What exactly were our other viable options last summer to counter Durant given our own salary situation, other than breaking the bank on the un-economic retaining of Mozgov and Delly - who couldn't do much in the '16 finals, and we already had a lot of potential market inefficiency in Tristan and JR? Tinkering with the bench is pretty much the only other thing we could do.
Further to that point: the entire team had no sense of urgency until game 3 (until game 4??) of the Finals. They had to let Delly walk for the price, and Moz for the price/performance (though could have had more foresight on Delly the previous offseason, but whatever).
Cavs w/Lebron are hard to GM for, and Gilbert doesn't get that. Sure, life is easy in someways (you will win 50+ and more than likely go to the Finals in the East). But Lebron doesn't commit, making it impossible to take a long view on moves. Plus he makes his disappointment in not overspending clear (I mean, why is anyone killing Airson for letting Mike Miller be taken off life support?), so you have to give guys their money ultimately, you have to spend all draft capitol this year, and on the other side, everyone's looking at you like: hey, why don't we have assets or cap space to get guys to help Lebron??
Maybe Griff didn't focus enough on defense.. but two way players are tough to find, and when you do, expensive to get. Defense-only guys are impossible to play v Golden State.
And finally, Griff ONLY netted first title in Cleveland in 54 years, and was probably a kneecap away from netting 2 titles. Then GS adds Durant by way of fluke (that Lebron and the players union pushed for, BTW, had they eased the cap like the owners wanted, GS would have been same team last year and JR Smith would be making less money) and we're mad at Griff for not drugging up Pritchard last offseason and forcing him to hand over Paul George for a bag of basketballs??
Part of me thinks Gilbert is ready to go back to lottery teams, low payroll and even lower expectations after this year. Probably more profitable.