Kori Ellis
07-15-2007, 12:13 AM
Sonics look to model team after Spurs
Web Posted: 07/14/2007 08:49 PM CDT
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/basketball/nba/spurs/stories/MYSA071507.01C.BKNsonics.presti.2f4571c.html
Johnny Ludden
Express-News
More than a month after taking over as the general manager of the Seattle SuperSonics, Sam Presti can comfortably say he's made progress.
He finally has a printer in his office.
Presti has yet to finish hiring his staff or helping his new coach build his own. He needs to find a shooting guard, and he has yet to thoroughly evaluate what other organizational changes need to be made.
Decorating his new work quarters ranks somewhere below "MEET SQUATCH" on the to-do list. His office walls remain bare except for a single wooden picture frame containing a quote from 19th-century social reformer Jacob Riis.
"When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone on before."
Presti first saw the quote seven years ago when he began working for the Spurs as a $250-a-month intern. Spurs coach Gregg Popovich hung it in the team's locker room and even had the quote translated into the native languages of the team's international players. For more than a decade it has served as the franchise's mantra.
For Presti, however, Riis' wisdom resonates as much personally as it does professionally. He has no plans to use it to motivate either his team or his staff. It simply hangs in his office to remind him not to skip steps in life or work. Growth, as he likes to say, is a process, not an event.
Of course, if you ask some Sonics fans, Presti already has put down the stonecutter's pick and ax and blasted Seattle's NBA franchise with 2,000 pounds of dynamite.
On draft night, Presti traded All-Star guard Ray Allen, the face of the franchise and one of the league's best shooters, to Boston for Delonte West, Wally Szczerbiak and the No. 5 pick. He turned the draft choice into Jeff Green, a promising young forward who should complement Kevin Durant, the all-everything forward from Texas hailed as the franchise's new cornerstone.
Two weeks later, Presti bid farewell to the Sonics' second-best player when the Orlando Magic gave Rashard Lewis a six-year, $113 million contract. Presti pushed for a sign-and-trade deal, which netted Seattle a second-round pick and, more importantly, a trade exception worth more than $9 million that he plans to probably use to land a veteran player with an expiring contract.
In between, Presti hired Spurs assistant P.J. Carlesimo as the Sonics' head coach, a decision that was greeted with less-than-enthusiastic support in Seattle given that Carlesimo's most notable moment in the NBA came nearly 10 years ago when one of his players choked him.
With the exception of the coaching search, which didn't pick up in earnest until after the Spurs had finished the NBA Finals, Presti made each decision swiftly, yet decisively. Though he is the league's youngest general manager at just 30, some of his peers — and especially those who have worked alongside him — haven't been surprised by the bold moves.
"You don't get to sit in the big-boy chair," Dallas president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson said, "if you're afraid to make the tough decisions."
Building for the future
As soon as the Allen trade was announced, Presti received a call in Seattle's draft room from Popovich, who congratulated him for making the tough decision. "In 10 minutes," Popovich said, "you just changed the course of your franchise."
Presti's hope is that the course has changed for the better. He and Carlesimo admit the Sonics could face a difficult season given the inexperience of key players. But neither is willing to concede the season and both believe the team will be competitive.
Both also know the Sonics are building for the future.
"Sam is the key to the whole thing," Carlesimo said. "What Sam's doing is going to be harder than what I'm doing. He's got a very definite plan of how he wants to build: He wants to play defense; he wants to have good people.
"So much of it is stuff he's seen first-hand that he knows works over the long haul."
Owner Clay Bennett thinks the same. A former member of the Spurs' ownership group, Bennett already had decided he wanted to model the Sonics after his old franchise before watching it win its third championship in five years last month. He started by hiring Presti, who then added Detroit director of player personnel Scott Perry, hailed by the Pistons for his talent-evaluation and relationship-building skills, as assistant general manager.
Rich Cho, considered one of the league's top salary-cap experts, already was working in Seattle's front office and remained as Presti's other assistant general manager.
