by Jason Lloyd
Now that they were completely out of cap space, the Cavs used a number of other exceptions available under the salary cap rules to sign rookies Wiggins and Dwight Powell along with veterans like Miller, Jones, and Shawn Marion.
In September, they obtained Keith Bogans’s contract, which was worth $5.2 million and was non-guaranteed, in exchange for Powell and the three players obtained from the Jazz. They also sent their 2016 and 2017 second-round picks to the Celtics.
They didn’t want Bogans or his contract. They wanted a trade exception equivalent to his contract. In the NBA, players can be traded away without taking a player back. Instead, a “trade exception” can be obtained in their place, which is basically like a gift card to use at a later time. So the Cavs called the Philadelphia 76ers, who were flush with cap space, and dumped Bogans’s non-guaranteed contract on them in exchange for a $5.2 million gift card they could use in the future on a player they really liked. The Cavs sent the Sixers their 2018 second-round pick basically just to do some paperwork. The Sixers promptly released Bogans and never owed him a dime.
It was all impressive maneuvering by Griffin and the front office and left him with plenty of reasons to be feeling pretty good. Yet his most miserable day as general manager may have been one of his first. In the days before James’s regular-season debut, the Cavs were in Memphis for a preseason game. The team hotel in Memphis is directly across the street from FedExForum, so most of the players and staff had cleared out and walked back by the time Griffin was shooting three-pointers after practice. A few minutes later, Griffin came hopping across the court on one leg, cursing, and dropped down next to me on the scorer’s table in the empty arena.
“I think I tore something,” he said, in considerable pain.
The search was on to find team trainer Steve Spiro. He didn’t pick up a call to his cell phone, so another staffer was dispatched to try to find him. Meanwhile, Raja Bell filled in as trainer, and I was his newly appointed assistant. Bell retired from the NBA in 2012 and went to work for the Cavs in a front-office role shortly after the interim tag was removed from Griffin’s title. The two had struck up a friendship while Bell played for the Suns, so Griffin offered him the chance to stay in the game and learn about how front offices operate. On this day, Bell’s title of “director of player administration” turned into “dude who finds the ice bags.”
Bell had dealt with enough calf injuries in his playing days to know Griffin needed ice. He searched the court and came up with a couple of watered-down, half-melted ice bags the players had previously used and discarded following practice. I held Griffin’s right leg by his ankle while Bell positioned the melted bags around his calf and wrapped them in cellophane. Then we waited on Spiro, who was eventually located and returned to the arena. Within seconds, Spiro told him the calf was torn. He found some crutches in a back room of the arena and Griffin crutched his way across the street and back to the hotel. He was soon fitted with a walking boot.
It was the first of many obstacles he had to navigate as boss. The chemistry issues weren’t getting any better with Blatt or Waiters, whose attitude and game had soured his teammates. A few weeks after the game at Portland, when James did little more than stand in the corner during the second half, Waiters nearly broke the rim on an ill-advised three-point attempt. James closed his eyes and walked off the baseline in disgust while play continued in the other direction. Griffin kept preaching patience, telling James he just needed time to fix the roster. There wasn’t much to be done about the coach, however.
The best players Blatt had ever coached in Europe were, at best, NBA journeymen. He had never guided a collection of talent quite like this. After a career driving around used Hondas, Blatt suddenly had the keys to a Ferrari. He quickly burned out the clutch. Early in their first training camp together, James began identifying more with Lue, the former NBA player, than he did with Blatt. James likes to say he is coachable and will play for any coach, although he certainly has a way of making life miserable for some of his coaches. He made Erik Spoelstra’s first year in Miami difficult and made it clear early on Blatt was going to have to earn his respect. But while Blatt certainly wasn’t a name that enticed James home, he hadn’t been enough to deter him, either.
James briefly texted Blatt after announcing his decision to come home, but the two didn’t actually meet for another three weeks. Even then, Blatt had to fly to New York and visit the set of the movie Trainwreck, which James was busy filming, in order to have a sit-down with his star. Blatt admitted once that while James was obviously the most talented player he had ever coached, he was also the most difficult. Blatt was accustomed to being revered by his players. The slew of veterans who had recently joined Cleveland had all previously enjoyed varying degrees of success in the NBA, and little reverence was forthcoming. It seemed obvious that no one was overly impressed with their coach.
