CLEVELAND, Ohio — If Cavs fans took a shot every time head coach Kenny Atkinson mentioned his team lacking “mental edge,” they’d be “face down in an alley.”
That’s the brutal assessment from cleveland.com columnist Jimmy Watkins on the latest Wine and Gold Talk podcast, where a leadership crisis within the organization was laid bare following another inexplicable loss — this time a 123-112 defeat to the tanking Utah Jazz.
“It’s once a week. He utters that phrase,” Watkins said of Atkinson’s go-to explanation. “Sometimes I’m like, do you know what you’re saying when you say that? Because you’re really hanging yourself out to dry when you say those things.”
The podcast, featuring Watkins alongside host Ethan Sands and cleveland.com Cavs beat reporter Chris Fedor, painted a troubling picture of a first-year head coach struggling to strike the right balance between accountability and relationship preservation — with disastrous results at the season’s halfway point.
“Now it feels like this version of Kenny Atkinson doesn’t know the right line to walk when it comes to how to handle this team, when it comes to intensity, effort, 48 minutes without crossing a line that he feels like he won’t be able to come back from,” Sands observed.
The leadership vacuum extends beyond just coaching.
The podcast highlighted how the Cavaliers behave like a team that’s already reached the mountaintop, despite never advancing past the second round of the playoffs. This unearned sense of accomplishment has created a dangerous complacency.
“The Cavs act like a team that has earned the right to diminish the regular season when they haven’t earned that right. They haven’t done anything to earn that right,” Fedor explained. “The Cavs act like a team that has accomplished something and they haven’t accomplished anything.”
This mental weakness manifests in predictable patterns. After big wins — like their recent victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves — the team immediately reverts to complacency against lesser opponents. It’s a cycle Atkinson has been unable to break despite constantly identifying it.
What makes the situation particularly alarming is the contrast with Atkinson’s previous coaching persona. As Sands noted, “We’ve heard the stories from Jarrett Allen and Caris LeVert, who were there in Brooklyn. Kenny Atkinson was crazy. When he was in Brooklyn, he was willing to call anything out, willing to say whatever was on his mind.”
That version of Atkinson — the one who held players accountable regardless of status — seems to have disappeared in Cleveland. The podcast suggested his coaching style may have been tempered by his experience with the Brooklyn Nets, where his directness ultimately cost him his job when stars Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving soured on his approach.
Now, caught between his instincts and self-preservation, Atkinson appears to be searching for an approach that works with a roster that hasn’t responded to his messaging. His repeated references to the team’s lack of “mental edge” have become empty words without corresponding consequences or changes.
“For the coach to say repeatedly, ‘We don’t have the mental edge to start the game.’ Oftentimes, that’s what it was. Tonight, what else is there? What else is there?” Watkins asked. “I mean, sure, there’s schematics, there’s lineup adjustments, there’s player development. None of it matters if I can’t get you to fulfill the baseline of care, that’s where we’re at.”
As the Wine and Gold Talk podcast made painfully clear, until Atkinson finds his voice and the players find their focus, the Cavaliers will remain a team with championship payroll but play-in tournament mentality.
Want to hear more about the Cavaliers’ leadership crisis? Listen to the full Wine and Gold Talk podcast for the complete breakdown from the cleveland.com team.
Here’s the podcast for this week: