Joe Lacob knows his job: hire smart people and stay mostly the hell out of the way.
The same can’t be said about the Cleveland Cavaliers. On Monday, owner Dan Gilbert failed to reach an agreement to extend GM David Griffin’s contract — the first and only executive to deliver his franchise a championship.
There are so many reasons why this is not good news for the Cavaliers, starting first and foremost with LeBron James. A free agent to be next summer, rumors are starting to intensify that LeBron would be willing to leave Cleveland again.
Obviously, the fans stuck in Northeast Ohio don’t think James would ever do that to their feelings — not again. But if you listen closely, James has carefully said he has nothing left to prove. He gave Cleveland a title. If he wants to stick it to Dan Gilbert again, he has the power to. Tweeting late Monday night, LeBron clearly wasn’t thrilled about the managerial change.
If no one appreciated you Griff I did, and hopefully all the people of Cleveland! Thanks for what u did for the team for 3 yrs! We got us 1?
— LeBron James (@KingJames) June 20, 2017
Gilbert has now parted ways with a GM and a head coach within the last 17 months. The David Blatt firing was obviously the right call. And maybe letting Griffin walk will one day pan out, too.
But at the moment, Gilbert looks like he’s always looked: irrational and playing with fire. Griffin had team president job offers from Atlanta, Orlando and Milwaukee — all the posts got filled. Griffin will land on his feet because of the swift trades he pulled off in his three-year tenure, but there’s no doubting Gilbert was a slime ball with the timing of this.
The Cavaliers might actually be taking a page out of Jed York’s playbook. ESPN analyst and former All-Star Chauncey Billups has emerged as the first frontrunner for the new GM job. Billups is knowledgeable about certain players, but what about Bird Rights and contracts? A report from SI says the he and Tyronn Lue are best friends. That’s not an ideal way to pick the man who’ll run your franchise.
So in the meantime … Cleveland is still wheeling and dealing? Reports leaked Monday that the Cavaliers are in the midst of three-team trade negotiations to try and land Jimmy Butler from the Bulls. But … Griffin was let go and so was his lieutenant Trent Redden. So who exactly is executing a trade? Apparently, it’s Koby Altman. Guess he was loyal enough to Gilbert to keep his job? An owner picking favorites is nothing new in sports. But it’s generally a formula for disaster.
If he’s operating by the seat of his pants — which it appears so — the owner really needs to make sure LeBron is okay with his next GM hire. Gilbert released a statement shortly after news broke — no, it wasn’t in angry Comic Sans this time around.
“The Cleveland Cavaliers and its General Manager, David Griffin, have mutually decided not to extend David’s current contract, which ends June 30, 2017.
“On behalf of the entire organization, I would like to thank Griff for his leadership and many contributions during his time here, including most recently, his role in the franchise’s first NBA Championship.
“We have no announcement at this time related to new leadership of the Cavaliers basketball operations group, but we are confident our current front office will continue to aggressively explore and pursue opportunities to improve our team in the weeks ahead.”
When did Gilbert decide he knows what’s best for the on-court product of his basketball team? When owners do that, they normally create a much larger mess than what they’re currently dealing with.
Travel 2,459 miles west to the San Francisco Bay and the same type of dysfunction is nowhere to be found. In fact, other teams keep poaching away assets from the Warriors’ front office. Jerry West is now running the Los Angeles Clippers and Travis Schlenk was hired away by the Atlanta Hawks. The Warriors themselves could be in the running to hire Griffin, just like they landed Mike Brown.
Lacob, like Gilbert, has made his fair share of bold decisions. At the time, firing Mark Jackson rocked the boat, but it didn’t ruffle the feathers of Steph Curry or Klay Thompson because they weren’t big enough stars to be ruffled yet. Hiring Bob Myers without any front office experience and Steve Kerr without any coaching experience was certainly a risk, one that has paid off with two championships. Lacob has been able to identify personality traits he wants in leaders running the organization. Their basketball acumen comes second. It’s a winning formula.
The thing is, Lacob was making those bold decisions before the Warriors were championship contenders. He recognized it would take a couple of drastic measures to get there. Lacob knows when he’s needed. He played an active role in the Kevin Durant sweepstakes, and he’s the front man for the new Chase Center. That’s enough to make him feel involved. Lacob lets Myers and Kerr run the team. Lacob is never going to make decisions out of spite. That’s not how winning organizations operate.
Gilbert on the other hand is risking it all to have employees he sees eye-to-eye with. Seriously, what type of harm was Griffin going to inflict on the roster? Why not extend him and then fire him next year if he came up short? Relieving someone of their duties one year removed from a championship reeks of bad blood.
If LeBron does one day bolt Cleveland for the second time, Gilbert’s decision to let go of Griffin will play a role. The fact that the owner isn’t doing everything in his power to keep King James happy shows how shortsighted he is — and how quickly the Cavs could crumble in the near future.