James at times tried to say complimentary things about Blatt, but his actions rarely supported them. One scout from an opposing team watched in disbelief during their first season together as Blatt approached half court during one road game shouting to get James’s attention, to no avail. Instead, he returned to the bench and sent Lue out to the court to deliver the message.
In truth, regardless of what team Blatt was brought to Cleveland to coach, his learning curve was significantly steeper than anyone expected. The organization considered firing him two months into his first season and he barely made it through Christmas and New Year’s. The Cavs were blasted by a bad Detroit Pistons team at home, 103–80, and followed it up with a loss at Atlanta when James and Love spent most of the evening in the locker room nursing injuries. The pressure on Blatt intensified following a lethargic 96-80 home loss to the Milwaukee Bucks on New Year’s Eve when James and Love sat out again with injuries, making the Cavs losers in three straight and four of their last five games.
But it was a tough call. After having fired two coaches in two years, dismissing a third within twenty months would present the image of a franchise in disarray. With Blatt under fire publicly, the Cavs remained silent for more than a week, contemplating what to do while speculation over his future swirled. With the head coach under siege, the team announced on New Year’s Day that James was taking two weeks off to rest knee and back injuries. James had never dealt with a significant injury and the two-week break marked the longest stretch he had been sidelined throughout his career—although one person who knows him well categorized it as a mental break as much as a physical one. He’d gone on a rigorous diet the summer he announced he was returning to Cleveland and shed about ten pounds. Whether it was the weight loss or the knee and back problems, James was lacking his trademark explosiveness. He returned to Miami to sit in the sunshine and receive an injection to help the back pain.
With James away from the team, Love and Irving combined for fifty points the next night and the Cavs beat a bad Charlotte Hornets team on the road, 91–87. It was an otherwise uneventful game against a bad opponent, but shortly after that victory, Gilbert made up his mind. He chose to keep Blatt. When the Cavs returned home, Griffin (that gifted public speaker with a media relations background) called an impromptu press conference before a Sunday afternoon game against the Dallas Mavericks to support Blatt and blast the media for ever questioning his future.
“This narrative of our coaching situation is truly ridiculous. It’s a non-story, it’s a non-narrative. Coach Blatt is our coach, he’s going to remain our coach,” Griffin said, pausing for effect. “Do not write that as a vote of confidence. He never needed one. It was never a question. So don’t write it that way. . . . We’re like traveling with the Beatles. I’m not surprised, but I’ve been disappointed the slant has been an attempt to be so negative all the time. This is exactly what we said it’s going to be: It’s a work in progress and we’re going to continue to get better every day.”
Griffin’s impassioned defense of the coach he never wanted was rat
her impressive but did little to inspire his team. With James away, the Cavs were blistered at home by the Mavericks, 109–90. It triggered a six-game losing streak that included a miserable West Coast trip that also infuriated team officials and again nearly cost Blatt his job. A particularly dreadful 103–84 loss to the woeful Sacramento Kings exactly one week after Griffin’s public defense of Blatt left the Cavs at 19-19. During a difficult postgame press conference, he fired back at Cleveland.com reporter Joe Vardon, who rightfully asked why the team was struggling so badly despite having two max players on the floor in Irving and Love.
“Well, Kev’s not a max player yet, is he?” Blatt countered. It was as if the record had scratched and the music stopped as we all looked around in disbelief. It could easily be interpreted, even if it wasn’t Blatt’s intent, that he was implying Love wasn’t worth max contract money. It was a bad moment, particularly since Love had had so many problems getting a max contract in Minnesota and was struggling to fit in with his new surroundings.