Bennett and Presti, whom Spurs general manager R.C. Buford describes as a "brilliant, tireless worker," then collectively decided to hire Carlesimo in hopes of producing a synergy similar to that shared by Spurs chairman Peter Holt, Popovich and Buford.
"I believe Clay will allow the same relationship to grow," Buford said. "I think there's a respect level between Sam and P.J. that can be achieved and allow that level of communication."
Presti and Carlesimo aren't the first set of Spurs' alums to leave the comfort of San Antonio and take on the challenge of remaking a franchise. Cleveland hired Mike Brown and Danny Ferry as its coach-general manager team shortly after the Spurs won the 2005 championship.
Brown already had left the Spurs by then to become Rick Carlisle's top assistant in Indiana, but he, like Ferry, has leaned heavily on the experience he gained working under Popovich and Buford. Two years later, they helped guide the Cavaliers to the NBA Finals before being swept by the Spurs.
"This situation will take a life of its own, but our ties to San Antonio will be strong," Ferry said. "Those were clearly enjoyable and rich professional experiences we had."
Crafting plan for Durant
Like Cleveland has done with LeBron James, the Sonics plan to build around a tremendously talented wing player. The day before the draft, Durant said he didn't plan to be the Sonics' savior because Allen was on the team. A little more than 24 hours later, Allen was packing his bags for Boston.
The Sonics' success will depend heavily on how quickly Durant develops, but they don't want to shoulder him with too much responsibility too soon.
"We understand there's going to be external pressure that's out of our control," Presti said. "But the focus internally is on the team and on establishing an identity for this team. Kevin's a part of that, but he doesn't define that on his own.
"We're committed to allowing him to develop and be himself."
Durant already has experienced some growing pains, making just 9 of 36 shots during his first two NBA summer league games in Las Vegas before scoring 32 points on Friday. He has looked fatigued at times, in part because of his hectic schedule before and after the draft, but hasn't sounded too flustered.
"The game's quicker (in the NBA), everybody's good," Durant said. "You have to play hard every night and that's what I'm adjusting to right now. I can't get down on myself."
Carlesimo, who isn't coaching the Sonics' summer league team, has been hesitant to even publicly assess Durant's performance, saying it isn't fair to the 18-year-old. What has impressed Carlesimo, however, has been Durant's steady demeanor, which reminds him of Tim Duncan.
"He wants to be one of the guys on the team, he doesn't want all the attention," Carlesimo said. "That's really unique. Maybe that changes, maybe it doesn't. There's no reason to think he won't stay like that, but we have to help him to stay like that."
Carlesimo's lessons
Durant was 9 years old when Latrell Sprewell choked Carlesimo during a practice on Dec.1, 1997, but hasn't done much of a background check on his new coach. He said he hasn't even quizzed Texas coach Rick Barnes, who is friends with Carlesimo.
"I just heard he was a tough coach, a defensive coach, and that was about it," Durant said. "I talked to him a couple of times. He's a real good dude. I can't wait to play for him."
Carlesimo, likewise, is eager to begin coaching Durant. After Golden State fired him midway through the 1999-2000 season, Carlesimo worked as a TV analyst for NBC and the Spurs before becoming Popovich's lead assistant in the fall of 2002.
Carlesimo came to the Spurs with the reputation of being a demanding and sometimes unyielding coach, but said he has learned how to better manage players from spending five seasons watching Popovich. Unlike his previous two NBA jobs in Portland and Golden State, he also now has a wife (Carolyn) and two young sons (Kyle and Casey), which has softened him some, but not too much, he claims.
"I hope I'm a lot better coach than I was at Golden State seven or eight years ago," Carlesimo said. "If I'm not, I'm stupid. But am I still me? I'm still me, unfortunately or fortunately."
