Fire David Griffin
Since coming to New Orleans, David Griffin has only fixed his own mistakes. Why is he still employed?
This is an excerpt from my last article about David Griffin’s time in New Orleans. For the full article (and others from this blog), visit our website at thedeeptwo.com
Giannis Antetokounmpo has just won his first NBA championship. It comes in his eighth year in the league and after plenty of failed attempts.
After rising to an All-NBA level, there were the Jason Kidd years, then there was the Eastern Conference Finals loss to Kawhi Leonard, then the Semifinal loss to the Miami Heat in the bubble and now finally a victory over the Phoenix Suns.
In the 2018–19 season, Giannis’ Milwaukee Bucks tallied 60 wins, the most for any Bucks team without Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Imagine if Giannis turned around and celebrated after 60 wins, saying he had reached the NBA’s mountaintop, we’d all stand around scratching our heads.
That’s the vibe I get when I read Jake Fischer’s (formerly Sports Illustrated) piece on David Griffin in August 2019. He makes it seem like Griffin is the lord and saviour for the New Orleans Pelicans, swooping in to save the damsel in distress and win another championship.
In the piece, he reflects on Griffin’s time as the Cleveland Cavaliers’ top decision-maker. Griffin remembers being “miserable” during his Cavs stint with the one-year contracts and constant pressure from LeBron James to compete every season.
The article also details Griffin’s wife, Meredith Hale-Griffin’s two miscarriages and David’s own battle with cancer.
It’s touching shit, really.
When Giannis hears the final siren in Game 6, spreads out on a courtside seat and puts a towel over his crying eyes. We all know how much it means to him, how many failed attempts he had before he ended up winning. We were even guilty of imagining what it might be like for him to change cities, but he stuck with Milwaukee and won it the “hard way”.
Compare that to Griffin. He never explicitly says that he has it in the bag, but he must have understood Fischer’s angle for the piece. Does he really want a writer talking about how he’s on his way to rebuilding New Orleans before he even has?
As Fischer goes on to write about the Cleveland situation: “Manoeuvring the league’s most expensive cap sheet was nothing short of daunting. Dan Gilbert loomed. Griffin’s misery creeped (sic) on top of the stress. ‘We won despite our culture to a huge degree. And I knew it. I knew what we weren’t doing,’ he says. ‘There were so many things during that period of time that I wanted to do differently’.”
To read the rest of the article for free, visit this link or go to thedeeptwo.com in your preferred browser.
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