The Meaning of a Comeback

Much has been made of the comeback in big games this year. Beginning with the NBA Finals this past June when the Cleveland Cavaliers were down 3 games to 1 to the Golden State Warriors. Most basketball fans counted the Cavs out, but the team was led by LeBron James and Kyrie Irving to come back and win the team's first championship. In a best of 7 series, being down 3 games to 1 is usually a death sentence, but the Cavs seem to have set a trend with their come from behind victory.

Next, it was the perennially lackluster Chicago Cubs who, like the Cleveland Cavliers, were down 3 games to 1. Trailing the Cleveland Indians, the Cubs managed to summon the strength in the 2016 World Series and win the team's first championship since 1908. Down 3 games to 1 in the World Series gives your opponent 3 games to win just 1 game, while you have to sweep the final 3 games. Somehow the Cubs managed to do it and millions flooded the Chicago streets to celebrate.

Next up was one of the most exciting tennis matches I've ever witnessed. The finals of the 2017 Australian Open between veteran players Swiss Roger Federer and Spaniard Rafael Nadal. Federer was down, yes, 3 games to 1, in the fifth and final set, but managed to come back and win his 18th Grand Slam title.

Finally, in the NFL there are no championship series like in basketball and baseball. However, in the Super Bowl this past Sunday evening the New England Patriots scored 31 (there are those numbers again!) unanswered points to win their 5th Super Bowl. Quarterback Tom Brady and the Pats were down 25 points to the Atlanta Falcons, but miraculously battled back to win thanks in large part to the best Jewish NFL player Julian Edelman's amazing catch.

Coach David Blatt's Firing Makes You Go Hmmm

For Jewish and pro-Israel sports fans Coach David Blatt of the Cleveland Cavaliers was a bit of a novelty. Sure, there have been Jewish coaches in the National Basketball Association (NBA) in the past -- the legendary Red Auerbach, Red Holzman and Larry Brown to name a few. But David Blatt was the first Israeli head coach in the NBA and to Jewish basketball fans that was a source of pride.

On Friday, David Blatt became the first coach to be fired when his team had the best record in a conference since conference play started in the NBA back in 1970-71. That's not something Jewish basketball fans will be proud of. In fact, it's a statistic that has left people scratching their heads.

Cavs owner Dan Gilbert, himself Jewish and a supporter of Israel, fired Coach Blatt late last week. No one questioned that Blatt's termination was motivated by his Israeli connection. Many, in fact, speculated that LeBron James wanted Tyronn Lue, an assistant coach, to lead the team. Regardless of the rationale for terminating Blatt, there's no question that the timing was odd. At the time of his firing, the Cavs were in first place with a .732 winning percentage and there were still a few weeks to go until the All Star break. Many in the league (including Tyronn Lue, the new head coach of the Cavs) are insisting that Blatt still be allowed to coach the East team in the All Star Game in mid-February.

Blatt’s sophomore season as Cleveland's head coach (he had only coached in Israel and Europe previously) was going even better than his first year when the Cavs made it to the NBA Finals. While no one suggests that the decision to fire Blatt was at all related to his Israeli background (he was born in the U.S., but has called Israel home since making aliyah in 1981), there was a lot of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic rhetoric in the comment sections of the stories in the press that broke Friday after the news of his termination.

Commenting on Blatt's firing, Detroit Pistons head coach Stan Van Gundy ranted, "It’s embarrassing for the league... we all get into this no matter what happens. You’re supposed to win. He did. He did, and now he’s still getting fired... That one – to me – elevated all of the coach firings totally into the theater of the absurd... I don’t know if anybody knows what the expectations of coaches are anymore."

USA Today ran a story right after Blatt's firing about the response in Israel. The opening line of the article was, "The Cleveland Cavaliers suddenly have far fewer fans in Israel after the firing of David Blatt." It said that news of the firing topped all Israeli newscasts Saturday, knocking Middle East violence off the headlines. One Israeli lamented, "Finally I can go back to hating LeBron without feeling guilty. Hope he never sees a title in his life." Israelis rallied around Cleveland for one reason: their beloved Coach Blatt. Now, those same fans are left questioning why he was fired.


