Former Cavs GM David Griffin was ‘miserable’ during CLE years with LeBron James

It’s no secret that the Cleveland Cavaliers’ organization was under immense pressure in LeBron James’ second stint with the team, and former Cavs general manager David Griffin recently opened up about how that sort of thing played into his eventual departure from the team.

LeBron James‘ second stint with the Cleveland Cavaliers from 2014-15 through 2017-18 was a huge success on the floor, as Cleveland went to four straight NBA Finals, and won their only championship in 2016 after a historic comeback from a 3-1 deficit against the Golden State Warriors.

It’s no secret that in James’ “Return Tour” to Cleveland, though, that it was undoubtedly championship-or-bust every season.

To a large degree, that’s how it is for a number of teams expecting to be contenders every year, but former Cavs general manager David Griffin opened up recently about how with James in that time span, it was even more that way and it wore on the organization and even moreso on Griffin, who has previously dealt with personal issues of his own with testicular cancer complications and that being unfortunate for trying to have children, as he detailed in a interview with Sports Illustrated’s Jake Fischer.

In that interview, Griffin talked about how in that time the Cleveland Cavaliers were operating in ultimate win-now mode, and as Fischer hit on, the team was perpetually in tough situations because of James’ “string of one-year contracts,” and the Cavs continually adding veterans that such as Kendrick Perkins that weren’t realistically on-floor contributors, but were players that had previously won rings and were seemingly just along for the ride/helping out more as leaders as opposed to pursuing veterans that would’ve been more actively involved on the floor and hadn’t won a championship before.

From there, Griffin, talked about how even though the team was having outstanding results and owner Dan Gilbert was willing to spend whatever was necessary to build a championship roster really, looking back, Griffin was not in a good place and the organization was not building the right way for the long haul, and hearing this, it’s understandable why he eventually wasn’t the team’s GM anymore, even in LeBron’s last season playing for Cleveland in 2017-18 (again, courtesy of Fischer).

"“Everything we did was so inorganic and unsustainable and, frankly, not fun. I was miserable,” Griffin says. “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.”"

Griffin’s contract would eventually not eventually not be picked up by Cleveland, and he would end his tenure with the Cavs in the summer of 2017, and shortly thereafter, Kyrie Irving would be reportedly traded to the Boston Celtics, which was orchestrated by still current Cleveland GM Koby Altman, who was mentored by Griffin.

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Griffin, now the Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations for the New Orleans Pelicans, in the interview then highlighted how he is in a tremendous situation in New Orleans with a mixture of budding young pieces/rookies such as Zion Williamson, hungry veterans and an organization fully committed to sustained success.

Conversely, that appeared to not be the case at all when Griffin was last running the show in Cleveland, based on the massive amount of pressure to win championships at all costs, no matter whether or not sustainability was realistic for the future.

The biggest takeaway from this interview with Griff is again that with James, who Griffin believed is no longer the “same animal” when it comes to commitment to winning after Cleveland’s championship win, organizations seem to be in a situation that doesn’t bring along internal growth of young players and overall, there’s just so much more pressure and constant need to retool even mid-season for the short term than with other teams without James on the roster.

I’ll always be so grateful for what LeBron has done for the Cleveland Cavaliers, and that championship will always be celebrated until the end of time here in The Land, but it is clearly no secret that teams with James, really since he left Cleveland the first time, always seem to have as much added pressure as any others in the NBA.

After this interview, too, though, I have to give Gilbert a whole lot less flack for how the situation with Griffin ended.

Gilbert supplied the cash, and that’s all I could’ve asked of the owner, really, and with Griffin just wanting to get away, that’s a bit more of a relief for me.

Hopefully Altman and the front office and head coach John Beilein and the coaching staff can eventually rebuild the Cavs over the next few years succesfully by developing players such as Collin Sexton, Cedi Osman, Darius Garland, Kevin Porter Jr. and Dylan Windler gradually, and after hearing how the team was in a bad spot for the long term after how they operated with James, they hopefully will do so.