While Presti was interviewing with Seattle, Carlesimo joked that he would have absolutely no chance of becoming the Sonics' head coach if his co-worker landed the general manager's job. Even after meeting with Carlesimo for a second time, Presti and Bennett still weren't completely confident he was willing to undertake a rebuilding project, so they invited him back for a third interview. Carlesimo assuaged their concerns.
"I think Sam knew me, for better or worse, in terms of what I do, what I did when I was (with the Spurs)," he said. "All that was there for him to see. But we hadn't talked in terms of how he sees Seattle, how he wants to build the franchise.
"He has a very, very detailed idea of how he wants it to go. And he wanted me or whomever to be on board with it, so the conversation wasn't like, 'Well, what pick-and-roll defense do you like?' It was, 'This is how I see this happening. Are you in for the long haul? Do you understand what we're saying? We're talking about teaching young kids. We're talking about playing defense. We're talking about getting people to play the right way.'"
Bennett charged Presti to build the team without worrying about how it would impact its bid for a new arena or a potential move to Oklahoma City or Kansas City. That long-term plan hasn't settled well with some in Seattle, who think the franchise should have kept Allen and Lewis and made a more serious playoff push this season in hopes of winning public support.
For now though, Presti is content to keep hammering away at the rock.
"It's clear now they have a blueprint, and if I were a Sonics' fan, I would be optimistic," said Nelson, who helped oversee the Mavericks' rise to power.
"The job is definitely not for the timid or the faint of heart, and it's clear Sam is neither of those."
* * *
CHANGING SUPERSONICS
The Sonics' front office has undergone some big changes this summer. Here is a look:
In
The Sonics announced the hiring of Sam Presti as general manager on June 7. Presti had been the Spurs' assistant GM.
The Sonics confirmed the hiring of Scott Perry as assistant GM and main talent evaluator on June 20. He had been the Pistons' director of player personnel.
Out
The Sonics confirmed the firing of director of basketball operations David Pendergraft and director of college scouting Steve Rosenberry on June 20.
Team president Lenny Wilkens, who became the team's vice chairman with the hiring of Presti, resigned on July 6.
New duties
General manager Rick Sund was reassigned on April 24.
Web Posted: 07/14/2007 08:49 PM CDT
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/basketball/nba/spurs/stories/MYSA071507.01C.BKNsonics.presti.2f4571c.html
Johnny Ludden
Express-News
More than a month after taking over as the general manager of the Seattle SuperSonics, Sam Presti can comfortably say he's made progress.
He finally has a printer in his office.
Presti has yet to finish hiring his staff or helping his new coach build his own. He needs to find a shooting guard, and he has yet to thoroughly evaluate what other organizational changes need to be made.
Decorating his new work quarters ranks somewhere below "MEET SQUATCH" on the to-do list. His office walls remain bare except for a single wooden picture frame containing a quote from 19th-century social reformer Jacob Riis.
"When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone on before."
Presti first saw the quote seven years ago when he began working for the Spurs as a $250-a-month intern. Spurs coach Gregg Popovich hung it in the team's locker room and even had the quote translated into the native languages of the team's international players. For more than a decade it has served as the franchise's mantra.
For Presti, however, Riis' wisdom resonates as much personally as it does professionally. He has no plans to use it to motivate either his team or his staff. It simply hangs in his office to remind him not to skip steps in life or work. Growth, as he likes to say, is a process, not an event.
Of course, if you ask some Sonics fans, Presti already has put down the stonecutter's pick and ax and blasted Seattle's NBA franchise with 2,000 pounds of dynamite.
On draft night, Presti traded All-Star guard Ray Allen, the face of the franchise and one of the league's best shooters, to Boston for Delonte West, Wally Szczerbiak and the No. 5 pick. He turned the draft choice into Jeff Green, a promising young forward who should complement Kevin Durant, the all-everything forward from Texas hailed as the franchise's new cornerstone.
Two weeks later, Presti bid farewell to the Sonics' second-best player when the Orlando Magic gave Rashard Lewis a six-year, $113 million contract. Presti pushed for a sign-and-trade deal, which netted Seattle a second-round pick and, more importantly, a trade exception worth more than $9 million that he plans to probably use to land a veteran player with an expiring contract.
