East Notes: Perry, Nader, Irving

In a span of three months, Scott Perry went from being cast aside by a moribund Magic franchise to a sound front office hire for the Knicks. Marc Berman of the New York Post recently wrote about the underdog’s meteoric rise up the executive landscape.

While Perry did little to draw attention to himself under the tutelage of then-Orlando general manager Rob Hennigan, he quickly found himself the executive vice president of a Kings team that desperately needed reinvention.

Perry’s tenure in Sacramento, however, didn’t last. On July 13, three months after leaving the Magic and making a handful of heady decisions for Sacramento, Perry was plucked away from Vlade Divac to be the general manager of the Knicks.

During his brief stint with the Kings, Perry guided the franchise through an impressive draft that yielded the likes De’Aaron Fox, Justin Jackson and Harry Giles. He also landed notable veterans George Hill and Zach Randolph to monitor and mold those youngsters.

One of the more amazing front-office sagas I can ever remember,” longtime NBA executive Pat Williams told Berman for his in-depth long-read. “Scott’s dismissed in mid-April, within 48 hours he’s talking with Sacramento and ends up hired by the Knicks in probably the most important front-office job in the NBA — GM of the Knicks.

There’s more from the Eastern Conference:

  • If Abdel Nader is going to score a long-term role with the Celtics, he’ll need to establish himself as a 3-and-D player, A. Sherrod Blakely of CSN New England writes.
  • The Knicks are Kyrie Irving‘s first choice, according to Adam Zagoria of ZagsBlog. Irving had previously listed four teams that he’d prefer the Cavaliers trade him to last month, the others being the Timberwolves, Spurs or Heat.
  • The fact that Pistons general manager Jeff Bower took time aside to work with then-free agent Eric Moreland on his game during summer league influenced his decision to sign a three-year deal with the franchise, Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press writes. “I’ve been with like three teams now and they can be down to earth as much as they want but they not about to come out and shoot free throws with you and try to help you and see something you,” Moreland said.
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