Earlier we noted that the Denver Nuggets had honed in on former Phoenix Suns Vice President David Griffin as their next general manager.
Today comes word from Fanhouse’s Sam Amick that the negotiations between the Nuggets and Griffin are ongoing and could potentially fall apart.
The Denver Nuggets have made their selection for general manager, offering the job to David Griffin late last week.
But according to two sources with knowledge of the situation who spoke to FanHouse, the former senior vice president of basketball operations for the Phoenix Suns has yet to accept. The financial negotiations are believed to be causing the delay, and it remains possible that Griffin — who was a frontrunner all along with Toronto assistant general manager Masai Ujiri, the next finalist — will decline the offer.
Andrew Feinstein of SB Nation’s Denver Stiffs investigated what a Griffin hire might mean for the team.
Knowing Griffin may soon become the Nuggets next GM, I reached out to my colleague Seth Pollack from SB Nation’s Bright Side of the Sun blog to get his thoughts on Griffin.
According to Pollack (who knows the Suns organization better than most SBN’ers know theirs), Griffin “is fantastic. A great mix of old school talent evaluation, modern advanced statistics and he’s a firm believer in the value of chemistry. I saw today that J.R. Smith might be on the market. No surprise if Griff is indeed taking over. J.R. is exactly the kind of player he wouldn’t want on his team. His track record with the Suns speaks for itself. Both Marion and Amar’e were number nine picks, getting Barbosa from the Spurs and, of course, Lopez and Dragic. Free agents like Frye, Amundson, Hill and the trade for Dudley and J-Rich [Jason Richardson] also came on his watch which really took off when [Steve] Kerr took over. On the flip side, he was rumored to be partially responsible for the Marcus Banks signing and Diaw extension while [Mike] D’Antoni was GM. Overall, he’s a smart guy who had great relationships with players and media. We were very sad when he left.”
For everything Nuggets, head over to SB Nation’s Denver Stiffs.