NBA teams
Associated Press 10y

David Griffin 'confident' on GM job

NBA, Cleveland Cavaliers

INDEPENDENCE, Ohio -- David Griffin has a plan to get the Cleveland Cavaliers back to the playoffs and among the NBA's elite.

He just doesn't know if he'll get to see it through.

Griffin has been Cleveland's acting general manager since February and expects to have the interim tag removed from his title. He wouldn't say if he has spoken with owner Dan Gilbert, but he insists he isn't fretting.

"I feel very confident that ownership and myself will be moving in the same direction," Griffin said Tuesday. "But I also don't need to hear anything from them to know that tomorrow I need to get better. So from a timing perspective it's irrelevant to me. I don't feel a great sense of wonder right now. I know what the mission is. He doesn't need to tell me that."

Griffin stressed that he, coach Mike Brown and others are "under review" after the Cavs failed to make the playoffs for the fourth straight season.

Cleveland finished ninth in the Eastern Conference, five games behind Atlanta for the final playoff spot. The Cavs went 17-16 after firing general manager Chris Grant on Feb. 6.

"I'm not going to campaign. I'm not running for mayor," Griffin said during a news conference at the team's practice facility. "I understand what we need to do to get better. And if Dan and his ownership group are of that mindset, we're going to get better together. And if they're not, they're going to do what they're comfortable with. And that's what I would want them to do."

Brown's future appears just as uncertain. The Cavaliers went 33-49 in his first season back after being re-hired by Gilbert, who fired him following the 2010 season. Gilbert has not made any public comments about Brown, and Griffin sidestepped questions about feedback he received from players about the coach.

"Everyone in this organization is under review," Griffin said. "In terms of timing and who will be making that call, we're going to get together and collectively we're going to talk about our future and our vision of that future and where we need to go."

Griffin's name has been linked to other jobs around the league, but he insists there's only one place he wants to be.

"You're either all the way in or you're all the way out," he said. "There's no in-between. You declare a side. I'm all the way in."

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