Grantland’s Zach Lowe looks at instability in the executive suite, profiling the NBA’s six most volatile front offices in the wake of yesterday’s shakeup in Memphis. As usual, Lowe’s work is required reading, but we’ll hit some highlights here:
- Bucks owners Marc Lasry and Wesley Edens have held preliminary talks about potential replacements for GM John Hammond and assistant GM David Morway, but the more likely outcome appears to be that they stay for at least one more year, Lowe writes.
- Former Raptors and Suns GM Bryan Colangelo is open to once more becoming an NBA GM, Lowe hears, but that’s no surprise, given that he was reportedly a candidate for the Cavs and Pistons front office searches. Lowe mentions him within his look at the Bucks, which is coincidental given an earlier report that linked him to an ownership group looking to buy the franchise when it was for sale. Still, it doesn’t appear as though there’s any particular link between the Bucks and Colangelo at this point.
- The Knicks will likely hire someone within the next year to replace Steve Mills as general manager and shunt Mills off into some other role with the organization, according to Lowe.
- Some high-level executives on teams around the league hadn’t heard about Grizzlies attorney David Mincberg, who’s reportedly assumed some power in the basketball operations department, Lowe hears.
- The job of Memphis GM Chris Wallace, whom the team has restored to a prominent role after the departures of CEO Jason Levien and assistant GM Stu Lash, is safe “until he wants to leave,” Lowe writes.
- There have been few reports alleging that GM Dell Demps is on shaky ground to return next year, but people around the league have been curious about whether the team would bring him back for 2014/15, according to Lowe. There have been disagreements between Demps and coach Monty Williams, and the team’s owners favor Williams, Lowe hears. In any case, he’ll probably return, though there will be pressure on him for the team to improve and perhaps make the playoffs next season, Lowe writes.
- Louisiana native Joe Dumars is close to executives with the New Orleans Saints, the NFL franchise that Pelicans owner Tom Benson also owns. That would make him a likely candidate for Pelicans GM job should the team decide to oust Demps, Lowe asserts.
- Pistons coach and president of basketball operations Stan Van Gundy says that the team’s ownership will have just as much say as he does in whom they hire as GM, as he tells Lowe.