Cavaliers Promoting Brandon Weems To General Manager

Cavaliers executive Brandon Weems is receiving a promotion, according to Shams Charania of ESPN, who reports (via Twitter) that Weems will be elevated from assistant general manager to general manager.

Koby Altman is the president of basketball operations in Cleveland and Mike Gansey had served as the Cavaliers’ GM until he left the organization to run the Sixers’ front office earlier this offseason. Weems’ new title indicates that he’ll take Gansey’s place as Altman’s top lieutenant and the No. 2 man in the basketball operations department.

Weems was the assistant director of basketball operations under John Calipari at Kentucky from 2009-12, then served as a staff assistant at Drexel in 2012/13 and an assistant coach at Oakland University in Michigan from 2013-15.

Weems joined the Cavaliers in a scouting role in 2015 and steadily rose through the organizational ranks during the next decade, serving as the team’s director of scouting from 2017-21, its senior director of player personnel in 2021/22, and an assistant GM since 2022.

Weems’ name was in the news a little in July when agent Rich Paul singled him out as a reason why the Cavaliers appealed to LeBron James in free agency. Weems and James are longtime friends – Paul referred to him as “basically LeBron’s brother” – though the four-time MVP ultimately passed on the opportunity to return to Cleveland in favor of joining Gansey in Philadelphia.