Cleveland Cavaliers President of Basketball Operations Koby Altman reaffirmed his commitment to Cavs head coach JB Bickerstaff, according to Cleveland.com Cavs reporter Chris Fedor.
“#Cavs president of basketball operations Koby Altman told @clevelanddotcom & one other outlet — in a private chat — that J.B. Bickerstaff isn’t going anywhere when asked if the Cavs were fully committed to him remaining as coach,” Fedor wrote in a Friday tweet.
Koby Altman said there wouldn’t be any sweeping changes or overreactions to the Cavs’ first-round loss to the Knicks, according to Right Down Euclid Editor-in-Chief Evan Dammarell.
JB Bickerstaff’s NBA coaching career stretches back to the 2004-05 season, when he served as an assistant coach for a then-Charlotte Bobcats team that featured a 22-year-old Emeka Okafor and Gerald Wallace, according to Basketball Reference. He would move through assistant roles with the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Houston Rockets before eventually becoming interim head coach for the Rockets in 2015 after Houston fired Kevin McHale.
Houston would finish with a 37-34 record throughout the rest of the 2015-16 season.
He spent two years as the Associate Head Coach of the Memphis Grizzlies before being promoted to the team’s head coach in 2018. The former Oregon State forward garnered a record of 48-97 before he was fired in 2019.
JB Bickerstaff spent four seasons with Cleveland, one as an Associate Head Coach, helping guide the Cavs to their first 50-win season since 2018.
“It’s an accomplishment for sure,” JB Bickerstaff said earlier this month, via Cleveland.com. “Winning 50 games in the NBA is not easy. The NBA season is long, it’s grueling, it’s difficult, it’s emotional.
“But being able to have a group of guys that commit themselves to the team, no matter the circumstances, the selflessness with all the other things that they have going on in the world, for them to sacrifice and move those things to the side, and just continue to focus on the team and do whatever it takes to continue to build a team.”