Bro Spurs, Bro: Sean Marks Tells the Brooklyn Nets to Bugger Off (Until He Doesn't)
UPDATE: Obviously Prokhorov and co. had a good read of this bad boy coz after "discussions that extended to Wednesday night" and a "significantly increased" contract offer, Sean Marks accepted a four year deal to become the new General Manager of the Brooklyn Nets after all.
NBA.com: “I am very excited to be named the General Manager of the Brooklyn Nets, and to become a member of the vibrant and dynamic organization that represents Brooklyn,” Marks said. "I would like to thank Nets’ ownership for giving me this opportunity, and I look forward to the challenge of creating a unified culture and building a winning team."
So clearly certain aspects of this article are already irrelevant, but the Spurs Allure and the Brooklyn concerns are not. Think of this as a cautionary tale as Marks takes on an illustrious but incredibly difficult task.
Sean Marks will not be the new General Manager of the Brooklyn Nets. He was offered the job as their first choice candidate but the word is that he’s declined it. Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov didn’t seem to take the news all that well…
The NBA’s foremost inside man, Adrian Wojnarowski, scooped the ‘Marks to Nets’ story after he had been named in a potential shortlist earlier in the week. The poor old Nets have been without a General Manager for almost six weeks now since they fired their Head Coach and reassigned Billy King, their previous GM. Instead of an immediate replacement they bided their time to search for the perfect candidate and the bloke they chose was Sean Marks. It just wasn’t a mutual sell. Despite reports that Marks was initially very excited by the idea of becoming an NBA GM, he’s probably made a wise decision in staying put as an assistant for now.
This kind of opportunity, it really has to be said, is incredibly rare. International faces in front offices aren’t as scarce as you’d think with plenty of teams ready to look outside the box but for a New Zealander to have the opportunity to become the General Manager of an NBA team is practically unimaginable. Then again, until Sean Marks came along no New Zealander had ever been drafted before – hell, no NZer had ever even played NBA before.
Marks didn’t have nearly the impact of Steven Adams already has as a player. He was a journeyman who played for six different teams in his 11 seasons in the NBA (not including a year spent playing in Europe and one missed with a knee injury). Adams, in his third season, has already demolished Marks’ career totals for minutes, rebounds, points, blocks… pretty much everything. He did, however, get himself a ring with the Spurs in 2005 (despite not playing in the playoffs) and when he chose to retire aged 36 with the NBA Lockout of 2011 on the way, he immediately accepted a job as Basketball Operations Assistant with San Antonio.
Here’s where we include the unnecessary reminder that the San Antonio Spurs might be the best run organisation in all sports. A legendary coach in Gregg Popovich, iconic players in Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, Tony Parker, a current superstar in Kawhi Leonard, a history of great success, a reputation for getting the very best out of each and every one of their players (from the number one guy to the last guy on the bench) and a near-flawlessly run office. Marks quickly moved his way up the ranks in that office, being promoted in his second year to Director of Basketball Operations and also the General Manager for the Austin Toros (the Spurs’ D-League team). A year later he was made an assistant coach. That year was this year:
These days Marks works as one of two Assistant General Managers on the Spurs. RC Buford, 2013-14 NBA Executive of the Year, is the GM and has been since 2002. Scott Layden is the other assistant, he predates Marksy Marks in the role.
‘Spursian’ is one of those basketball jargon terms that gets a fair bit of traction. Rejecting a higher profile job to stay in a lower one but on a better organisation, well that’s as Spursian as it comes. Ask David West, who this season opted out of a $12.5m contract with the Indiana Pacers to sign a $1.4m veteran’s deal with the Spurs. In effect, he’s paying $11m for the chance to play on this team under Coach Pop and alongside Tim Duncan.
Part of the reason for Mark’s candidacy for Brooklyn was definitely the Spurs connection. He could have had the exact same CV but on the Orlando Magic or Charlotte Hornets or something and probably wouldn’t have been considered. But the allure of those with Spurs experience is real. The coaching tree of guys that have worked or played beneath Pop is incredible, both All Star Game coaches (Steve Kerr and Mike Budenholzer) are Pop graduates, Kerr as a player for five combined seasons (including two championships) and Bud for 17 seasons as an assistant coach. The entire league is scattered with these kinds of guys (not all as successful, either).
Buford was apparently the dream candidate for Prokhorov and company. That was never gonna happen so the gaze drifted to Buford’s current prodigies (Buford is good buddies with Sergey Kushchenko, who is on the Nets’ committee searching for the new GM and is pretty much Prokhorov’s consigliere). Marks must have stood out. The fact that he has experience across all levels of the franchise through the way that he’s worked his way up the ladder makes his case even stronger, plus Marks has spoken before about his ambitions in front office management.
Coach Pop on Marksy: "It was a like a year sabbatical on the coaching side, really. Now, he's back on the management side with R.C. (Buford), where he's going to be. It was a great experience for him to be able to do that. It's going to really help him when he gets his job."
Here’s a bit of Woj from his Marks piece: “Spurs president and coach Gregg Popovich and general manager RC Buford hold Marks in high regard, and the organization has been grooming Marks to eventually to take over a more significant role in the organization.”
What exactly that role is, we don’t know because there’s no reason for Buford (who is only in his mid-50s) to step down, though maybe he sees himself taking a backwards step at some stage. More likely is that Marks graduates to a position with another team if he wants that top office gig. The Spurs probably know this. When Coach Pop was asked about it, he joked that the Spurs “have to kick him out the door soon.” But the 40 year old kiwi clearly decided that the Nets weren’t it.
There’s a good reason for that. Look at the table. There are the Nets way down near the bottom with a 14-40 record. Aside from Brook Lopez there really isn’t much to build a future team around and if it seems that they may be positioned for a very tasty draft pick as compensation… well, they are. Except that draft pick is owed to the Boston Celtics and so is their 2018 first rounder. Plus the two teams must swap picks in 2017 and given that the Celtics are a team on the way up that’s not likely to be a pleasant exchange. The problem is that Billy King gambled on veteran talent and a win-now ideal with the notorious Pierce/Garnett trade of 2013 that helped them win a single playoff game and might have crippled the franchise for a decade. They do have decent cap space, but then so will everyone when the TV deal kicks in and the cap rises. And free agents prefer a team that’ll actually make the playoffs.
Chances are that Marks wasn’t gonna turn that around. Chances are that nobody is in the short term, it’s almost a poisoned chalice and Marks has shown a fair bit of courage and foresight to sit tight with the Spurs with the dream job being dangled on a stick right in front of him. Eventually a better offer will come along and even if it doesn’t then he’s still in a pretty enviable role as it is.
By the way, Prokhorov does know who Sean Marks is. That was a slightly bitter sorta joke is all.