Every professional sports league has players or that one guy with a lot of pull.
In the NBA Michael Jordan had clout beyond any measure, along with greats like Magic Johnson in L.A. Isiah in Detroit and Kobe Bryant with the Lakers as well.
No player in NBA history has had as much pull within the organization as LeBron James has with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Rich Bucher of Bleacher Report takes a revealing look at how much power some of the greats had — while detailing just how much pull LeBron has within the Cavs.
If the reports are right, there’s the owner Dan Gilbert, maybe GM David Griffin with James right there on every personnel decision made or play called.
“LeBron wants to be the guy that says, ‘I was the one who brought a championship to Cleveland,'” says Paul Silas, who coached James his first two seasons. “And if they win, he will be. He absolutely runs that team.”
A recent ESPN The Magazine pictorial, brilliantly broke down James as a hands-on CEO, doing everything from rewriting the playbook to identifying and recruiting talent on par with the GM.
Griffin fully concedes that James is the most powerful person in the organization aside from owner Dan Gilbert. “He’s going to have the biggest voice, he’s the most important, accomplished player in the league and he’s an absolute basketball savant,” Griffin says. “He has the most thorough understanding of X’s and O’s on the floor and best mind for the game off the floor of any human being I’ve ever known. Coach, front-office person, anything. It would be crazy for me not to consult with him on what we want to do.”
Griffin, though, takes exception with the idea that James runs the entire franchise the way a puppeteer would a marionette. “The idea of him dictating things is not how he is,” Griffin says. “That [ESPN] article puts him in such a terrible light. It is not a factual representation of how he’s carried himself. It’s just not.”
It’s the perfect political play for Griffin—he doesn’t deny James is in control, he just bashes the idea that he’s controlling—but other league executives say Griffin has earned James’ trust by swinging the deals that landed center Timofey Mozgov, Iman Shumpert and J.R. Smith in January. Perhaps that’s why James simply told Griffin and Gilbert “to keep that motherf–ker,” in referring to restricted free agent Tristan Thompson, but didn’t wield his own free agency to force their hand. James signed his two-year deal well before the Cavs finally came to terms with Thompson, even though both are represented by the same agency, Klutch Sports Group, run by James’ childhood friend, Rich Paul.
“The good thing about him is he’s not a power abuser,” says Haywood of James. “He’s always been a fair guy.”
History says David Blatt is the one person who should be worried, because he has the most to lose. LeBron can’t replace the GM, but he can definitely elbow the coach of his seat, if he really wants to.