LeBron James can pretty much make or break a Cleveland Cavaliers employee’s career. This week, it looks like King James only wants to help make general manager David Griffin’s career better.
Griffin has been the Cavs’ GM since 2014, but is currently in the final year of his contract. The two sides worked towards an extension before this season began, but failed to agree on terms, according to ESPN.
With contract negotiations still ongoing, Griffin received some leverage thanks to a big endorsement from the face of the franchise himself, LeBron James.
“It makes no sense why he shouldn’t get an extension,” James recently told ESPN. “He’s pulled every move — he’s tried to make every move happen — to better this team to be able to compete for a championship. So we wouldn’t be in this position, obviously, without him and without the guys that are here — from the coaching staff to the players to Griff. He’s been a big piece of it.”
LeBron is right too. Griffin re-signed LeBron, traded for Kevin Love, and has helped shape the team that has made it to the NBA Finals each of the last two years. Oh, and he also was the GM of the first Cavs team to ever win a title.
Griffin took over in May of 2014 when former GM Chris Grant retired. Aside from bringing James home and trading for Love, Griffin also helped to acquire and extend Tristan Thompson, J.R. Smith, Iman Shumpert, and Richard Jefferson.
“He went out, we needed some interior help, he went out and got Timo (Timofey Mozgov),” James told ESPN of the deal Griffin struck in January 2015. “We needed some perimeter defense, some perimeter shooting, he made a trade to be able to get Swish [J.R. Smith] and Shump [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 [Jefferson] here. And so on and so on …”
Cavs head coach Tyronn Lue has also recently spoken out in favor of Griffin.
“Griff’s done a hell of a job,” Lue said. “Every time someone goes down. Even last year, the year before when Timo and J.R. and those guys came in, he just always seems to work his magic when we need it and he’s done a great job. Now it’s my job to make sure I put everybody in the best possible way to be successful.”
Griffin hasn’t commented on LeBron and Lue’s endorsements of him yet. But even without his comment, LeBron knows his endorsement carries enough weight to hopefully get a deal done.
“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 told ESPN. “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.”
If you work for the Cavaliers, there’s probably nobody better to get an endorsement from than LeBron. After all, he is the face of the franchise and possibly, the entire city.
[ESPN]
