In the months leading up to the 2014 draft, no NBA franchise scouted the basketball team at the University of Kansas more vigorously than the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Cavs were coming off a tumultuous season, their fourth straight missing the playoffs, and still reeling from LeBron James’ decision four years earlier to bolt for Miami. Cavs owner Dan Gilbert responded by firing his general manager (Chris Grant) and his head coach (Mike Brown). He then handed the keys to an NBA lifer named David Griffin. Griffin had broken into the NBA 21 years earlier as an intern with the Phoenix Suns. By 2007 he was senior vice president of basketball operations in Phoenix. In 2010 he left for a similar job with the Cavaliers, and now he was running the show. With the Cavaliers miraculously winning the draft lottery, despite entering the evening with just a 1.7 percent chance of landing the No. 1 pick, he’d have his choice among three players grouped together at the top of most draft boards: Duke forward Jabari Parker and Kansas teammates Andrew Wiggins and Joel Embiid.
