Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert gave what has to be described as a bizarre press conference to the media on Wednesday. He touched on numerous different topics while attempting to avoid the Kyrie Irving fiasco as much as possible.
Unfortunately for Gilbert, it appears that his off-the-cuff remarks did more harm than good.
Take the owner’s comment on what the Indiana Pacers ultimately received for Paul George in a trade with the Oklahoma City Thunder earlier in the month.
Cavs owner Dan Gilbert chimes in after his GM talks about not getting Paul George: "I will say Indiana could have done better than they did"
— Rachel Nichols (@Rachel__Nichols) July 26, 2017
It has recently been reported that the Pacers and Cavaliers were engaged in discussions that would have sent Kyrie Irving to Indiana for Paul George. This came at the same time other reports suggested Cleveland itself was in on George. Though, at that point, we didn’t know about Irving’s request to be traded.
If Indiana did indeed turn down Irving for George, that tells us all we need to know about the direction of the suddenly fledgling franchise. As it relates to the Cavaliers, it’s a bit odd that an owner would go on record talking about specific trade discussions. That’s only magnified when said talks surrounded players currently on his roster.
But it gets better.
Dan Gilbert on the possibility of Kyrie Irving returning to the fold brings up Kobe playing on Pluto & says "things happen, you never know"
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) July 26, 2017
Things appear to be at a point of no return between Irving and the Cavaliers. That’s only magnified between a perceived rift between Irving and star forward LeBron James. Yes, Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal had their differences with the Los Angeles Lakers. But what Gilbert fails to mention is that Shaq himself was traded when things boiled over. At this point, it seems things are headed in that direction with the Cavaliers.
In any event, it was most definitely a bizarre press conference from the Cavaliers’ perspective. Sure announcing their new general manager made a ton of sense, but the powers to be had to know what the central focus of the presser would be from a media perspective. Gilbert just played into that even more.