New Orleans Pelicans Executive David Griffin Fined 50 Large For Criticizing NBA Officiating Of Zion Williamson

New Orleans Pelicans VP of Basketball Operations David Griffin spoke out in criticism of NBA officiating with regard to his franchise centerpiece, Zion Williamson. As one can probably imagine, the NBA wasn’t having it.

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Griffin was fined $50,000 by the Association on Sunday “for public criticism of the officiating and comments detrimental to the NBA.”

It’s somewhat understandable that David Griffin would be upset. After all, his star player suffered a broken ring finger and is now out indefinitely.

Griffin went public on Friday with the assertation that he believed this injury was “avoidable”.

He said a whole lot more too, most of which is summarized in the Tweet from Ben Golliver below:

Well, speak out against the almighty NBA and you’re bound to get hit with a nice fine of some sort. That’s exactly what the Pelicans front office executive received today.

Funny thing is, David Griffin isn’t even the first one to complain about how Zion Williamson is officiated.

In addition to a clip of Griffin’s comments from Friday, Pelicans head coach Stan Van Gundy can also be seen below making similar remarks at a presser back on April 28th.

I mean, try watching a Pelicans game and you’ll see what they’re talking about.

Heck, even Skip Bayless agrees on the “absolutely mauled” part!

I never thought I’d say this but Skip Bayless actually sent out a Tweet that is spot-on accurate!

This isn’t exactly good timing for Zion Williamson to go down either. The Pelicans are trying to run down the San Antonio Spurs for the final spot in the Western Conference play-in tournament.

Now, they’ll be forced to try and do so without their franchise centerpiece.

Honestly, if the officiating of Williamson changes even slightly when he does return to the court, I’m sure David Griffin will declare it $50K well-spent.


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