In between, Presti hired Spurs assistant P.J. Carlesimo as the Sonics' head coach, a decision that was greeted with less-than-enthusiastic support in Seattle given that Carlesimo's most notable moment in the NBA came nearly 10 years ago when one of his players choked him.
With the exception of the coaching search, which didn't pick up in earnest until after the Spurs had finished the NBA Finals, Presti made each decision swiftly, yet decisively. Though he is the league's youngest general manager at just 30, some of his peers — and especially those who have worked alongside him — haven't been surprised by the bold moves.
"You don't get to sit in the big-boy chair," Dallas president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson said, "if you're afraid to make the tough decisions."
Building for the future
As soon as the Allen trade was announced, Presti received a call in Seattle's draft room from Popovich, who congratulated him for making the tough decision. "In 10 minutes," Popovich said, "you just changed the course of your franchise."
Presti's hope is that the course has changed for the better. He and Carlesimo admit the Sonics could face a difficult season given the inexperience of key players. But neither is willing to concede the season and both believe the team will be competitive.
Both also know the Sonics are building for the future.
"Sam is the key to the whole thing," Carlesimo said. "What Sam's doing is going to be harder than what I'm doing. He's got a very definite plan of how he wants to build: He wants to play defense; he wants to have good people.
"So much of it is stuff he's seen first-hand that he knows works over the long haul."
Owner Clay Bennett thinks the same. A former member of the Spurs' ownership group, Bennett already had decided he wanted to model the Sonics after his old franchise before watching it win its third championship in five years last month. He started by hiring Presti, who then added Detroit director of player personnel Scott Perry, hailed by the Pistons for his talent-evaluation and relationship-building skills, as assistant general manager.
Rich Cho, considered one of the league's top salary-cap experts, already was working in Seattle's front office and remained as Presti's other assistant general manager.
Bennett and Presti, whom Spurs general manager R.C. Buford describes as a "brilliant, tireless worker," then collectively decided to hire Carlesimo in hopes of producing a synergy similar to that shared by Spurs chairman Peter Holt, Popovich and Buford.
"I believe Clay will allow the same relationship to grow," Buford said. "I think there's a respect level between Sam and P.J. that can be achieved and allow that level of communication."
Presti and Carlesimo aren't the first set of Spurs' alums to leave the comfort of San Antonio and take on the challenge of remaking a franchise. Cleveland hired Mike Brown and Danny Ferry as its coach-general manager team shortly after the Spurs won the 2005 championship.
Brown already had left the Spurs by then to become Rick Carlisle's top assistant in Indiana, but he, like Ferry, has leaned heavily on the experience he gained working under Popovich and Buford. Two years later, they helped guide the Cavaliers to the NBA Finals before being swept by the Spurs.
"This situation will take a life of its own, but our ties to San Antonio will be strong," Ferry said. "Those were clearly enjoyable and rich professional experiences we had."
Crafting plan for Durant
Like Cleveland has done with LeBron James, the Sonics plan to build around a tremendously talented wing player. The day before the draft, Durant said he didn't plan to be the Sonics' savior because Allen was on the team. A little more than 24 hours later, Allen was packing his bags for Boston.
The Sonics' success will depend heavily on how quickly Durant develops, but they don't want to shoulder him with too much responsibility too soon.
"We understand there's going to be external pressure that's out of our control," Presti said. "But the focus internally is on the team and on establishing an identity for this team. Kevin's a part of that, but he doesn't define that on his own.
"We're committed to allowing him to develop and be himself."
Durant already has experienced some growing pains, making just 9 of 36 shots during his first two NBA summer league games in Las Vegas before scoring 32 points on Friday. He has looked fatigued at times, in part because of his hectic schedule before and after the draft, but hasn't sounded too flustered.
