Three seasons back the Cleveland Cavaliers overcame a 3-1 deficit against the then defending NBA champion Golden State Warriors to win Game 7 in their gym and capture not just their first Larry O’Brien trophy in franchise history but won the city of Cleveland’s first major sports title in 52 years. While the end result was something to celebrate, behind the curtain things were very uneasy and at times difficult in “The Land,” which their former general manager talked about at the start of this month.
At the start of this month, the New Orleans Pelicans’ Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations David Griffin went on the record with “Sports Illustrated” about his relationship with four-time league MVP and former Cleveland Cavalier LeBron James, his tenure with the Cleveland Cavaliers, first as Vice President of Basketball Operations in 2010, and his final three seasons with the organization as their General Manager, and his beginning in the New Orleans front office that began on Apr. 17, 2019.
The Phoenix, AZ native shed light on his time with the Cavaliers saying that they won their 2016 title despite their culture, specifically saying, “Everything we did was so inorganic and unsustainable. I was miserable. Literally the moment we won the championship I knew I was gonna leave. There was no way I was gonna stay for any amount of money.”
To put into perspective how miserable Griffin was at that time, as the team was popping champagne bottles in the locker room of Oracle Arena after the Game 7 victory, Griffin privately wept in a broom closet.
The 45-year-old Griffin had basically removed everything that happened that night except for delivering the city’s aforementioned first title in a little over five decades from his consciousness.
“I didn’t watch the league, and I didn’t love the game anymore,” Griffin said. “I was so fixated on outcome that I just totally lost my joy.”
These comments were particularly stunning to James, who according to then Cavaliers beat reporter for ESPN Dave McMenamin who maintained a very positive relationship in the years that followed after Griffin’s departure from the Cavaliers.
Recently James went on his Twitter account and shouted out Griffin’s wife Meredith Hale and a charity even she was working with that she created to his more than 43 million followers. The best kind of free promotion that one can ever receive as a sign of goodwill.
ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne pointed out on the Aug.1 edition of “NBA: The Jump” on ESPN that Griffin’s frustration that came out in this article were more with Cavaliers Owner Dan Gilbert than they were necessarily with James and his agent of “Klutch Sports” Rich Paul and the inner circle around James.
“But sometimes you say things later,” She said about what came out from Griffin. Now, he has the experience of really running his own franchise, where Gayle Benson [Pelicans owner] has empowered him to just, ‘You’re in charge Grif. You do things you’re way.’
In an appearance on Friday’s edition of “NBA: The Jump” on ESPN, Griffin elaborated on his point of being miserable and uncomfortable it came from his inability take on the media scrutiny that came with a LeBron James led squad.
“It wasn’t the man himself,” Griffin said. “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 very positive relationship.”
Another underlining factor of this whole situation is the struggles that Griffin and his wife Meredith with creating a family of her own as she suffered two miscarriages, and had a battle with testicular cancer, which led to the removal of the affected organ. Mrs. Griffin also faced two more bouts of testicular cancer in 2011 and 2017, which made the dream of having kids was not going to be easy.
It was through Griffin’s time in the front offices first with the Phoenix Suns and then the Cavaliers where the Griffin’s to fill this void in their lives. During their time in Cleveland, Mrs. Griffin was the one behind the Cavs’ Better Halves program, where viewing parties were organized and shopping trips with the wives of the players and baking events for the kids. The program went so well that the entire team referred to Mrs. Griffin as “BossLady.”
While Meredith took care of that, her husband was trying to guide a young front office as if they were his own family. The pressures of trying to continuously build a roster around James that could contend year-after-year for the Larry O’Brien trophy began to mount, especially when James returned to Cleveland when he told the Cavs nation and the rest of the world he was coming back to the Cavaliers in ironically enough in a story in “Sports Illustrated” five summers ago.
Jorge Sedano, radio host for ESPN LA said on Thursday that when James wrote that piece about his return Griffin celebrated and then immediately collapsed to the floor of his office, shedding tears because of the pressure that would follow.
Mr. Gilbert also played a role in this because he opened up his wallet recognizing that a 52-year championship drought was hanging over his head that he was trying to erase. Also, you had a great player in James who came back to you after leaving for the Miami Heat in the summer of 2010 and leading them to four straight NBA Finals appearances and two straight titles in 2012 and 2013 to bring that elusive title back to “The Land.” Also, James would sign basically two-year deals, with a player option for the second year to keep that pressure of building a title contending team up at all times.
