CLEVELAND, Ohio -- There is “zero truth” to the report about the Cleveland Cavaliers being interested in Hall-of-Famer Rick Pitino as their next head coach, multiple sources with the Cavaliers told cleveland.com Sunday morning.

“We are, respectfully, not interested in him at all. No conversations with him by Dan (Gilbert) or anyone else,” a source said.

Veteran NBA insider Peter Vescey of Patreon wrote late Saturday that the Cavaliers chairman and Pitino have spoken about Cleveland’s head-coaching vacancy.

Dan Gilbert and Rick Pitino have spoken about Cavaliers’ coaching vacancy: https://t.co/MnaPpaojkH — Peter Vecsey (@PeterVecsey1) April 21, 2019

Pitino, 67, has been coaching Panathinaikos in Greece since 2018. He led them to the Greek Cup two months ago. Pitino has NBA experience, spending two seasons (1987-88 and 1988-89) in New York and then nearly three full years with the Boston Celtics until 2000-01. After a successful college coaching run in Providence, Kentucky and Louisville, winning two national championships (1996 and 2013) and reaching five Final Fours, Pitino was fired as coach of the Cardinals -- a result of a massive FBI probe into college basketball.

Shortly after, Pitino told ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski that he wanted to immerse himself into the NBA game and start creating a path back to being an NBA head coach.

The Cavs began their extensive coaching search for Larry Drew’s replacement this past week, meeting with Dallas assistant Jamahl Mosley and Miami Heat assistant Juwan Howard.

According to sources, the Cavs would like to speak with a few candidates on playoff teams and will likely begin that process at the end of the first round. General manager Koby Altman said during his end-of-season press conference that the team will be patient and respectful of coaches still in the postseason. There is no timeline for when the Cavs would like to have a coach in place.