"The game's quicker (in the NBA), everybody's good," Durant said. "You have to play hard every night and that's what I'm adjusting to right now. I can't get down on myself."
Carlesimo, who isn't coaching the Sonics' summer league team, has been hesitant to even publicly assess Durant's performance, saying it isn't fair to the 18-year-old. What has impressed Carlesimo, however, has been Durant's steady demeanor, which reminds him of Tim Duncan.
"He wants to be one of the guys on the team, he doesn't want all the attention," Carlesimo said. "That's really unique. Maybe that changes, maybe it doesn't. There's no reason to think he won't stay like that, but we have to help him to stay like that."
Carlesimo's lessons
Durant was 9 years old when Latrell Sprewell choked Carlesimo during a practice on Dec.1, 1997, but hasn't done much of a background check on his new coach. He said he hasn't even quizzed Texas coach Rick Barnes, who is friends with Carlesimo.
"I just heard he was a tough coach, a defensive coach, and that was about it," Durant said. "I talked to him a couple of times. He's a real good dude. I can't wait to play for him."
Carlesimo, likewise, is eager to begin coaching Durant. After Golden State fired him midway through the 1999-2000 season, Carlesimo worked as a TV analyst for NBC and the Spurs before becoming Popovich's lead assistant in the fall of 2002.
Carlesimo came to the Spurs with the reputation of being a demanding and sometimes unyielding coach, but said he has learned how to better manage players from spending five seasons watching Popovich. Unlike his previous two NBA jobs in Portland and Golden State, he also now has a wife (Carolyn) and two young sons (Kyle and Casey), which has softened him some, but not too much, he claims.
"I hope I'm a lot better coach than I was at Golden State seven or eight years ago," Carlesimo said. "If I'm not, I'm stupid. But am I still me? I'm still me, unfortunately or fortunately."
While Presti was interviewing with Seattle, Carlesimo joked that he would have absolutely no chance of becoming the Sonics' head coach if his co-worker landed the general manager's job. Even after meeting with Carlesimo for a second time, Presti and Bennett still weren't completely confident he was willing to undertake a rebuilding project, so they invited him back for a third interview. Carlesimo assuaged their concerns.
"I think Sam knew me, for better or worse, in terms of what I do, what I did when I was (with the Spurs)," he said. "All that was there for him to see. But we hadn't talked in terms of how he sees Seattle, how he wants to build the franchise.
"He has a very, very detailed idea of how he wants it to go. And he wanted me or whomever to be on board with it, so the conversation wasn't like, 'Well, what pick-and-roll defense do you like?' It was, 'This is how I see this happening. Are you in for the long haul? Do you understand what we're saying? We're talking about teaching young kids. We're talking about playing defense. We're talking about getting people to play the right way.'"
Bennett charged Presti to build the team without worrying about how it would impact its bid for a new arena or a potential move to Oklahoma City or Kansas City. That long-term plan hasn't settled well with some in Seattle, who think the franchise should have kept Allen and Lewis and made a more serious playoff push this season in hopes of winning public support.
For now though, Presti is content to keep hammering away at the rock.
"It's clear now they have a blueprint, and if I were a Sonics' fan, I would be optimistic," said Nelson, who helped oversee the Mavericks' rise to power.
"The job is definitely not for the timid or the faint of heart, and it's clear Sam is neither of those."
* * *
CHANGING SUPERSONICS
The Sonics' front office has undergone some big changes this summer. Here is a look:
In
The Sonics announced the hiring of Sam Presti as general manager on June 7. Presti had been the Spurs' assistant GM.
The Sonics confirmed the hiring of Scott Perry as assistant GM and main talent evaluator on June 20. He had been the Pistons' director of player personnel.
Out
The Sonics confirmed the firing of director of basketball operations David Pendergraft and director of college scouting Steve Rosenberry on June 20.
Team president Lenny Wilkens, who became the team's vice chairman with the hiring of Presti, resigned on July 6.
New duties
General manager Rick Sund was reassigned on April 24.