Scott Perry

Candidates Emerge For Pistons Top Exec Job

1:33pm: Hill would be interested in taking a front office job eventually, but not now, tweets Vincent Goodwill of The Detroit News.

11:16am: The Pistons appear to be targeting Grant Hill and Magic assistant GM Scott Perry as candidates to replace Joe Dumars atop the Detroit front office, tweets Marc Stein of ESPN.com. Stein cautions that the Pistons have promised a broad search, so Hill and Perry will likely be two of many in the running for the job.

Perry has spent most of his NBA career with the Pistons, joining the team as a scout during the same offseason in which Dumars became the club’s top basketball executive. He ascended through the ranks to become vice president of basketball operations for the team after a one-year stint as assistant GM to Sam Presti with the Thunder in 2007/08. He was said to have advocated for the Pistons to draft Carmelo Anthony rather than Darko Milicic while serving as Pistons director of player personnel in 2003, USA Today’s Sam Amick notes (Twitter link).

Hill was rumored to be a candidate for the Suns GM job last year shortly after he retired from playing at the end of the 2012/13 season. NBA teams were still interested in the 41-year-old as a player earlier this year, but Hill rejected those entreaties and has spent the season as a broadcaster. The Pistons drafted him third overall in 1994, and he played his first six NBA seasons with the team.

Amick also names Warriors assistant GM Travis Schlenk and former Raptors and Suns GM Bryan Colangelo as possible candidates (Twitter link).

Several Candidates Emerge For Nuggets GM Job

Nuggets team president Josh Kroenke's strong relationship with Masai Ujiri was the primary force behind the outgoing Denver GM's hesitation to accept Toronto's five-year, $15MM offer to jump to the Raptors front office, writes Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. The Nuggets were willing to give Ujiri a deal worth $1.2MM a year, according to USA Today's Sam Amick. Still, none of it was enough to convince Ujiri to stay, and now the Nuggets are the team looking for a new GM. There's early talk about several who could eventually get the job, as we detail below:

  • Nuggets assistant GM Pete D'Alessandro and director of player personnel Mike Bratz are viable options, sources tell Ken Berger of CBSSports.com (Twitter link).
  • Wojnarowski speculates that the Nuggets could promote D'Alessandro or go after Cavaliers assistant GM David Griffin. The Nuggets offered Griffin the job in 2010, but he turned them down, leading Denver to turn to Ujiri.
  • Other executives who figure to be top candidates include Gersson Rosas of the Rockets, Bobby Marks of the Nets, Tim Connelly of the Pelicans, Wes Wilcox of the Hawks and Scott Perry of the Magic, according to Wojnarowski.
  • The Nuggets could have some competition if they want to go with D'Alessandro, since Grizzlies GM Chris Wallace, the leading candidate to take the GM job in Sacramento, would like to hire him to work in the Kings front office, Amick reports (Twitter link). 
  • Warriors assistant GM Travis Schlenk interviewed well with the Kings, Amick tweets, arguing that Schlenk could be a fit in Denver if it doesn't work out for him in Sacramento.
  • Assistant GMs Tommy Sheppard of the Wizards and Jeff Weltman of the Bucks have ties to the Nuggets and bear watching as the Nuggets' search takes place, tweets Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports.

Odds & Ends: Timberwolves, Murray, Bucks

With Kevin Love's uncertain health status for the rest of the season, Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN says that the Timberwolves have made it a "pressing priority" to add another big man to their roster, and that there is a strong likelihood that Minnesota makes a move by the trade deadline. Also, Wolfson writes that the team has not been engaged by the Grizzlies in exploratory trade talks involving Rudy Gay. Here's more of tonight's miscellaneous notes from around the NBA: 
  • Eliot Shorr-Parks of NJ.com wonders if it may be time for the 76ers to make a drastic move the way Brooklyn did in order to right their ship. Although firing Doug Collins may not be the answer, dealing Thaddeus Young might be a painful-but-necessary move worth considering. 
  • Several months removed from telling the Hornets that he wanted to be in Phoenix, Eric Gordon is ready and willing to take on the leadership role expected from him in New Orleans (Steve Kyler of USA Today reports). 
  • Ronald Murray has signed with Azovmash Mariupol of the Ukraine, according to Basket-Planet.com (credit goes to HoopsHype for the translation). The 6'3 guard's resume includes an eight-year stint in the NBA from 2002 to 2010, last playing for the Bulls and subsequently the Bobcats during the 2009-10 season. 
  • Zach Lowe of Grantland explains why Scott Skiles was not the Bucks' main problem and looks into the bigger decisions ahead with regards to the futures of Monta Ellis and Brandon Jennings.  Lowe mentions that if Ellis decides to opt-out this summer, Milwaukee could have max-level cap room to work with at that point. 
  • Keith Schlosser of Ridiculous Upside examines Demetris Nichols and Sean Evans, two former standouts from New York colleges who have started to make some waves in the D-League. Schlosser thinks that both have shown some characteristics of being possible contributors in the NBA. 
  • Emilio Carchiano from Sportando.net notes that Gary Forbes has officially signed a deal with Atleticos de San German. 

Latest On Olshey Move, Clippers GM Search

The Clippers were offering former vice president of basketball operations Neil Olshey a one-year contract worth $750K when the Blazers countered with the three-year, $3.6MM offer to become their general manager, reports Broderick Turner of the Los Angeles Times. The Blazers deal, which Olshey took last week, includes team options for two additional seasons. Olshey had been making $450K per year on a month-to-month deal with the Clippers since August.

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