After firing, Cavs embark on coaching search with All-Star Donovan Mitchell's future bigger priority

INDEPENDENCE, Ohio (AP) — Before starting his summer break, Donovan Mitchell let the Cavaliers know he's happy in Cleveland and excited about the future.

With a new coach.

While Mitchell didn't speak publicly about J.B. Bickerstaff or their relationship, the All-Star guard's input likely informed and shaped the team's decision to make a coaching change despite the Cavs advancing to the second round of the playoffs.

A day after Bickerstaff was fired despite winning 99 games the past two seasons and helping the Cavs return to relevance following LeBron James' departure, president of basketball operations Koby Altman tried to explain the rationale behind the somewhat shocking dismissal.

Bickerstaff didn't do anything wrong. He just reached his limit and expiration date with a team reshaped by Mitchell's arrival in a 2022 trade from Utah.

During a 35-minute media availability on Friday, Altman praised Bickerstaff's “undeniable” success, but said the Cavs feel they're positioned to add a leader who can get them closer to winning a championship.

“Someone with a new approach, someone with a different voice, a fresh set of eyes to help us move forward,” Altman said. "We’ve accomplished a lot in the last few years, getting to a conference semifinal and we don’t want to be complacent.

“We feel we’re not far off.”

Of course, much of that hinges on Mitchell, who can sign a four-year, $200 million contract extension with the Cavs this summer. Altman met with the 27-year-old following Cleveland's loss to Boston in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference semifinals.

Mitchell, who struggled with a left knee injury over the final two months of the regular season, sat out the final two games in the series against the Celtics with a calf strain.

Altman said the feedback he got from Mitchell during his exit interview was encouraging.

“This is a player that has had two of the best years of his career here, has had a lot of success here, understands the infrastructure,” Altman said. “I think he has a lot of trust in what we’re doing and understands that our goal is to win a championship.

“From his own words, he says he’s happy here. He likes it here. And so he’s always been very genuine. He’s always been very intentional. He’s been a great teammate. We have to take all that at face value and say, OK, we feel good about where we are with Donovan. Obviously, things could change.”

Altman denied Mitchell's contract or views impacted the decision on Bickerstaff.

The ground has already begun to shift in Cleveland. The decision to move on from Bickerstaff is a bold one and not without risk.

While he had his flaws — rotations, adjustments, third-quarter collapses and post All-Star break slumps among them — Bickerstaff took a 22-win team in 2021 to the cusp of a conference title in three years.

And this season, he kept Cleveland among the East's leaders despite a litany of injuries.

Mitchell played in just 55 regular-season games and guard Darius Garland (57) and forward Evan Mobley (50) were also limited by injuries.

Center Jarrett Allen missed the final nine games of the postseason with an injury Altman described as a “pierced” rib suffered in the opening round against Orlando. For weeks, the Cavs said only Allen was dealing with a painful bruise.

Bickerstaff seemed to get the most out of what he had. Still, Altman, chairman Dan Gilbert and others in the front office felt as if there's more untapped potential in a roster with its share of shortcomings.

The Mitchell-Garland and Allen-Mobley pairings remain works in progress, but Altman, citing statistics, pushed back at the notion they should be dissolved.

Altman also believes Cleveland's core four — Mitchell, Garland, Mobley and Allen — has yet to reach its potential, pointing to Milwaukee, Boston and Denver as examples of teams needing time to build before winning titles.

The coach had to go, but the Cavs may otherwise stay mainly intact.

“I don’t see big major sweeping changes,” Altman said. "More data speaks to (how) this works than it doesn’t. You can’t win 99 games over the regular season, make it to a conference semi and be like, this doesn’t work. This is just Year 2 of this iteration, of this core being together.

“I have a lot of excitement for the future for this group and belief in this group.”

Altman and his staff will use the holiday weekend to decompress before reconvening and beginning their first search for a new coach in five years.

