CLEVELAND — Johnnie Bryant remembers his move from the Jazz to the Knicks prompted second-guessing.
“It’s one of those things when I left to go to there, everyone was like, ‘Why are you going to New York?’” Bryant said in an interview Wednesday with The Post. “We had 50-win teams in Utah and they had won 20-something games before we got there.”
Four seasons later, Bryant, now the Cavaliers associate head coach, left the franchise in a much better position — a perennial playoff team — and is most proud of that evolution.
“Just being a part of change. Changing the culture there and [Tom Thibodeau] drove that and we supported him with that,” said Bryant, who is among the top young prospects for the next NBA head coaching vacancy. “When we get there and we have Elfrid Payton and Dennis Smith and to see the transformation of the entire thing and then it ends up Jalen Brunson and OG [Anunoby] and the evolution of it over four years — that’s what it’s about, right? The young guys develop so we could get OG [in a trade] and just being able to impact players lives and on personal relationships.”
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