As we all know by now, The Great Danny Ferry resigned his post as Cavs’ GM Friday morning. Dan Gilbert saw fit to promote Chris Grant to take over, and Lance Blanks will apparently stay on in an expanded role as well.
As I’ve pointed out previously (see the re-post a couple slots below), Ferry walked into the job in extremely unenviable circumstances. I would argue that the “championship or bust” mentality cultivated by Dan Gilbert over the course of the past few years raised the stakes even further.
In fact, this is one of the things that I believe makes it difficult for those of us on the outside to evaluate Ferry’s performance as GM. Despite that his contract supposedly granted him full power in all personnel decisions, we have to keep in mind that Gilbert was the one setting the tone. If the mandate from Ferry’s boss was “win now,” it’s hard for me to lay the mistakes made in the service of that goal completely at Ferry’s doorstep. Especially when sources have openly stated that LeBron had—and more importantly, exercised—veto power on personnel moves.
On top of that, Woj’s article yesterday made the case (via a friend of Ferry’s) that Ferry has been “miserable” in Cleveland the past two years. The root of the friction was LeBron’s influence—not just in the personnel department, but in the small areas. The pre-game skits. The hiring of James’s friends, such as Randy Mims as “player liaison.” In short, the culture of permissiveness enabled by Dan Gilbert. It ran counter in every manner to the “Spur Way” that Ferry believed in and tried to implement.
All of this raises the question: How do you evaluate the performance of a guy forced into a strategy he may not have agreed with when he didn’t even have complete autonomy to try to execute said strategy?
Frankly, I’m not sure.
As the Cavs move forward, the most interesting (and revealing) thing is one that fans will never really get a chance to see: the behind-the-scenes stability of the organization. We as fans didn’t see Gilbert passing notes to Paul Silas about substitutions (as Woj argues happened), or any number of other ways in which Gilbert tried to insert himself into the process. If Ferry was really responsible for putting a stop to these types of shenanigans, his absence will make a bigger difference than any of us will be able to see on a game-to-game basis.
In theory, this entire strategy has been geared toward keeping LeBron. But in the event that he bolts anyway, don’t we have to expect that this same policy will apply to any star player the Cavs try to sign or draft while Gilbert owns the team?
The irony in all of it is that up to now, Gilbert’s ownership style and performance has been praised as one of the primary reasons for the Cavs’ continued success and transformation into a “world class organization.” The more we find out about it, though, the more it begins to seem as if it may have been Ferry’s management style that prevented the Cavs from becoming a complete circus act.
With Chris Grant at the helm—in name, anyway—we may find out.
Buckle up, Cavs fans. It’s going to be a wild ride.
-T
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