David Griffin

Um, you know, was, was very good for one year in college and then came to the NBA, and he was always going to be a bit of a project in that regard.

You know, the reason th- the Pelicans drafted him, and this was under the David Griffin era, not the Joe Dumars era here-

Mm-hmm

... was because of his high basketball IQ.

And what we're going to get into after Chicago is that I think the remaining seven teams we have not covered have enough negative that I felt that I had to put the blank slate, even with the bad ownership that Chicago has had for so long, below the Bulls.

So what did Bryson Graham do, not only in his first offseason in Chicago, but to get this job in the first place? He was very widely credited for New Orleans' scouting when he was with the Pelicans, and they drafted very, very well when David Griffin was running that team.

Most famously, they had one draft class in which they get Trey Murphy at 17, Herb Jones in the second round, and Jose Alvarado undrafted.

That's very, very impressive talent evaluation.

Not that they've necessarily ever had a team, at least in the Gale Benson era, that's worthy of paying the luxury tax, right? We also know it's at times hard to get them to invest in this franchise to the level that they should.

When David Griffin came in, he had to kind of fight for every dollar to upgrade the practice facility to do other things as well.

They don't play in Los Angeles or New York.

They don't have some of the financial advantages that other franchises might have.

I have not been a fan of Joe Dumars and what he's done so far.

I think he's done a noticeably worse job than what David Griffin did the previous regime.

I just think it was bad process, the Derrick Queen trade.

It worked out for them, but it could have also been a catastrophe if that pick were to move up in a loaded 2026 lottery.

Anthony Davis did whatever he could to put his finger on the scales as well.

And then also, importantly, the Lakers were negotiating with David Griffin, who is a little bit more professional, I think, than Del Demps.

And he and Rob Palenka were able to have a more fruitful series of conversations than Magic and Del Demps were able to do.

But also...

David Griffin, coming from the Cleveland Cavaliers, had a bit of a relationship, I would think, with LeBron James.

So LeBron helped get the Lakers...

Anthony Davis as much as any of the people that Jeannie Buss employed, and far more than Jeannie Buss' first selection for the head of the franchise's basketball operations team in Magic Johnson.

He will pay the top executives what it takes to keep them.

The one exception, of course, was David Griffin.

But I think given David Griffin's tenure in New Orleans, and given how well Kobe Altman has done in that job, that decision has aged okay.

I don't think it's aged great, but I think it's aged okay.

So I think that's one last weapon that I wanted to point out.

He was super productive.

He was super durable, which how many players can you actually say that about here? He liked being here, too, right? He just gave the team a ton of the things that he needed, and yet under David Griffin, the organization always seemed to be looking for not Jonas Valanciunas and the next center, looking for an upgrade, looking for a different archetype, somebody who could defend in space better, who could protect the rim better.

And by the end of his time in New Orleans, you know, there were times when he would start the game and then barely exist or play in the second half.

And it's, it's an interesting legacy for someone who was very good for New Orleans, very reliable for New Orleans, in my opinion, for three seasons here.

You know, it might not be your center for the next seven, eight years, but he's a good starting center.

And then what happened over the next couple of years, you know, looks really strange in hindsight, especially because once Valanciunas was gone, the past couple years have just been, like, a, a glaring hole, right, at the center spot for New Orleans.

This is, you could argue, what doomed the David Griffin tenure here.

He kept producing.

I mean, he wasn't making the decisions, but he was putting together the board.

He was funneling that information to David Griffin, and they were making-

Mm

... those decisions together.

You know, I'll, I'll tell the story in the third segment, like, when Eric Gordon broke a finger and then immediately broke that same finger later, right? Like, that's how those type of things happen.

I remember when it was David Griffin at the end of season media availability, or maybe it was even before that when he was talking about how, like, the NBA is letting it be open season on Zion Williamson.

Was that his third year, his first year? I can't even remember what it was, where he's like, "You're-- They're allowing this sort of thing," and all the contact and, like, Zion was hurting his hands and all of that.

You run, you run into this a little bit, and that's part of the problem of being a very physical team and playing this kind of style.