Cleveland Cavaliers will hire Kenny Atkinson as their new head coach

Kenny Atkinson, who helped build a culture and playing style in Brooklyn that attracted Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, then became lead assistant to Steve Kerr in Golden State, is now headed to Cleveland.

The Cavaliers will hire Atkinson as their new head coach, an outcome that had gained momentum in recent days and was formally broken Monday morning by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and was quickly confirmed by multiple other reports.

Hiring a new head coach was one of two offseason priorities for Cleveland, the other being getting Donovan Mitchell to sign a contract extension to stay with the team – and those two things go hand-in-hand. We’re moving on from JB Bickerstaff as coach after he took them to the second round of the playoffs this past season and hiring Atkinson won’t happen if it wouldn’t help Mitchell sign the four-year, $209 million max contract that the team offers. will be presented to him in the coming days. Mitchell is expected to sign the deal to remain in Cleveland.

Atkinson was one of the finalists for the Cavaliers job, along with Pelicans assistant James Borrego. Borrego was seen as Cleveland’s frontrunner a week ago, but then the Pistons fired Monty Williams, the dynamics changed. Borrego became a favorite for that job, in part because he has ties to Trajan Langdon, the former Pelicans GM who the Pistons hired to turn around their program.

Atkinson had a strong player development program in Brooklyn — Joe Harris, Spencer Dinwiddie, Jarrett Allen, Caris LeVert — and the Cavaliers hope he can bring that to Cleveland and improve the offensive game of rising star Evan Mobley.

Atkinson also brings something Mitchell and others wanted: more player and ball movement within his attacking plans.

With this job, Atkinson will be under pressure from day 1. Bickerstaff took over a team that won 19 games the season before his first full season, and he took the Cavaliers to fourth place in the East two years in a row, going to the second round this past time. season. Atkinson is expected to build on that, rather than have the team take a step back.