David Blatt

Blatt is the son of inventor William F. Blatt (1927–2014) and Lillian (Siegal) Blatt (1930–1997), and is Jewish.

He was born in Louisville and grew up in Framingham, Massachusetts.

As a boy, he went to a Reform Temple, and until his Bar Mitzvah he attended Hebrew school twice a week.

He says that in Israel he became "much more Jewish and much more Zionist."

In his sophomore year at Princeton, a coach for an Israeli kibbutz team recruited him to play in Israel for the summer.

The summer at Kibbutz Gan Shmuel turned out to be a life-changing experience.

David Michael Blatt (דוד מיכאל בלאט; born May 22, 1959), is an Israeli-American professional basketball executive.

He is also a former coach and player.

Blatt played point guard at Princeton University from 1977 to 1981 and played in the Maccabiah Games for the U.S. national team that won a gold medal in 1981.

He then played professional basketball in Israel for nine of the next twelve years, before an injury ended his playing career, and he began coaching full-time.

He is one of the most successful Israeli-American coaches in European basketball history.

A point guard, Blatt played college basketball at Princeton University from 1977 to 1981 under coach Pete Carril with the Princeton Tigers, where he was team captain.

Blatt graduated from Princeton in 1981 with a B.A. in English literature, completing his senior thesis on Bernard Malamud, author of The Natural.

In 1981 he immigrated to Israel, and served in the Israel Defense Forces on the Schneller military base.

He also participated in the Maccabiah Games as part of the USA national team that won a gold medal in the 1981 Maccabiah Games.

After competing in the Maccabiah, Blatt began to play professional basketball in Israel's Super League, and played 9 of the next 12 years in Israel before an injury ended his playing career and he started coaching full-time.

In 1991 Blatt married Kineret, from Netanya, Israel; she had played on an Israeli professional basketball team that he coached.

After retiring from basketball as a player, Blatt became assistant manager for Hapoel Galil Elyon, coaching them for the 1993–94 season.

In the middle of the season, the head coach was fired and Blatt took his place.

The following year, he became Pini Gershon's assistant for the 1994–95 season.

As a coach, Blatt has been the Israeli Super League Coach of the Year four times (1996, 2002, 2011, and 2014), the Russian Super League Coach of the Year (2005), and the EuroLeague Coach of the Year (2014).

The next year, he won the title of Israeli Coach of the Year for 1996.

They have four children: twin daughters Shani and Adi (who have served in the Israeli army), daughter Ela (his youngest child), and son Tamir Blatt (born in 1997; in 2014 he was the starting point guard on the Israeli junior national basketball team, and has played for Hapoel Tel Aviv, Hapoel Holon and Hapoel Jerusalem).

In 2023 he was chosen to light a torch at the beacon lighting ceremony on Mount Herzl on the occasion of the 75th year of the State of Israel.

Blatt played basketball at Framingham South High School, where he was also class president.

In 1997, he continued coaching Hapoel Galil Elyon, while also becoming the assistant coach of the Israeli national team.

Blatt returned to coach Galil Elyon, and remained assistant manager of the Israeli National Team for the next two years (1997–99).

During his time in Galil Elyon Blatt notoriously assisted Pini Gershon, then head coach of Maccabi Tel Aviv, by relaying directions laid out during live broadcasts on national television of time outs of their rivals in the Israeli league finals series games.

For the 1999–2000 season, he moved to Maccabi Tel Aviv, and once again served as assistant manager to Pini Gershon.

During that season, his team took part in the Israeli League and Israeli Cup (winning both), and also in the EuroLeague, where Maccabi finished in 2nd place.

In the years between 2000 and 2004, he continued as assistant coach under Pini Gershon and actively recruited foreign players such as Anthony Parker (in 2000) and Maceo Baston to the team.

During those four years, Maccabi won one EuroLeague title, reached the EuroLeague Final Four (2001–02 season), and reached the final stage of the Adriatic League.

Maccabi won the SuproLeague title in 2001 in Paris.

Blatt was still working as assistant coach of the Israeli National Team in 2002, when he won the title of Israeli "Coach of the Year" for the second time, the year he was appointed head coach of Maccabi Tel Aviv.

Despite two years as head coach with all possible domestic titles and one EuroLeague Final Four appearance, for the 2003–04 season, he agreed to be demoted to assistant coach once again when Pini Gershon came back to the head coach position.

Together they led one of the best teams in Maccabi Tel Aviv history, and the history of European basketball, to another EuroLeague title with a 44-point win in the final, as well as to the Israeli Championship and the Israeli Cup.

In 2004, he moved to Russia and signed on as head coach with Dynamo Saint Petersburg.

For six years, he coached Russian national basketball team, winning the EuroBasket 2007.

Blatt took over as Cleveland's head coach, and led the team to the 2015 NBA Finals in his first season.

He guided them to the top of their conference the next year, but was fired mid-season, and subsequently returned to coaching in Europe.