Pelicans executive VP David Griffin clarified on Friday his comments in a Sports Illustrated article that indicated he was miserable running the Cavaliers when LeBron James was there, according to an ESPN report.
During an appearance on ESPN’s The Jump, Griffin said he didn’t have any issues with James and that his problems in Cleveland were centered around the pressure of building a championship team.
In the SI story, Griffin was quoted as saying it was frustrating working for an organization where “LeBron is getting all the credit and none of the blame. And that’s not fun for people. They don’t like being part of that world.”
Griffin and a confidant of James spoke after the SI story was published, according to ESPN, and Griffin claimed some statements were taken out of context.
“The fact that there was so much scrutiny in everything that we did, when I was speaking about being uncomfortable and being miserable, it was my inability to deal with that media scrutiny,” Griffin said. “It wasn’t the man himself. It was everything that came with a team led by LeBron James. It had nothing to do with being miserable with LeBron. We had and have a very positive relationship.”
Another controversial part of the SI piece was that Griffin seemingly questioned the future Hall of Famer’s desire to win after the Cavaliers won the championship.
Griffin put the blame on himself during the TV interview for failing to instill a sense of urgency following the title run.
“My fear at that time was that [James] wouldn’t have that same animal-like desire to win. And what we’ve seen is he’s gone to multiple Finals since, so it was an unfounded fear,” Griffin said.
You can watch some of the Griffin interview here.
Pretty sure he meant what said….this is just damage control
Agreed… he was clearly taking shots at James in the initial interview and now is backtracking so as to try and avoid a prolonged confrontation.
Half of what he said made no sense though
I understood him clearly, before and when he added clarity.
No need to apologize. Never bow to the radical pc crowd.
Radical PC crowd? I’m just a normal Cleveland fan who watch lebron run these team from within. Added his friends to play with and left us with the damage. Paying TT $18 mil this year bc of lebron.
Yeah poor Gilbert. He will have to go to a retial store and take out a loan to pay TT.
Looks like LeBron got the clarification or deflection he wanted
NO BALLS.
So not saying LeBron is easy to deal with, but is it that hard to believe that an SI reporter decided to embellish in order to get a name and traffic to a dying sports mag.
Well Griffin has his dream job, clearly he never wants to win, makes him miserable, with the pels he won’t have that pressure, as they will never contend! Griffin what a plank you are!
Dude was probably pissed they got Zion
Lets rewrite the story because Lebron’s feelings are hurt.
That was basically the same walkback that Durant made last year… “No, not James, the James environment”. IMO it was not the right walkback in this case however.
He should have just left the James-blame; specifically, he could say he caught in the croosfire between an active owner and an influential star, both pushy and against each other and quite personal about it, while his own voice got minimized in the chaos. That would not be a lie, or at least, it would be believable.
Now he just sounds like a woos.
He’d already made this stuff clear weeks ago on the Woj pod. People have been making a mountain out of a molehill.