When in doubt, blame Chris Grant

It began with this nugget in an article by Sam Amico last week:

Gilbert is said to be "still steaming" over the trade for forward Luol Deng, in which the Cavs sent center Andrew Bynum, a first-round draft pick, two second-rounders and the right to swap first-rounders in 2015 to Chicago. Gilbert isn't upset with having Deng on the team (by all accounts, the Cavs will attempt to re-sign Deng), but was less-than-thrilled Grant surrendered future picks for a player who is an unrestricted free agent and could leave.

In other words, that trade (and presumably the other personnel moves made leading up to the season) were Chris Grant's doing, not Dan Gilbert's. And thus this past season's failure was Grant's fault, not Gilbert's.

One problem with that logic: Gilbert owns the freaking team. There is no question that he would have had to personally approve the trade for Deng, so I'm not sure why he's suddenly decided to "steam" over it.

You can be sure that Gilbert was also involved in every other personnel move, at least to an extent. Again, he's the owner. Zach Lowe even previously reported that Gilbert was the "driving force" behind the disastrous signing of Andrew Bynum.

Obviously, Grant did make mistakes on his own. He amassed plenty of assets, but he seemed pretty much clueless about how to actually build a team. But there's just no way that Gilbert should get away with pretending like he didn't have a hand in the way this current roster was constructed.

Like Gilbert, Acting General Manager David Griffin also talks about the roster like he just showed up yesterday. At a press conference this morning, he talked about the need to add shooting, and size, and toughness. I agree with all of that. I just wish that Griffin had been pushing for those things last summer.

I guess we don't really know how much influence he actually had over Grant's decisions, but it's hard for me to believe that he was just sitting in the corner shaking his head while Grant went off on his own building a team with a small front court and no shooters (apologies to CJ Miles). Griffin was Grant's number two guy, so he shares some of the blame for where things are right now.

That doesn't necessarily mean that he doesn't deserve to be the full-time General Manager. Like I said, he's a smart guy, and he was a part of building some good teams in Phoenix. He may well be the best guy Gilbert can hope to get.

However, the fact that he was a part of the last front office, which failed, is worth at least some reflection.