GM David Griffin, who built the Cavaliers into a championship team, isn’t signed beyond this season but has a powerful advocate in the organization, writes Dave McMenamin of ESPN.com.
LeBron James, who returned to Cleveland under Griffin’s watch, is among many supporters he has in the locker room. James said Griffin “has tried to make every move happen” to raise the talent level in Cleveland.
“He went out, we needed some interior help, he went out and got Timo [Timofey Mozgov],” James said. “We needed some perimeter defense, some perimeter shooting, he made a trade to be able to get Swish [J.R. Smith] and Shump [Iman Shumpert]. And that was the start of it. We needed more interior depth, he got Perk [Kendrick Perkins]. We got guys. We brought guys in. We needed some more athletic wings, he made a move, I don’t know how he finagled it to get RJ [Richard Jefferson] here. And so on and so on …”
“I mean, all the guys that are here. We wanted a stretch-4 to help [Kevin Love] out, we make a trade to get Channing [Frye]. I mean, I can name all the pieces that he’s been able to [acquire].”
Griffin is working on the final year of his contract after extension talks failed last summer. He joined the organization in 2010 as vice president of basketball operations, was named acting GM in 2014 and got the job on a full-time basis later that year.
In addition to acquiring on-court talent, Griffin made the decision to fire coach David Blatt midway through last season and replace him with Tyronn Lue. Griffin rewarded Lue with a five-year, $35 million extension in July.
James understands that many outsiders believes he really runs the franchise, which causes Griffin to get less respect than he deserves.
“Obviously they always want to bring my name into it and say that obviously, it’s easier because guys want to be here because I’m here,” James said. “But at the end of the day, he still has to press the right buttons because I’m not in the war room, I’m not in the draft room with those [front office] guys. I don’t know how much we may be over the luxury tax or if we have a trade exception here or how that’s going to work there or how many days we got to do this. So, it wouldn’t, seriously, I don’t know why it would make any sense to bring in a new GM. That don’t make no sense.”
Story is wrong. LeBron is the GM and Griffin gives him cover.
So as long as LeBron is happy, everyone wins?
Sick of this drama queen, he acts like a annoying wife constantly complaining.
Then handle it like ray rice did lol
Lebron is the best player in the league when he wants to be, he just has no Kobe drive.
Griffin is the puppet and Lebron is the puppet master
Lebron James is like three plays in one-thats why they lose when he’s not playing
rumor tattoo stevie griffin game
He “built” the cavs into a championship team??? LOL that’s a disrespect towards the gms who actually built a contender
Griffin actually is fairly competent and has battled with LeBron a lot more than past GM’s. But I find it funny that LeBron says he can name all of his moves because secretly there were almost all his moves lol
The Cav miss Delly so much it may cost them the Championship in 2017!