Kenny Atkinson, who helped build a culture and style of play in Brooklyn that drew in Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, then went on to be a lead assistant with Steve Kerr in Golden State, is now on his way to Cleveland.
The Cavaliers are set to hire Atkinson as their new head coach, a result that had gained momentum in recent days and was formally broken Monday morning by Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN and was quickly confirmed by multiple other reports.
Hiring a new head coach was one of two offseason priorities for Cleveland, the other being getting Donovan Mitchell to sign a contract extension to stay with the team — and these two things go hand-in-hand. Moving on from J.B. Bickerstaff as coach after he got them to the second round of the playoffs this past season and hiring Atkinson doesn’t happen if it wouldn’t help get Mitchell to sign the four-year, $209 million maximum contract offer the team will put in front of him in the coming days. Mitchell is expected to sign the deal to stay in Cleveland.
Atkinson was one of the finalists for the Cavaliers job along with Pelicans’ assistant James Borrego. Borrego was seen as the Cleveland frontrunner a week ago, but when the Pistons fired Monty Williams, the dynamic changed. Borrego became a favorite for that job, in part because he has ties to Trajan Langdon, the former Pelicans GM whom the Pistons hired to turn their program around.
Atkinson had a strong player development program in Brooklyn — Joe Harris, Spencer Dinwiddie, Jarrett Allen, Caris LeVert — and the Cavaliers hope he can bring that to Cleveland and lift up the offensive game of rising star Evan Mobley.
Atkinson also brings something Mitchell and others wanted—more player and ball movement within his offensive schemes.
Pressure will be on Atkinson from Day 1 with this job. Bickerstaff took over a team that won 19 games the season before his first full season on the job, and he lifted the Cavaliers up to the No. 4 seed in the East two years in a row, then a trip to the second round this past season. Atkinson will be expected to build on that, not have the team take a step back.
