Slideshow: NBA general managers with Spurs ties








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Seven NBA teams with general managers with ties directly to the Spurs:

Danny Ferry, Hawks: Played three seasons, 2000-03; director of basketball operations, 2003-05; VP of basketball operations, 2010-12

Kevin Pritchard, Pacers: Scout, 2001-03

Dell Demps, Hornets: Played one season, 1995-96; director of player personnel/VP, basketball operations, 2005-10

Sam Presti, Thunder: Basketball operations assistant, 2000-05; assistant GM/VP, basketball operations, 2005-07

Rob Hennigan, Magic: Basketball operations assistant, 2004-08

Lance Blanks, Suns: Director of scouting, 2000-05

Dennis Lindsey, Jazz: Assistant GM/VP, basketball operations, 2007-12

– Mike Monroe

Buck Harvey: Ex-Spur loses his seat as the GM

Chris Paul lobbing to Blake Griffin will be fun. Knowing the Lakers will be envious in the same city will be, too.

David Stern will receive a few compliments, and the New Orleans franchise will receive a few offers. The Hornets, with both a sensible payroll and a promising future to market, will be easier to sell.

But there’s someone who doesn’t know what his job is after this, or even if he has one. The general manager of the Hornets was off to the side while the NBA ran his team for him, and what happened Wednesday didn’t help him.
Before, Dell Demps’ peers thought he’d gotten a raw deal.

Now, didn’t Stern do a better job than Demps?

Demps knew the NBA ride could be a rough one. He made the Spurs’ roster in 1995 as a free agent; when he took his seat on the team plane for the first road trip that season, he felt a sense of accomplishment.

He felt something give, too. As the plane took off from the San Antonio airport, his seat became untracked along with that of a teammate, Chuck Person.

Both were injured, with Person suffering a herniated disk.

Demps sat back up. He patched together a 10-year playing career that stretched from the Philippines to France and beyond. Later, he took a job in the D-League, then scouted for the Knicks before coming back to the Spurs.

Here, he learned how to run his own operation with the Toros. Those who worked with him in the Spurs’ organization thought this: Demps was competitive and smart, and aggressive in both his thinking and his execution.

Little wonder he teamed with a former Spurs teammate, coach Monty Williams, in New Orleans in the summer of 2010. And from the first day, his challenge was Paul.

Paul was already impatient then, wondering if he should go elsewhere. Demps met with him immediately upon becoming the Hornets’ general manager.

“They made the right choice hiring Dell,” a source close to Paul said then. “We knew the Spurs talked very highly of him, so that’s all we could go off. But (Paul) said it was a great meeting.”

Demps did what every other GM in the league would have tried to do. He massaged his star. He outlined for Paul what was possible, knowing all along that his star might change his mind. Paul did eventually.

But Demps wasn’t any other GM. He didn’t have to answer to one owner, or even a group of owners. He had the league.

Stern should want to get out of this conflict of interest as soon as possible. It looks bad, and it feels worse. Various officials around the league see too many possibilities.

Such as the lottery. It’s always been a moment of game-show paranoia. Now it’s possible an NBA-owned team will have two chances.

This trade was as messy. Stern and Demps tried to frame it Wednesday night in a teleconference as a cooperative effort. When Demps came to the league with the three-way deal that involved the Lakers and Rockets, Stern said they talked in gentle terms.

“OK, let’s see what else we can do?”

In truth, the NBA vetoed Demps’ trade and took over his responsibilities. Demps was crushed.

Many around the league thought a lot of his initial proposal. Demps had gotten three veterans (Lamar Odom, Luis Scola and Kevin Martin) who would have made the Hornets competitive.

Still, it was a middling mix, as well as one whose budget and lack of star power wouldn’t have impressed potential buyers. The NBA accomplished all of that — without Demps’ assistance — when it landed a younger talent in Eric Gordon and the promise of Minnesota’s unprotected lottery pick in a deep draft.

Wednesday night, Demps said he was excited for the Hornets, and maybe he is. But this wasn’t his trade, and he wasn’t running his team. He was untracked again, and likely to be unemployed.

bharvey@express-news.net

Takes from my blog brothers: How Dell Demps first met Pop

Gregg Popovich and Dell Demps go back a long way.

The guys at the New Orleans Hornets’ blog Hornets Blog 247.c0m had an interesting story that Demps recently told Hornets season-ticket holders .

During his career as a college player at the University of the Pacific, Demps told of a chance encounter with Popovich that shaped his professional career.

Demps told the fans that “luck equals opportunity plus preparation.” His story about meeting Popovich bears that out.

Between his sophomore and junior seasons at Pacific, Demps often took his father’s car to a nearby military installation to run and then play basketball before finally returning the car home so his dad could go to work.

One day, Demps was approached by what he termed a “near-frantic man” asking him if he played basketball and had his gear. When told he had both, Popovich quickly ushered Demps into the gymansium.

Inside were seven Golden State players, including Tim Hardaway and Chris Mullin. Popovich was looking for an eighth player so his players could practice. Popovich was desperate and Demps was willing.

Even with his lack of experience, Demps eventually merited guarding after he found his shooting touch.

He was back again for the rest of the summer, eventually becoming a “test dummy” of sorts who would play 1-on-1 against potential draft selections or free-agent candidates. Demps got a tryout with the team, was cut, and then was invited back to the team after a year overseas.

Demps made the Warriors in 1993 and later played with the Spurs and Orlando in a three-season NBA career.

After his playing career ended, Demps eventually worked two years under Popovich as an unpaid intern and then spent two years coaching before returning to the Spurs. Eventually he worked as the Spurs’ executive vice president of basketball relations before accepting the Hornets’ job as general manager.

He maintains a close relationship with Popovich. It’s understandable why, considering how he got his start in basketball with him.

Here are some other Spurs-related stories from across the blogosphere to start the weekend.

  • Chris Tomasson of Hoops Hype.com from his list of 26 potential Hall of Famers who currently are active in the NBA.
  • Express-News Spurs beat writer Jeff McDonald had an interesting tweet about Tim Duncan, James Anderson and Danny Greenin this relentless Texas summer heat.
  • Trevor Zickgraf of Project Spurs.com pretends that he’s the Spurs’ general manager with a .
  • USA Today’s Fredreka Schouten and Christopher Schnaars relate how megabuck contributors like Spurs owner Peter Holt .
  • Robby Lim of Spurs World.com looks back at and ranks the Spurs’ top five draft-day steals since 1997. His first choice .
  • CBS Sports.com’s Eye on Basketball blog lists DeJuan Blair and Richard Jefferson as .
  • Bruce Pascoe of the Arizona Daily Star lists Steve Kerr among his in Arizona’s 100 years as a state.  
  • Jesse Blanchard of 48 Minutes of Hell.com has the story about how And Blanchard and Andrew McNeill have a podcast where Jackson about his time with the Spurs.
  • Brandy Simms of Severn Patch.com writes that 7-foot former Bowie State center Travis Hyman thanks to his strong performance at Nike Pro City League in Baltimore. (Hat tip to Michael DeLeon of Project Spurs.com)  
  • Kawhi Leonard is ranked No. 14 among Andy Leonard of the Bleacher Report.com’s for the upcoming season.
  • The Toronto Star ranks Jefferson as having one of its .
  • Steve Weishampel of the Denver-based blog Westword.com looks at what Duncan would demand if he was.