Sports Time Radio

John Beilein started his coaching career in Junior college with SUNY Erie. In four years there Beilein went 75-43 and never had a losing season. Beilein then moved up to NCAA Division III with the Nazareth Golden Flyers. In his one season there Beilein went 20-6. Beilein’s next stop was Le Moyne an NCAA Division II school. In nine years at Le Moyne Beilein went 163-94 and had just one losing season. Beilein got his first of what turned out to be the first of his four NCCA Division I jobs at Canisius. Beilein took Canisius to two NIT appearances and one trip to the NCAA tournament. After five years at Canisius Beilein compiled a record of 89-62 before moving on to the University of Richmond. In his first year at Richmond Beilein took the Spiders to the NCAA tournament; Richmond also made two NIT appearances with Beilein as head coach. Beilein compiled a 100-53 record in his five years at Richmond before heading to the West Virginia University. Beilein took the Mountaineers to two NCAA tournament appearances and two trips to the NIT. West Virginia won the NIT tournament in the 2006-07 season. Beilein spent five seasons at West Virginia with a record of 104-60. Beilein’s final stop as a college coach was at the University of Michigan. Beilein spent 12 years at Michigan and took the Wolverines 9 NCAA tournament appearances and finished as tournament runner up twice. Beilein out together a record of 278-150 while at Michigan.

Then on May 13th 2009 Beilein signed a five year deal to become the head coach of the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers.

Beilein headed to Cleveland with an outstanding college coaching resume, but after just 54 games and a 14-40 record Beilein and the Cavaliers have agreed to part ways. The Cavaliers currently have the worst record in the Eastern Conference and the second worst record in the NBA.

Beilein has always been looked at as a coach that likes to run a constant motion offense with precision shooting. Is this a style that will work in the NBA? Apparently not in Cleveland. Now obviously it’s not just the fault of the offense the team was running. Remember that the Cavaliers where stuck with a couple of big contracts; Kevin Love and Tristan Thompson and the team is also still paying J.R. Smith. That’s why it was a bit of a surprise when the Cavaliers traded for Andre Drummond who’s on a max deal for this season and next season. Now Thompson and Matthew Dellavedova are in the last season of their contracts; so that will help the Cavaliers get some salary cap relief. Even with some salary cap room you have to wonder if there’s a free agent out their that would be interested in signing with Cleveland.

J.B. Bickerstaff will be taking over as the head coach of the Cavaliers. Bickerstaff has had two other head coaching stints. He coached the Houston Rockets for 71 games going 37-34 in 2015-16. Houston was eliminated in the 1st round of the playoffs that season. Bickerstaff took over the Memphis Grizzlies for the final 63 games in 2017-18 going 15-48. The Grizzlies decided to keep Bickerstaff as the head coach for the 2018-19 season, but was fired by the team after they went 33-49 and missed the playoffs.

Bickerstaff will make his debut as Cavaliers head coach on February 21st against the Washington Wizards. Bickerstaff’s career starts off with two back to back road games as the Cavaliers will play the Miami Heat on February 22nd.

Bickerstaff isn’t inheriting the best of coaching situations and it’s unclear right now if Cleveland is interested in keeping him around after these final 28 games of the season. Bickerstaff was the Cavaliers associate and assistant head coach; so he’ll just move a spot up on the bench.

Now with the changes the NBA made to the draft lottery there’s no guarantee that the Cavaliers will get the kind of player that can help them as a rookie. Can Cleveland land a game changing player in the draft? And if they do land that player; how much of a difference will that player make?

Greg Olsen is changing teams. On February 3rd the Carolina Panthers decided to release Olsen after nine seasons. After 13 seasons in the NFL there was some talk that Olsen might retire and move into a commentators role. Olsen has been a booth analyst for Fox Sports during this XFL season.

Well it looks like Olsen will be playing next season as he signed a one year $7 million dollar deal to join the Seattle Seahawks.

The Seahawks do have two veteran tight ends on their roster; Ed Dickson and Will Dissly, but neither has the pass catching resume that Olsen does. Jacob Hollister was the Seahawks top tight end last season with 41 receptions and 3 touchdowns. You’d like to think that a healthy Olsen will be able to surpass those numbers easily.

Olsen has always been a viable offensive target when healthy. He has had to seasons of 80 plus receptions as well as three seasons where he put up 1000 yards receiving. Olsen posted a career high 7 touchdowns in 2015 with Carolina.

Olsen has dealt with his share of injuries the last three seasons, but last season was the healthiest one he’s had. In 14 games Olsen caught 52 passes for 597 yards and 2 touchdowns with a long receptions of 41 yards. The concern for the Seahawks is if Olsen has a repeat of 2017 where he played 7 games or 2018 where he played in 9 games. If Olsen can just repeat the numbers he put up last season or improve them just slightly it would be an upgrade for the Seahawks.

With Olsen off the free agent tight end board it looks like Eric Ebron and Hunter Henry will be the top free agents on the market. There are a lot of veteran tight ends available in free agency with Jason Witten heading up that group. Witten has said that he’d like to play next season even if it’s not for the Dallas Cowboys. Will see if the Olsen signing possibly gets the market started and will see some signings soon.

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