Two more names have emerged in the Portland Trail Blazers’ search for a new general manager.

Sources with knowledge of Portland’s thinking told ESPN.com that the Blazers have both Cleveland Cavaliers vice president of basketball operations David Griffin and Los Angeles Clippers vice president of basketball operations Neil Olshey on their wish list.

Yahoo! Sports reported last week that Oklahoma City Thunder executive Troy Weaver had already interviewed and that the Blazers have likewise targeted highly regarded San Antonio Spurs assistant GM Dennis Lindsey.

Sources say Griffin has interviewed with the Blazers as well.

Yahoo! has also identified ESPN analyst Chris Mullin, formerly vice president of basketball operations for the Golden State Warriors, as a Portland candidate.

The Blazers are searching for a successor to Rich Cho, who lasted only one season as the replacement for Kevin Pritchard. Blazers director of scouting Chad Buchanan served as Portland’s interim GM through the draft after Cho’s departure but withdrew from consideration for the full-time position earlier in the summer. Cho has since joined Bobcats owner Michael Jordan’s front office in Charlotte.

Griffin just completed his first season in Cleveland after a long career with the Phoenix Suns that saw him rise from an intern in the media department to the head of the front office in three different Suns administrations alongside Bryan Colangelo, Mike D’Antoni and Steve Kerr. Griffin was offered Denver’s GM vacancy in the summer of 2010 but joined the Cavaliers instead when he and the Nuggets could not agree on contractual terms.

Olshey has been the Clippers’ general manager since March 9, 2010, replacing the ousted Mike Dunleavy after joining the organization as director of player personnel in 2003-04 and eventually serving as Dunleavy’s top aide. Olshey’s contract with the Clippers, however, only runs through October 2011.

Since his last year at Weber State in 2004-05, 6-11 big man Lance Allred(notes) has played for 10 professional teams, including a stint with the Cleveland Cavaliers, and two D-League teams. And yet you probably know him best as the NBA’s first legally deaf player, as Allred has 75 to 80 percent hearing loss in both his ears. You might also remember him as the person on national TV that was forced into the uncomfortable task of defending a polygamist sect that his family grew up among years ago, but has long since disowned.

Now we all need to catch up and begin to regard him as a writer of some renown. Because Allred’s second book, Basketball Gods: The Transformation of the Enlightened Jock, is being released by his website today, and just a quick scan through the pages reveals a writer at home with his own voice who also (and this is where you get closer to the screen) has some pretty fantastic behind the scenes bits for NBAniks to peruse through.

This may not even be the best snippet to post (from his time spent on Orlando’s Summer League squad, back in 2009), but I’m sure we’ll find more as we make our way through what is Allred’s followup to the highly-regarded Longshot, published in 2009:

I showed up to camp, expecting a 10-man camp as originally stated, only to find that there were 16 players. Not good. I didn’t like being duped yet again by another NBA team. The fact that they said they were only bringing in 10 men, was one of the big kickers for me in getting me to commit, as it implied I would be getting more reps. But now with 16 men at camp, there would be no such guarantees.

Patrick Ewing was the coach for those two weeks and for some reason he decided that he was going to play and start a guy at center who played no more than 10 minutes a game in the D-League the season before, with stats not much better than five points a game. That same guy would not even stay on a D-League roster the next season. Go figure.

I ended up playing less than 10 minutes a game for that summer league. Chalk it up to yet another summer league experience.

Why didn’t I play? Who knows?

[...]

During that camp I spent the week going through the motions, being the good soldier, marching when ordered. Mostly, I just sat there on the end of the bench, while big names came and went through the gymnasium.

I still find it humorous as to just how little people realize how hearing impaired I am, and subsequently how well I read lips. The practice gym in Orlando, in which the games were played, is very small and thus had a limited and closed quarters of seating. I could look in any direction and see anyone’s lips. I felt like I was in high school all over again. Everyone walking around in their cliques, with rivalries and stale grudges dividing areas of the gym; not just according to teams. Think high school kids with millions of dollars to blow.

That’s just what my finger landed on this morning, after figuratively spinning the globe on Allred’s globe-spinning memoir.

The book can be had for very, very reasonable terms (I’ll let Allred break them down for you) on Lance’s website. You can also read an engaging interview with him that was published on USA Today for Tuesday, or follow him on Twitter for more updates.

Related: Cleveland Cavaliers