David Blatt

Life and work

The story behind the role.

Israeli American basketball player, coach and executive.

David Michael Blatt (Hebrew: דוד מיכאל בלאט; born May 22, 1959) is an Israeli-American professional basketball executive. He is also a former coach and player. Blatt played point guard at Princeton University from 1977 to 1981 and played in the Maccabiah Games for the U.S. national team that won a gold medal in 1981. He then played professional basketball in Israel for nine of the next twelve years, before an injury ended his playing career, and he began coaching full-time. He is one of the most successful Israeli-American coaches in European basketball history. As a coach, Blatt has been the Israeli Super League Coach of the Year four times (1996, 2002, 2011, and 2014), the Russian Super League Coach of the Year (2005), and the EuroLeague Coach of the Year (2014). Blatt took over as Cleveland's head coach, and led the team to the 2015 NBA Finals in his first season. He guided them to the top of their conference the next year, but was fired mid-season, and subsequently returned to coaching in Europe.

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