Chris Grant's Report Card

[jonathanlambert33]

The Cavs record is 15-26. Theyre half way to 30 wins for the season. For most of us, they are falling short of pre-season expectations.

The optimists among us see the glass as half full: the Cavs are still an up and coming, extremely young team that has developing talent and a slew of draft picks coming over the next three years. They have a strong organization and they are stocked with high character people from the top of the roster to the front office to the owner.

The pessimists among us see the glass as half empty: the Cavs seem to have a coaching staff that is still unable to master offensive execution. They allowing their young players to develop habits that are anathemas to winning. And theyve a front office that consistently fails to make good talent evaluation decisions. The Cavs just selected the least productive NBA number one draft pick since 1955′s Dick Ricketts. They spent nearly $11 million dollars worth of cap room last summer on two free agents that are playing terribly.

The truth is somewhere between those two viewpoints. But, its fair to ask: do the Cavaliers have an organization that is on a path to success, or do they need to make wholesale changes to the way they operate to ensure that mistakes arent repeated? Chris Grant, as general manager, is often at the center of these discussions. The only way to judge is to make a completely arbitrary report card on the moves from last few years, and to calculate the GPA.

Lengthy article that goes all the way back to the Byron Scott hire in 2010. Touches on drafts, fa signings, trades, etc since then.

http://www.cavstheblog.com/?p=24064#more-24064

 

[elcheato]

He's a wizard when it comes to trades. Doesn't budge off his stances, doesn't rush into deals. Pretty much picks and chooses situations he knows he can exploit, and uses supreme leverage against opposition and waits for them to buckle.
 
Although I think more of Dion Waiters than most, Grant also takes that approach in a way to the draft, and it doesn't work. He tries to outsmart everyone with these off the wall picks. Although, to his defense, the drafts he "messed up", were historically weak. Barnes over Waiters is what everyone proposed, and Barnes is worse than Waiters. TT over Jonas looks bad, but Jonas didn't want to play here, his agent leaked the story of him potentially staying overseas longer than one season so he'd slide.
 
Mike Brown hire was awful.
 
I'm torn on whether to get rid of him. This playoff mandate from Gilbert was ridiculous, and put stupid pressure on him this off-season, causing the overpay of Jarrett Jack into a position of redundancy. I love his trade record, but his draft history is flawed. With a stronger draft coming up, I'd let him make the pick.

 

[jonathanlambert33]

https://twitter.com/McNamara247/statuses/428348252551782400

 

[elcheato]

It's seriously not that bad when you look at the other realistic options.
 
They didn't "pass" on Klay Thompson, Kawhi Leonard and Vucivic for Tristan. None of those guys were considered worth of a top 10 selection in a bad draft from anyone. It was between Jonas and Tristan, and Jonas' camp leaked stories to not get drafted here.
 
And if you want to talk the Waiters draft, Grant was big on Lillard. That would have been the pick if not for Kyrie being here. Barnes is awful, playing even worse than Waiters. And Drummond was a huge risk, so it's hard to toss blame on that.
 
Jury is still out on Bennett.