He intimated he doesn't have a list of candidates yet, though outside names are already being floated, with Golden State assistant Kenny Atkinson, New Orleans assistant James Borrego and Frank Vogel, who was fired after one season in Phoenix, among those mentioned most.

Ideally, the Cavs would like to have a new coach in place by the draft on June 26. Altman said there is no timeline to find Bickerstaff's successor, but that there is a mandate to make the correct choice.

“Absolutely have to find the right leader,” he said. “There’s pressure in everything we do, so I get the importance of this. There was nothing that J.B. did categorically wrong. To say that now we have to get this right.”

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Koby Altman, president of basketball operations for the Cleveland Cavaliers, answers a question at a news conference in Brecksville, Ohio, Friday, May 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Koby Altman, president of basketball operations for the Cleveland Cavaliers, answers a question at a news conference in Brecksville, Ohio, Friday, May 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Koby Altman, president of basketball operations for the Cleveland Cavaliers, answers a question at a news conference in Brecksville, Ohio, Friday, May 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Koby Altman, president of basketball operations for the Cleveland Cavaliers, answers a question at a news conference in Brecksville, Ohio, Friday, May 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Koby Altman, president of basketball operations for the Cleveland Cavaliers, answers a question at a news conference in Brecksville, Ohio, Friday, May 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Koby Altman, president of basketball operations for the Cleveland Cavaliers, answers a question at a news conference in Brecksville, Ohio, Friday, May 24, 2024. One day after head coach J.B. Bickerstaff was fired despite winning 99 games the past two seasons, Altman tried to explain the reasons behind the somewhat shocking dismissal. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Cleveland Cavaliers' Donovan Mitchell, left, talks with Darius Garland during a timeout in the first half of Game 5 of the team's NBA basketball second-round playoff series against the Boston Celtics, Wednesday, May 15, 2024, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell looks on during the the first half of Game 4 of an NBA basketball second-round playoff series against the Boston Celtics, Monday, May 13, 2024, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/David Dermer)

Koby Altman, president of basketball operations for the Cleveland Cavaliers, answers a question at a news conference in Brecksville, Ohio, Friday, May 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Gabrielle Rose is realistic about her goals. She knows a third Olympics is out of reach.

That's OK.

This time, she's swimming for an even higher cause.

At the age of 46, Rose is by far the oldest athlete at the U.S. Olympic swimming trials — earning her place among more than 1,000 entrants exactly two decades removed from her last appearance.

“I’m just hoping to show people you can do more, you’re capable of doing more,” said Rose, who represented her native Brazil at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and the U.S. at the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney.

“You can have more energy, you can have more strength than you thought was possible," she went on, the passion building in her voice. "I want women in particular to not be afraid to be strong, to lift weights, to take care of themselves and just know that they can have a lot more in the older chapters of their lives.”

Rose is an anomaly at the trials, to be sure, but hardly looks out of place.

Competing in the heats of the 100-meter breaststroke, against seven swimmers who were all less than half her age, Rose glided to the wall first Sunday in a personal-best of 1 minute, 8.43 seconds — the first time she's broken the 1:09 barrier.

She finished with the 11th-fastest time overall in the preliminaries, advancing to an improbable spot in the evening semifinals.

“That was my big stretch goal,” Rose said, still beaming more than an hour after she climbed from the temporary pool in Lucas Oil Stadium. “I was really, really nervous because I just wanted to have the swim that I thought I was capable of. It came out this morning, so I’m really, really pleased.”

She went even faster in the semifinals, but her time of 1:08.32 was 10th overall — two spots away from qualifying for the final Monday.

Swimming is a young person's pursuit, to be sure, but a handful of athletes at the U.S. trials are defying the odds.

There's 39-year-old Matt Grevers, a four-time Olympic gold medalist who got the itch to swim again when he heard the trials were being held in the home of the NFL's Indianapolis Colts. He started training and managed to hit the qualifying time in the 50 freestyle.