Blatt’s dealings with the media were often combative. He told me once he was conditioned to be that way because the media overseas can be vicious. Show weakness, he said, and they’ll tear you apart. Head coaches have to talk to reporters three times a day on some game days, so it can be tedious and the questions certainly can get repetitive. We’ve all asked our share of stupid questions and all coaches botch answers at some point. Most coaches try to have a cordial relationship with the reporters who cover them every day, although a few go to war. Blatt seemed to always choose war, to the point where those who worked for the Cavs were often shaking their heads in disbelief at his behavior. Successful coaches can get away with being arrogant, but guys who are in over their heads, who aren’t ready for the job in front of them, when they’re arrogant, it comes off as insecure.
Blatt’s response that night had nothing to do with Love’s ability as a player and everything to do with trying to tighten up Vardon over a question Blatt didn’t like. The unintended consequence of saying Love wasn’t a max player was that he stung one of his best players, who was already struggling to fit in and could be a free agent in a few months. Team officials were seething; one told me the next day that Blatt was “a fucking moron” for saying it. Blatt tried to clean up his mess the next day.
“My comment was either misunderstood or misconstrued,” he said. “I was simply saying that with our team he does not have a max contract because we’re not allowed to talk to him about anything until after the season is over.”
A few days later, Gilbert joined the trip in Los Angeles and wanted to meet with Lue at a hotel to discuss replacing Blatt as coach. Lue, fiercely loyal to Blatt, declined the meeting for fear of how it would look if anyone saw them together. It was one of three times the Cavs approached Lue about taking over as coach, but he kept refusing the job out of loyalty to Blatt. Stick with us, Lue told Cavs officials, we’ll figure this out.
James returned during the trip and promptly shoved Blatt back to his own bench while arguing with an official in Phoenix; Blatt was screamed at by Jack Nicholson in Los Angeles for blocking the Hollywood star’s courtside view during a game against the Lakers, and he was caught in the awkward position of having to defend himself over the team’s use of time-outs—all in a span of about ten days. Opposing scouts looked on incredulously as Lue repeatedly called time-outs from the bench during Blatt’s first season. The head coach is the only person allowed to call a time-out from the bench, yet it was Lue often making the calls. “If one of my [assistants] did it,” one rival head coach said, “I’d kill him.”
It’s important to understand that Lue was in a difficult spot and never operated behind Blatt’s back. Lue genuinely liked Blatt and supported him at every turn. Up and down the organization, he has been praised for the difficult position he was thrust into with a head coach who wasn’t prepared for the job. Before he joined Blatt’s staff, Lue discussed the situation with Clippers coach Doc Rivers, who is Lue’s coaching mentor. Although it was going to create a huge hole on his own staff, Rivers encouraged Lue to take the job. It was going to be awkward because Lue was the runner-up to Blatt, but Rivers believed Lue needed to get away from him to really grow as a coach. Plus, the Cavs were willing to make Lue the highest-paid assistant in the league.
“For Ty, I thought it was the exact right thing to do,” Rivers said. “I knew he was going into a tough situation, but I also told him, it’s not that tough of a situation. As bad as it’s going to be, you’re going to win fifty games. No matter what happens, you’re going to do well record-wise. Where you have to make sure is that you give David the correct support and never, ever, ever make anyone think that you’re coaching the team. I thought he did a great job with that.”
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Since Gilbert was forced to give Blatt the season, Griffin went to work trying to fix the roster. He dealt Waiters to Oklahoma City in a three-team trade on January 7, 2015, that brought Iman Shumpert and J. R. Smith from New York to Cleveland.
“We had to do something to augment the group and it probably had to come at the expense of Dion because we didn’t need another ball-dominant play creator. It was just a really bad fit,” Griffin said. “We needed what J. R. provided much more because we already had the ball dominance and play creation. It was just really a matter of fit. The Dion piece was obviously the misfit.”
It goes back to the general assumption the Cavs operated under when they began the rebuild: If James comes back, not all of the pieces will fit. But they all held enough value to help find the pieces that would fit. In a vacuum, teams might have preferred Waiters over Smith because he had less baggage, he was younger, and he was still on his rookie contract. But for what the Cavs needed, Smith was the much better shooter, making him the much better fit.
