3:40pm: Amico cautions that just because the Cavs don’t have designs on reaching out to Karl now doesn’t mean they won’t later, Amico clarifies (on Twitter).
3:18pm: The Cavs have no plans to talk to Karl about any position right now, according to Sam Amico of Fox Sports Ohio (Twitter link).
11:27am: George Karl would love to be considered for the top job in Cleveland’s front office, and Mike Fratello would have interest, too, according to Mary Schmitt Boyer of the Plain Dealer. The job they appear to have in mind would be team president, though owner Dan Gilbert hasn’t indicated whether he wants to create that job to oversee the GM position, which David Griffin currently occupies on an interim basis.
A report in February indicated that the Cavs had interest in Karl, though it wasn’t entirely clear whether they thought of him as a coach or an executive. Karl, last year’s Coach of the Year with the Nuggets, apparently isn’t looking to return to the bench for a rebuilding team, and the Cavs, in the lottery for the fourth straight year, probably fit that description. Still, it appears Karl is eager to get back in the game.
“Being a leader, running a team and organizing a group with the common goal of winning a championship would be the ultimate challenge in my career,” Karl wrote in an email to Boyer.
Karl, like Fratello, is a former Cavs coach, and Fratello still lives in Cleveland, as Boyer points out. He was last on an NBA bench in the 2006/07 season with Memphis, and neither Fratello nor Karl has ever run an NBA front office.
Griffin’s future with the team is unclear, though he made comments this week indicating that he’d prefer to remain with the Cavs rather than jump to the Pistons or Knicks, teams to which he’s been linked. He seemed to give the impression that his job is safe, though he said he didn’t know when he and Gilbert would talk about it.