FanPost

David Griffin Just Blinked

I Think David Griffin Just Blinked


They say that timing is everything...so, I wasn't the least bit surprised when, less than 24 hours after the Milwaukee Bucks took a commanding 3-1 lead over the Boston Celtics, we got this little gem.

"Pelicans staffers have reportedly admitted that the Lakers' trade package for Anthony Davis ‘was pretty attractive,' but say it looks different now with Brandon Ingram's health"

As soon as I read that headline, I smiled from ear to ear.

See, after watching the Celtics lose to Milwaukee, I spent the next 12 hours explaining to my poor wife how if they lose the entire series and Kyrie Irving leaves in free agency, that Danny Ainge can't realistically risk dealing Jason Tatum for Anthony Davis.

In fact, I was already working on a post titled "How Kyrie and the Celtics Getting Eliminated Early Increases the Lakers Chances of Trading for Anthony Davis"* (summary below), that I planned to put up if/when the Bucks eliminated them.

Of course David Griffin, the new head basketball decision maker in New Orleans knows this, and, although I have no proof, something tells me his wife got the same 12 hour lecture about the Celts and Kyrie screwing everything for them up as mine did.

Which brings us to the likely reason, and suspicious timing, of this leak.

First, no way that anyone from LA leaks how the Pels really liked their offer, but now consider it less valuable because Brandon Ingram is damaged goods.

Ditto for LeBron James, Klutch, or anyone with a Lakers interest.

And no, no way a fired Dell Demps tries to help Griffin increase his negotiating position with LA. None.

Okay sure, I might have believed it was another team angling for a Davis trade if it was just the second part about BI's value going down. But IMO, what really gives away who the culprit is, lies in the first part about how the Pels really secretly liked the old LA deal. When you put the two together, it becomes clear.

This has to be Griffin...just has to be.

In fact, I believe it's him basically saying to Rob Pelinka, "Look bro, don't even think about going backwards on your offer just because we are probably about to lose our only rock solid piece of leverage (Tatum) in negotiations with you (and Klutch)."

Unfortunately for him, I think this move was a mistake.

See, we already knew the Celts were a threat to acquire Davis, and like Griffin, we also knew that the chances of Boston offering him in a deal go down if Kyrie looks like he's gonna bolt.

But what we (and Pelinka) didn't know was, exactly what other offers teams might be teasing (or have actually made) for AD. I mean, we can guess at a Knicks offer that includes Zion if they win the lottery, but even they might balk at giving up on the next LeBron for a 27 year old Davis who is a legit injury risk.

A scan of other team's trade chips and their payrolls also finds few good matches beyond LA, especially ones where AD would want to go. Sure, I can cobble one or two together (like a Clippers offer for example), and may do so in a future post once the draft lottery is sorted, but none that I found at first glance come close to beating an all-in LA offer like the one in February, regardless of questions about BI.

Therefore, I think that this flawed negotiating tactic by Griffin to gain leverage strongly indicates that the offer he likes the most is the one LA offered in February, and it also indicates that he wants that offer as a starting point for negotiations, not the ‘something-less-than-that' package LA would surely open with if the Tatum threat is off the table.

Of course, this is all just my opinion based on a guess that Griffin is the leaker, and there is no way to know for sure, but if I'm right and he did leak this story, then I hope you are getting the low-ball offers ready Rob...because I think David Griffin may have just blinked.


*(I will save you the Salary Cap math details of my planned post, but the short version is that a trade for Davis by the Celts only works if they:

a) get New Orleans to take back Gordon Hayward in a deal with Tatum, an unlikely situation given his slow recovery and similar length contract as Davis, not to mention his age not matching a rebuild timeline,

b) gut the roster of young guys (Tatum, Brown, Smart) since that's what NO would likely want in a rebuild,

or

c) renounce their rights to Terry Rozier, Al Horford and Kyrie Irving, and then use cap space plus Tatum (and picks?) to get the deal done.

Sure, they might keep Rozier in this scenario, but a Tatum for AD trade that loses Horford and Irving in the process leaves them thin, and with only about $12 mil left in cap space to offer, which is a number Horford can most likely beat this summer.)