The last few months have been a "whirlwind" for new Cavaliers GM Koby Altman, who was named to the position in July after the team parted ways with David Griffin, according to Joe Vardon of the Cleveland PLAIN DEALER. Altman had "already spent five years in the Cavs' front office," most recently serving as Assistant GM. Altman "filled in for Griffin for about a month" until Owner Dan Gilbert made the promotion official. Below are excerpts from a Q&A with Altman, some of which have been edited for brevity.
Q: What's it like to work with Dan Gilbert?
Altman: It's been great. Another great part about me being here for five years is we had a relationship before. Now the relationship is a little more intense in that we speak all the time. I give him updates and, you know, my decisions are, we work together, obviously, but a lot of times my decisions are final. So that's different for the relationship. He's been great. This offseason he's been super involved in a really positive way. ... I'm very fortunate to have him as an owner.
Q: How do you communicate with Dan?
Altman: Text, email, phone. He obviously has a lot going on. In downtown Detroit, he's going to transform the skyline and do even more unbelievable stuff there so. He has a capacity level where you have to make sure that you're grabbing his attention when you need it, but at the same time he has a lot of responsibilities there.
Q: What is the most difficult part of being Cavs GM?
Altman: The challenge of how overwhelming it can be at times to run an organization in terms of the people you have to reach and making sure everyone is on the same page. When I was an assistant general manager, you maybe had two or three people that reported to you. You had some responsibility. Now you have responsibility over everything. So, just trying to be good in that space, be a leader in that space.
Q: What has most surprised you about this job?
Altman: I don't think you're ever ready for it until you've gotten into it. This thing doesn't come with a manual, a how to do. Each one is unique, and each one is incredibly hard. So all 30 jobs are incredibly hard and each one has different principals and different casts of characters. For me, I'm not saying it's easy, but it helped that I've been here for five years. I knew the lay of the land, I knew the personalities (Cleveland PLAIN DEALER, 10/16).
