Report: David Griffin, Cleveland Cavaliers parting ways

After nearly seven years with the organization, the Cleveland Cavaliers and former general manager David Griffin are reportedly parting ways.

The longer it took, the more we expected this to happen. David Griffin was in the final year of his contract as the general manager of the Cleveland Cavaliers. While Cleveland reached its third straight NBA Finals, it seems that both parties have gone their separate ways.

ESPN’s Brian Windhorst would first report the news that Cleveland owner Dan Gilbert was going to let Griffin’s contract with the team expire. Griffin had been with the Cavaliers organization since September 2010 and had been the team’s general manager since 2014.

He would become the team’s general manager first back in May 2014. Cleveland was one of the worst teams in basketball and had the No. 1 pick in the 2014 NBA Draft. The Cavaliers opted to select Kansas Jayhawks small forward Andrew Wiggins with that pick. Then LeBron James decided to come home.

Cleveland quickly traded Wiggins’ draft rights to the Minnesota Timberwolves for power forward Kevin Love so that James could assemble one of those super teams he doesn’t claim to have played a part of.

From then, it was all about juggling James’ lofty expectations and working for difficult owner Gilbert. Griffin should have been given a contract extension out of good faith for dealing with all the ensuing madness in Northeast Ohio. Now he’s out of a job.

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Griffin will find work, as he had spent the bulk of his NBA career working in the Phoenix Suns front office before coming to Cleveland almost seven years ago. It’s troubling that Griffin has been let go as all of the general manager vacancies have been filled this offseason. Jobs like Atlanta, Orlando and Milwaukee were all filled before Griffin was not given a contract extension with the Cavaliers organization.