Cavaliers hire Lindsay Gottlieb

The Cleveland Cavaliers have hired Lindsay Gottlieb to be an assistant coach for new head coach John Beilein’s coaching staff.

The Cleveland Cavaliers added another talented assistant coach. Lindsay Gottlieb will be joining J.B. Bickerstaff as part of new head coach John Beilein’s coaching staff.

Lindsay Gottlieb was previously the head coach of Cal and before that UC Santa Barbara. Cleveland will getting someone in Gottlieb who has been successful with coaching at the college level. Over the course of her 11 years coaching women’s collegiate basketball Gottlieb complied a 235-128 record. This includes her impressive 179-89 mark at Cal where they made an appearance in the Women’s Final Four. That 2013 campaign also saw Gottlieb take home Pac-12 Coach of the Year honors while Cal won the Pac-12 regular season championship. Cal also did make an appearance in the Final Four that season.

Gottlieb signed a four-year contract with the Cavaliers to be an assistant under Beilein. With the expectation that associate head coach J.B. Bickerstaff is using his opportunity as a potential springboard to another head coaching job, this gives Gottlieb the chance to move into his role. This would be quite the development not only for the Cleveland Cavaliers, but the NBA.

There will be a time in the future where there is woman coaching an NBA team. Making hires like Lindsay Gottlieb will only speed up the process. There have been others before Gottlieb to join an NBA coaching staff (most notably Becky Hammon in San Antonio), but none have gone the route that she has. Gottlieb is the first to go from women’s collegiate head coach to NBA coaching staff. This will open up more avenues and eventually opportunities for other women to make the leap to the NBA and lead to the first female head coach.