There's 35-year-old Brandon Fischer, who has never made it to the Olympics but can brag that he's matched Michael Phelps by competing in the U.S. Olympic trials for the fifth time. The Californian is swimming the 100 and 200 breaststroke in Indy.

“I still have aspirations to be an amazing, great Olympian, like all these other great Olympians we've seen throughout history who left their mark,” Fischer said. “At the same time, you have to pull back. You know this is the fifth time. You're just grateful to be here.”

After failing to make the U.S. team at the 2004 trials, it appeared that Rose's competitive swimming career was largely over. She got into coaching, became a mother and focused on the less-stressful Masters circuit to stoke her competitive fires.

Last year, after surprising herself by setting a personal best at the Masters spring nationals, she decided to make another run at the Olympic trials.

“I wasn’t expecting to have a lifetime best at 45,” Rose said. “So I’m like, ‘Let’s see what’s possible.’ It happens to line up with the Olympic year and Olympic trials. I’ve absolutely loved going back to my roots as a professional athlete and just knowing that this is like a special time in my life, just to see what I’m capable of."

More than she ever could've imagined, it turned out.

When she spotted her time on the scoreboard, her face broke into a huge smile. The crowd of more than 17,000, which included her 10-year-old daughter Annie, recognized what an extraordinary moment it was, serenading her with an immediate standing ovation — and then another as she walked across the deck.

Its wasn't her third Olympics, but it sure felt like it.

Among those who finished behind Rose were Sarah Bennetts, who just completed her freshman year at UCLA.

“It's crazy that she can race that fast," Bennetts said. “When I’m 46, I’ll probably be sitting on the couch watching the Olympic trials.”

Fischer, who was bullied as a child and felt out of place in the rigid, demanding world of his younger swimming days, rediscovered his love of the sport as he moved into his 30s.

He says his times now are faster than ever, even as he juggles swimming with his job at the secretive Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

The Masters circuit — which he had once brushed off as nothing more than a bunch of washed-up old-timers — turned out to be perfectly suited to his philosophical, inquisitive personality.

“The culture is very different," Fischer said. ”The people are all adults. They all have jobs. They all have marriages, have kids, have careers. They just want to go swim in the morning, have some fun, and go to the bar afterward."

For Rose, the chance to compete at one more trials came along at a perfect point in her life.

But she knows it's just a diversion.

She has one more event, the 200-meter breaststroke.

Her plans after that?

“I've got to get back to real life,” she said, breaking into another grin.

AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/winter-olympics

Gabrielle Rose swims during the Women's 100 breaststroke preliminary heat Sunday, June 16, 2024, at the US Swimming Olympic Trials in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

Gabrielle Rose swims during the Women's 100 breaststroke preliminary heat Sunday, June 16, 2024, at the US Swimming Olympic Trials in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

Gabrielle Rose swims during the Women's 100 breaststroke preliminary heat Sunday, June 16, 2024, at the US Swimming Olympic Trials in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

Gabrielle Rose reacts after the Women's 100 breaststroke preliminary heat Sunday, June 16, 2024, at the US Swimming Olympic Trials in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

Gabrielle Rose swims during the Women's 100 breaststroke preliminary heat Sunday, June 16, 2024, at the US Swimming Olympic Trials in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

Gabrielle Rose swims during the Women's 100 breaststroke preliminary heat Sunday, June 16, 2024, at the US Swimming Olympic Trials in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

Gabrielle Rose reacts after the Women's 100 breaststroke preliminary heat Sunday, June 16, 2024, at the US Swimming Olympic Trials in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

Gabrielle Rose swims during the Women's 100 breaststroke preliminary heat Sunday, June 16, 2024, at the US Swimming Olympic Trials in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

Gabrielle Rose reacts after winning her heat the Women's 100 breaststroke preliminary heat Sunday, June 16, 2024, at the US Swimming Olympic Trials in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

Gabrielle Rose pauses before the Women's 100 breaststroke preliminary heat Sunday, June 16, 2024, at the US Swimming Olympic Trials in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)