Nets Strongly Considering Bryan Colangelo For GM

The Nets have quickly begun to give former Suns and Raptors GM Bryan Colangelo serious consideration to fill their vacant GM job, report Marc Stein and Mike Mazzeo of ESPN.com. His emergence as a legitimate candidate isn’t a shock, as NetsDaily anticipated that he’d be in the mix (Twitter link). Colangelo’s name has come up often in regard to front office openings since the end of his Raptors tenure in 2013, most recently with the Sixers, who last month hired his father, Jerry, as chairman of basketball operations. Assistant GM Frank Zanin is running the Nets front office while the team conducts its search.

John Calipari is also connected to the Nets as a possibility for both the coaching and GM jobs, but owner Mikhail Prokhorov has indicated a desire to separate those positions between two people. Nets CEO Brett Yormark continues to make it clear he’s enamored with the University of Kentucky coach, but it’s uncertain whether anyone else among the Brooklyn higher-ups wants to pursue Calipari, Stein and Mazzeo write. Nets chairman Dmitry Razumov and Irina Pavlova, president of Prokhorov’s ONEXIM Sports and Entertainment holding company, are conducting the search for the team, with Nets board member Sergey Kushchenko growing increasingly influential, as Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com reported earlier this week.

Bryan Colangelo became GM of the Suns in the mid-1990s, shepherding the roster from the end of Charles Barkley’s time with Phoenix to the recruitment of Steve Nash in free agency. He directed the Raptors to their first two playoff appearances in the post-Vince Carter era in his first two seasons as GM in Toronto, but the team failed to make it back to the playoffs before it replaced Colangelo with current GM Masai Ujiri in 2013. Still, Colangelo is a two-time NBA Executive of the Year award winner, having come away with the honor in 2005 with the Suns and 2007 with the Raptors.

Do you think Colangelo would be a wise choice for the Nets? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.

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