“We won despite our culture to a huge degree. And I knew it. I knew what we weren’t doing,” Griffin said. “There was so many things during that period of time that I wanted to do differently. If you make everything about, ‘It’s a destination. Dame the torpedoes, I gotta get there,’ that might be the only time you get there.”
Even with all that, Griffin said in the article that James approval of Griffin as the decision maker in the Cavaliers front office was a big reason they were able to have a steady dialogue, though he also said that he and LBJ had very difficult conversations, which was a major reason the two had a great working relationship. He was willing to tell the Michael Jordan of today what he might not like to hear but he respected the fact that it was coming from a place of reason.
That said, Griffin said in the article about James after the team won the title in 2016 about the team falling to the Warriors the next two times in The Finals in 2017 and 2018, “There wasn’t a lot else for him. I don’t think he’s the same animal anymore about winning.”
He added about why a lot of players in the league feel pressure playing along James, like now Brooklyn Net Kevin Durant, “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.”
James added fuel to that fire by saying to Joe Vardon of “The Athletic” during the 2017 NBA Playoffs saying, “That I have nothing left to prove.”
While James said that, it does not mean he does not care about winning. If that were the case, he would not have gone to the franchise last summer that eats that word for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Griffin said on Friday when asked about this by ESPN Lakers beat writer Dave McMenamin about James’ desire to win before winning that 2016 title, it was a conversation that was a reflection on the team’s failings and the lessons from those setbacks that were going to be applied now with the Pelicans. One of those things Griffin took ownership of was the fact he “failed miserably” in getting everyone in the Cavaliers’ organization to the precise sense of urgency following the title in 2016.
“And my belief at that time was there’s no way anyone can be born in Akron, OH, deliver the first championship in 52 years to Cleveland, OH and be the same human being. It’s not possible. You’re a person. You’re a human being. And my fear at that time was he [James] would not have that same animal-like desire to win, and what we’ve seen he’s gone to multiple Finals since.”
That is why he posted on his Twitter account @KingJames on Friday afternoon, “Alright alright. Enough is enough. The throne has been played with to much and I ain’t for horseplay. Ether coming soon! [smile emoji] followed by [nine fire emojis] and an [emoji crown] #JamesGang [fist emoji].
Also, James in what would be his last season with the Cavaliers in 2017-18, he played in all 82 games for the first time in his career and followed that up with his finest postseason ever with averages of 34.0 points, 9.1 rebounds, nine assists on 53.9 percent from the field.
He continues even at age 34 to test the limits of his body heading into year No. 17 for the “Purple and Gold.”
You put up with some of his antics, which on the surface are really not much because when playoff time comes, he is ready and has more often than not delivered.
Last season with the Lakers, things as we saw did not go right. Whether it was the team around him, that consisted of youngsters Lonzo Ball, Kyle Kuzma and Brandon Ingram, who got a taste of what it means to be in the spotlight for the first time. That led to James missing the playoffs for the first time since his second year in the NBA in 2005 and the Lakers sixth straight season with no playoffs.
“You know, that dude’s ready,” Kuzma said to ESPN’s Cari Champion at the “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Multi-Player” reveal in L.A. on Thursday about how LeBron is preparing for the upcoming season. “He’s ready, you know?”
“I think this year, this offseason, you know, you just see people, you know, slandering his name, and saying this about him, saying that. But you know, he’s been super motivated this offseason, you know? Working between, you know shooting movies, he’s in the gym early, night whatever. So, you know, just being locked in, you know? That’s the biggest thing being talked about. Being ready for it all.”
Three years ago, the city of Cleveland celebrated its greatest moments since the NFL’s Cleveland Browns won it all in 1964. As the “Sports Illustrated” article pointed out though it was not all peaches and cream with how that moment came to fruition.
No matter what side you are of whether you think David Griffin did on giving us a peak behind the curtain, he made the choice to say how he felt and if it makes him a better NBA executive with this chance as the leader in the front office of the New Orleans Pelicans, then the city of New Orleans, LA with Zion Williamson, Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram, Josh Hart and the rest of that cast have a bright future.
As for the Lakers, led by LeBron James, they hope their future consist of them ending the longest playoff drought in franchise history in the spring of 2020 and hopefully the 17th title in franchise history to boot.
Information, statistics, and quotations are courtesy of 8/1/19 www.si.com article, “How David Griffin Rebuilt The Pelicans and His World,” by Jake Fischer; 8/1/19 and 8/2/19 3 p.m. edition of “NBA: The Jump” on ESPN with Jorge Sedano, Ramona Shelburne, and Dave McMenamin; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Griffin_(basketball); and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LeBron_James#Playoffs.
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