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"&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Cleveland&amp;nbsp;Cavaliers&amp;nbsp;fired head coach David&amp;nbsp;Blatt&amp;nbsp;on Friday, and hired assistant coach&amp;nbsp;Tyronn&amp;nbsp;Lue&amp;nbsp;as his replacement, the team announced Friday.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Yahoo\u2019s Adrian&amp;nbsp;Wojnarowski&amp;nbsp;first&amp;nbsp;reported&amp;nbsp;the news.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;According to&amp;nbsp;Wojnarowski,&amp;nbsp;Lue&amp;nbsp;agreed to a three-year deal worth more than $9.5 million to replace&amp;nbsp;Blatt.&amp;nbsp;Lue, a former NBA point guard, has served as an assistant with the team since joining&amp;nbsp;Blatt\u2019s&amp;nbsp;staff in 2014 and had previously coached with the Clippers (2013\u201314) and Celtics (2009\u20132012) under Doc Rivers.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u2022&amp;nbsp;&lt;strong&gt;JENKINS: High drama, high stakes: Cavs fire&amp;nbsp;Blatt&amp;nbsp;with NBA title in mind&lt;/strong&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CI am very grateful to have had the opportunity to serve as the head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers,\u201D&amp;nbsp;Blatt&amp;nbsp;wrote in a statement&amp;nbsp;released through his agency. \u201CI\u2019d like to thank Dan Gilbert and David Griffin for giving me this opportunity and am honored to have worked with an amazing group of players from LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love through our entire roster. I\u2019d also like to express my extreme gratitude to my coaching staff. I am indebted to them for their professionalism, hard work and friendship. I am proud of what we have accomplished since I have been the head coach and wish the Cavaliers nothing but the best this season and beyond.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Cleveland.com\u2019s Chris Haynes reports that Blatt had trouble drawing plays out of timeouts and would freeze up. One player told Haynes that Blatt would draw up plays for players that were not even in the game.&amp;nbsp;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u2022&amp;nbsp;&lt;strong&gt;GOLLIVER: Inability to get on same page doomed&amp;nbsp;LeBron-Blatt&amp;nbsp;pairing&lt;/strong&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Cavaliers are 30\u201311 and hold a 3 1/2 game lead in the Eastern Conference. Cleveland went to the Finals last season under&amp;nbsp;Blatt&amp;nbsp;in his first year as head coach, falling to Golden State in six games. The Cavs were blown out by the Warriors last week, 132\u201398, but won consecutive games against the Nets&amp;nbsp;and&amp;nbsp;Clippers entering Saturday\u2019s game against the Bulls.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Blatt&amp;nbsp;was named the Eastern Conference coach of the month for October and November combined.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u2022&amp;nbsp;&lt;strong&gt;MAHONEY:&amp;nbsp;LeBron&amp;nbsp;James\u2019s&amp;nbsp;imprint all over Cavs\u2019 decision to fire&amp;nbsp;Blatt&lt;/strong&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Blatt&amp;nbsp;was hired in June 2014, around two weeks before James decided to leave the Miami Heat and rejoin the team as a free agent.&amp;nbsp;Blatt&amp;nbsp;went 83\u201340 in 123 games as head coach of the Cavaliers.&amp;nbsp;According to Elias Sports,&amp;nbsp;Blatt&amp;nbsp;is the first NBA head coach to be fired with his team atop its conference since the league began conference play. Blatt and Byron Scott are the only coaches since 2000 to be fired in midst of the season immediately after leading their teams to the Finals.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Blatt&amp;nbsp;previously served as head coach of&amp;nbsp;Maccabi&amp;nbsp;Tel-Aviv in the&amp;nbsp;Euroleague&amp;nbsp;and coached Russia to a bronze medal at the 2012 Olympics.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;According to&amp;nbsp;reports, Cavs star&amp;nbsp;LeBron&amp;nbsp;James was not consulted on the decision to fire&amp;nbsp;Blatt, and was informed by the team this morning.&amp;nbsp;Wojnarowski&amp;nbsp;reports&amp;nbsp;that James and agent Rich Paul have advocated in the past for&amp;nbsp;Lue to become head coach.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;- &lt;em&gt;Jeremy Woo&lt;/em&gt;\r\n&lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.si.com/nba/2016/01/22/cleveland-cavaliers-fire-david-blatt-lebron-james>