly Head Coach Candidate James Borrego<\/h2>\n<p>It appears that the 46-year-old Borrego has a lot of fans around the league. He undeniably underwhelmed in his stint as the Charlotte Hornets\u2019 head coach. However, he\u2019s well-regarded as a tactician, emphasizing fundamentals such as a pace, space, and movement. Borrego\u2019s also seen as a player\u2019s coach, a superlative denoting his strengths as a communicator.<\/p>\n<p>Yet, he\u2019s usually coached poor defensive teams, has been questioned as an in-game manager, and may be too rigid to truly develop young talent. To ignore those faults \u2014the ones that led him to be effectively demoted \u2014would be foolhardy. That\u2019s especially true for the Cavs, who have made several head coach hires that backfired with David Blatt, John Beilein, and JB Bickerstaff. Indeed, Borrego has as much of a chance to lose games and the locker room as that trio.<\/p>\n<p>That said, Cleveland\u2019s starting big men \u2014<a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/m\/mobleev01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Evan Mobley<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/a\/allenja01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jarrett Allen<\/a> \u2014are defensive studs. This goes a long way towards the Cavs having more defensive success than they otherwise might have under Borrego. That isn\u2019t to say a product of Gregg Popovich\u2019s coaching tree doesn\u2019t understand how to run an effective defense. However, Borrego failed to instill the appropriate level of defensive discipline in his players in Charlotte.<\/p>\n<p>In Cleveland, he may not have to. Not only do Mobley and Allen take pride in their defense, but Bickerstaff pushed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/m\/mitchdo01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Donovan Mitchell<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/g\/garlada01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Darius Garland<\/a> to as well. If the Cavs don\u2019t have to worry about the defense, it\u2019s one less obstacle they\u2019ll have to worry about if Borrego is leading them on a path to the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Cleveland Cavaliers are working diligently behind the scenes as they look to fill their head coach vacancy. Indeed, they\u2019re meeting with New Orleans Pelicans associate head coach James Borrego on Tuesday, per The Stein Line\u2019s Marc Stein. James Borrego is scheduled to meet with the Cavaliers about their head coaching vacancy in Cleveland today, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":81105,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,1608,26,62,3],"tags":[5008,1557,4557],"class_list":["post-81094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cavaliers","category-basketball","category-lakers","category-nba","category-news","tag-dan-hurley","tag-james-borrego","tag-nba-offseason"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}