Former Cavalier on Cleveland locker room: 'It wasn't a healthy atmosphere'
Knicks big man Lou Amundson certainly has a sampling of locker rooms to evaluate. The 33-year-old journeyman has played on 10 teams throughout his decade-long career. One of them was the Cavaliers, with whom he ran for the first couple months of last season before Cleveland dealt him to New York as part of the deal that sent Iman Shumpert and J.R. Smith to Cleveland.
Amundson experienced the beginning stages of the David Blatt era, which ended Friday when the Cavs let their coach go and promoted assistant Tyronn Lue to take over the team. Amundson, when asked about the situation in Cleveland, didn't sound too surprised.
From Marc Berman of the New York Post:
It feels like just about everyone has his or her own theory on why letting Blatt go was the right or wrong move.
He had a great gameplan against the Warriors in the Finals. But he had a complicated relationship with LeBron James. But the Cavs were 30-11 and first in the East when he was fired. But he didn't hold his stars accountable enough.
Amundson, at the very least, appears to understand the move.
“It didn’t feel like it should feel,’’ Amundson said. “A team with championship aspirations, that’s not how it was supposed to feel. Teams go through ups and downs, but I just think the atmosphere and energy wasn’t there. It wasn’t a healthy atmosphere. Teams go through issues, but it still feels you work through stuff being productive. In that disagreement, it didn’t feel like that. But they did manage to get it together.’’
