On Monday night, the Cleveland Cavs’ offseason officially began with a brutal home loss to the New York Knicks in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals. The Cavs were not competitive at all in this series after going up by 22 points in the fourth quarter of Game 1, and Cleveland now has a summer with more questions than answers.
Some have opined that the team should move on from head coach Kenny Atkinson after his questionable performance in this series, which included a bizarre quote before Game 4 that referenced analytics, which indicated in his view that Cleveland actually was expected to be winning the series 2-1 at that point based on shot quality.
“…sources said this statement made by Atkinson was viewed as an escape from the troubles that surrounded the team. It is said that some within the organization saw this as a cop-out answer by Atkinson to hide the early struggles and failures from the first two games of the series,” reported ClutchPoints’ NBA insider Brett Siegel.
At this point, it’s unclear whether Atkinson will be back at the helm in Cleveland, as “Rival executives and agents are truly torn on whether Atkinson will remain the head coach of the Cavs entering the 2026-27 season at this moment,” per Siegel.
Atkinson has had some great success during his time as the head coach in Cleveland, including an epic run during the 2024-25 regular season, but it remains to be seen if that will be enough to allow him to keep his job after yet another underwhelming playoff performance, which included two Game 7’s in order to get to the conference finals in the first place.
Clearly, the Cavs have some big decisions ahead of them this summer.