Cavaliers to interview Micah Nori for head coaching role

Nori currently is a lead assistant with the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Add Micah Nori to the Cleveland Cavaliers’ head coaching candidate list.

As first reported by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the Cavs have received permission to interview the 50-year-old Nori for their vacant coaching job. Nori is the fifth known candidate for the job, joining Kenny Atkinson, James Borrego, Chris Quinn, and Johnnie Bryant.

Nori became known to the broader basketball public when he took over this postseason when he sat front of bench after Wolves head coach Chris Finch suffered a ruptured patella tendon that required surgery and took him off of his feet.

Nori has been with the Wolves since 2021 and has also worked for the Toronto Raptors, Sacramento Kings, Detroit Pistons, and Denver Nuggets. During this coaching cycle, Nori has also interviewed for the Los Angeles Lakers job.

With the Wolves, Nori was described as the basketball equivalent of a bench coach in baseball. He gets nothing but praise from the elite players he’s worked with, including Anthony Edwards with the Wolves and Nikola Jokic in Denver.

“Micah is gonna make a great head coach when some smart team hires him,” Wolves president of basketball operations Tim Connelly said in May. “The whole staff is really connected and I think Finch empowers those guys, so it’s a collective.”