On a personal note, I met Coach David Blatt following a Cavaliers-Pistons game one year ago and found him to be extremely friendly and kind. He took the time to talk to my son in Hebrew, wish him a happy birthday and then offered a "Shabbat Shalom" greeting together with my son, Josh, and the friends he brought to the game.

I for one will miss having David Blatt in the NBA and hope that another team will soon hire him as a head coach. He's got a smart basketball IQ and deserves to have another shot at coaching in the NBA.

Are the Cleveland Cavaliers a Jewish Team?

I've always been of the opinion that one should, first and foremost, cheer for one's own hometown sports teams. For example, I've never understood how someone from Detroit could randomly choose another NFL team as "their team" instead of the local Detroit Lions (despite their lack of a single Super Bowl championship). However, when it comes to the playoffs, if one's own team isn't playing then it is acceptable to adopt a team and cheer for that team.

Here in Detroit, it's become the accepted practice to cheer for the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA postseason when the Detroit Pistons are not playing. While the Cavaliers might be one of the Pistons' closest rivals, Detroiters feel a connection with the team and can't resist liking them. Such has certainly been the case with me.

With Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert and former player Zydrunas Ilgauskas at a Friends of the IDF Event in Cleveland

Owned by Jewish philanthropist Dan Gilbert, the Cavs have become something of a first cousin to the Detroit Pistons. One might find it odd to enter the Downtown Detroit headquarters of Quicken Loans, the company Gilbert owns, and see a basketball court bedecked in Cleveland Cavaliers colors and logos. For Detroiters, however, this seems natural. In both Detroit and Cleveland, we've found a mutual appreciation for Gilbert, who has used his philanthropy and business savvy to bring a dual renaissance to Detroit and Cleveland, two major U.S. cities that have struggled financially in the past several decades. (Gilbert owns a casino in both cities, the Quicken Loans Arena ("The Q") in Cleveland, the Lake Erie Monsters hockey team, the Cleveland Gladiators arena football team, a large Downtown Cleveland office for Quicken Loans employees there, dozens of Detroit-based companies, and has bought over 75 buildings in Downtown Detroit).

With my son and Cleveland Cavaliers Coach David Blatt

Not only have the Cavs become the adopted team during the NBA playoffs for Detroit Pistons fans, but recent articles have called the Cavs "Israel's Team." Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even phoned Head Coach David Blatt, who has Israeli citizenship, to wish him luck and tell him that the entire State of Israel was behind him. Almost a decade before the Cavs hired an Israeli coach, my first experience with Dan Gilbert's Cavs had a connection to Israel. I was invited to Quicken Loans Arena in 2006 to watch the Cavaliers take on Maccabi Tel Aviv in a pre-season game. The night before I attended a dinner at a synagogue in the Cleveland suburbs where Dan Gilbert was honored by Friends of the Israel Defense Forces. The two teams competed again before this season, but this time around it was more personal because Blatt used to coach Maccabi Tel Aviv.

My son and his friends with Cleveland Cavaliers Coach David Blatt

I would argue that the Cavs are a Jewish team too. If they win the NBA championship this year (the series begins tonight), they wouldn't be the first team with a Jewish owner and Jewish coach -- the Detroit Pistons won in 2004 with Larry Brown as coach and Bill Davidson as the majority owner. But there's a very Jewish feel to this team in which Gilbert and star player LeBron James had to perform teshuva before the season to repair their fractured relationship. When LeBron returned to Cleveland after his sojourn in Miami he had to apologize to Cleveland fans for his undignified exit a few years back and Gilbert had to make amends to LeBron for his unprofessional public letter. There's certainly a Yom Kippur sermon in there about healing relationships.