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Chris B. Haynes may have left the Cavs beat for cleveland.com, but the man remains as plugged into the team as anyone else. As he prepares for his new gig covering the Golden State Warriors for ESPN, he uploaded a video onto Facebook detailing the continuing impasse between the Cavs’ front office and its coaching staff.
To get everyone up to speed, the Cavs coaching staff, outside of Tyronn Lue and Larry Drew, remain without contracts. Their deals expired on July 1st, and at least a few worked during the Las Vegas Summer League without pay. According to Haynes, Phil Handy, Damon Jones, Jim Boylan, and James Posey are all without deals. On top of this, the Cavs exercised Larry Drew’s option for next year, but the deal was in place when Drew was the third or fourth assistant. He’s now the associate Head Coach.
All of this leads to Haynes’ characterization of the state of the talks in pretty dire terms. “Frustration is at its worst”, he says, and it’s “unbelievable” that a team coming off an NBA championship finds itself in this situation. He notes that the standoff has “reached the point of hostility”.
Video report on Tyronn Lue pushing behind scenes to get his frustrated coaches paid, Larry Drew's promotion to associate head coach being met with resistance and details on LeBron's players-only mini camp that may not include J.R.
Posted by Chris B. Haynes on Saturday, September 3, 2016
“These coaches are walking around ... as free agents,” Haynes says, even as Ty Lue has made it clear that these are the guys he wants on the staff.
Haynes goes on to report that LeBron James’ pre-camp workouts will start September 21st. Will things be resolved by then?