Kenny Atkinson and Micah Nori to meet with Cavs this week

These in-person meetings follow James Borrego’s visit on Tuesday.

James Borrego was in town on Tuesday to meet with the Cleveland Cavaliers in person. According to Jake Fischer of Yahoo Sports, Golden State Warriors assistant coach Kenny Atkinson and Minnesota Timberwolves assistant Micah Nori will be getting the same treatment. Both meetings will be in person instead of over Zoom as was the case with the previous discussions. According to Fisher, the Cavs have done and are still conducting interviews over Zoom with candidates such as New York Knicks assistant Johnnie Bryant and Milwaukee Bucks assistant Dave Joerger.

Borrego seems to have left a good impression after his interview on Tuesday. So much so that Chris Fedor of cleveland.com stated that “he’s the leader in the clubhouse.” However, Cleveland may not be the only team that is vying for Borrego. Fisher believes that he could also be the Los Angeles Lakers’ “leading candidate.” Adrian Wojnarowski has stated that he’s already been in Los Angeles twice for interviews.

The Cavs have been methodical in how they’ve gone about filling their coaching vacancy. Cavaliers president of basketball operations, Koby Altman, spoke about how important this search was during his most recent press conference.

“We’d love to have a coach in place for the draft,” Altman said two and a half weeks ago. “[The timing will be] when we’ve come up with the right decision for who’s the right match for this group. And if it has to drag on a little longer, it does. This is such an important decision for us.”

Atkinson was the head coach of the Brooklyn Nets from 2016 through 2020. He’s worked as an assistant with the Los Angeles Clippers and Warriors since then. Nori has been with Minnesota since 2021 but has spent time as an assistant with the Toronto Raptors, Sacramento Kings, Detroit Pistons, and Denver Nuggets throughout his career.