Chris Grant fired as Cleveland Cavaliers GM

The Cleveland Cavaliers have fired general manager Chris Grant, the team announced Thursday. Assistant general manager David Griffin will take over on an interim basis.

A 16-33 start and grand expectations put Grant on the hot seat, and it was especially the latter that put the pressure on Grant from the beginning of the season. Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert expressed his desire to compete for the postseason despite a 24-58 record in 2012-13, and Grant seemed set on doing so.

Building around third-year point guard Kyrie Irving, Grant hired coach Mike Brown back to Cleveland this offseason. He then signed injured big man Andrew Bynum to a protected contract and surprisingly used the first overall pick in the 2013 draft on UNLV forward Anthony Bennett. Few of those decisions have panned out well for Grant, who joined the Cavs in 2005 and took over as general manager in 2010.

Bynum became a distraction and was traded for former Bulls forward Luol Deng, Bennett has struggled tremendously this year, and Brown has seemingly failed to connect with his roster.

Rumors of a disruptive locker room culture have surfaced multiple times, and a week ago, Grant made a point to meet with the media to back up both Brown and the roster. Reports of Irving and newly acquired forward Deng being unhappy have also come about in recent weeks.

The news was first broken by Yahoo! Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski.

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