While there’s no indication the Cleveland Cavaliers intend to replace general manager Koby Altman, they may have someone in mind if they do.
According to a report from Vincent Goodwill of Yahoo Sports, current New York Knicks salary cap guru Brock Aller would be “front and center of their plans.”
Aller is in his first year with the Knicks, serving as the chief strategist under team president Leon Rose. Before joining the Knicks, Aller had been with the Cavs in one capacity or another since 2005. He is also close with Cavs owner Dan Gilbert, as Aller emerged from his position at Gilbert’s Quicken Loans to a basketball operations job in Cleveland.
It is believed Gilbert expects the Cavs to at least reach the play-in game of the playoffs this season — or that he will otherwise consider changes.
Goodwill noted Aller’s relationship with Gilbert, and wrote that “the Gilbert family could be aiming to bring him home.”
The Cavs have not qualified for the playoffs minus LeBron James with Altman running things. They have made five first-round draft selections, including three in the lottery, over the previous three seasons.
They currently sit at 16-27 and in 12th place in the Eastern Conference.
Altman once told FortyEightMinutes that Aller played a key role in “all of our strategies.”
Meanwhile, Gilbert once credited Aller with being “instrumental” in the Cavs’ 2015 trade with the Knicks for guards J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert. Smith, the way, is a former Rose client with CAA.
In the final years with the Cavs, Aller was mostly responsible for assisting with contract and free agency negotiations, as well as “the application of the collective bargaining agreement in the roster’s development,” according to the team’s media guide.