The key to the deal initially appeared to be Shumpert, a terrific perimeter defender with an inconsistent shot. Shumpert had torn his ACL in a playoff series against James and the Heat in 2012, and scouts believe he has never quite been the same player since. In order to get Shumpert, the Cavs were forced to take Smith and the balance of his $6.5 million deal. Knicks president Phil Jackson was trying to clear his books and wanted to get rid of Smith, who owned a player option for the following season. Jackson didn’t want to risk Smith’s picking it up and was willing to give away Shumpert just to be rid of Smith. Shumpert was also in the final year of his contract and was seeking a new deal starting around $10 million a season. Jackson did not want to pay it, which made him expendable.
Smith came with more baggage than Delta. At the start of the 2016–17 season, Smith had missed twenty-seven games in his career—the equivalent of one-third of a season—due to suspension, the most serious being a seven-game ban for killing his friend when he ran a stop sign in 2007 and flipped his SUV. The friend died two days later from head injuries. Smith spent thirty days in jail for it and had his license suspended. He has been suspended for drugs, for punching players on the court, and for poor decisions on social media. He has paid fines totaling about $500,000 throughout his career. But he can shoot, and what the Cavs desperately needed more than anything was a shooter.
“I would not have taken J. R. There’s no chance,” a rival front office executive told me in the days after the deal. “Shumpert is not good enough for us to take J. R. Not even close. But I get it from Cleveland’s perspective. If I was in Cleveland’s shoes, I might have done the same thing.”
Prior to finalizing the deal, Griffin informed James of the plan. Smith is a year behind him in age, but the Cavs’ star was familiar with him because they worked out together the summer before Smith entered the NBA. James didn’t care about his reputation or what the rest of the league thought of him. LeBron knew Smith was one of the best shooters in the league. He was ecstatic to have him.
“I was like, ‘What? They’re going to throw J. R. into the deal?’” James said. “I was like, ‘Okay. I’ve got him. I’ve got him.’”
Smith had won the Sixth Man of the Year Award as a member of the playoff-bound Knicks in 2013, proof he could contribute to a winning team. He was also better defensively than his reputation. Smith was described by other teams as someone who needed guidance. If his team wasn’t winning and the locker room lacked leadership, Smith would be a detriment. But if he was part of a winning culture with a strong leader above him, he would be fine. In Cleveland, Smith had all of that and more.
“If J. R. fucks up, it’ll be off the court,” one Cavs executive said prior to Smith’s debut in Cleveland. “Dion was fucking us up on the court.”
Griffin wasn’t done. In addition to Shumpert and Smith, the Cavs received a much-needed first-round draft pick from the Thunder in exchange for Waiters. Two days after the first trade was complete, Griffin sent the pick he received from the Thunder along with another first rounder to the Nuggets in exchange for Timofey Mozgov. Griffin targeted Mozgov early in the season because he was enormous (seven foot one, 275 pounds), he was making only $4.6 million, and he had another year on his contract. They used the $5.2 million trade exception Griffin created prior to the start of the season to fit Mozgov’s salary under the cap.
Trading two first-round picks for Mozgov sounded like a drastic overpay. In the last few years, players who had been traded for two first-round picks were Dwight Howard, Steve Nash, James Harden, Andre Iguodala . . . and Mozgov. All of the others were franchise cornerstones. Mozgov never was and never would be. But he was a massive body that filled the lane and protected the rim—something the Cavs desperately needed. He was also relatively cheap.
Griffin would have preferred to combine the two trades into one enormous deal just for the optics, but that would’ve been illegal under league rules. So instead they had to break it into two separate trades. The Cavs never looked at it as giving up two first-round picks for Mozgov. They viewed it as trading Waiters and their own first-round pick in exchange for Smith, Shumpert, and Mozgov because the second pick came from Oklahoma City in exchange for Waiters. They just simply transferred it from the Thunder to the Nuggets. The trades were a home run. With the roster better suited now to fit around James, Lue went to Blatt and told him he needed to adapt or he was going to be fired. The players were bucking Blatt’s offensive system. Lue told Blatt to let the players run what they wanted on offense. Defensively, with Blatt’s blessing, Lue overhauled the schemes. Blatt struggled with drawing up plays coming out of time-outs—one of Lue’s strengths. So he often handled that, too.
