Koby Altman was the driving force behind the Cleveland Cavaliers' decision to hire John Beilein as head coach.

The Cavaliers have been connected to college coaches such as Tom Izzo and John Calipari in the past.

“This narrative that I drove this (Beilein hiring) is wrong,” said Dan Gilbert. “A few weeks ago, Koby brought up John to me. I obviously knew who he was, but I never met him.

"Koby put the bug in my ear, and I became very interested.”

Gilbert explained how Altman had a group of eight front office people meet with Beilin.

“All eight loved him," said Gilbert. "All eight wanted to hire him. They were polled individually. That caught my attention. This was a week before I met with John.”

Gilbert went to meet Beilein in Ann Arbor at his home on May 10th.

“I asked him, ‘If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?’” said Gilbert. “Most people say, ‘I’m a workaholic…I’m a perfectionist.’ They rarely admit to anything they really need to change.”

But Beilein told Gilbert, “I sometimes make things a little too complicated. I have too many plays.”

That endeared Beilein to Gilbert: “I appreciated that answer. It also shows self esteem.”