The Atlanta Hawks are currently searching for a new lead executive. Should they be looking at unconventional candidates?
The Atlanta Hawks appear to still be in the preliminary stages of finding a new executive to lead the team’s front office.
But several names have been connected to the job.
Most of those names are currently working, or used to work, in a successful NBA front office. But in recent days, some unique names have arisen. Adrian Wojnarowski, of The Vertical, has reported that former players, and current television analysts, Chauncey Billups and Brent Barry have emerged as potential targets for the Hawks’ general manager opening.
But neither of those men have been NBA executives before.
Which begs the question, are these guys still good targets? I would say yes.
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Both guys won championships in their NBA careers and were very intelligent guards. Also, both teams that Barry and Billups won titles with (the San Antonio Spurs and Detroit Pistons) were not the most traditional NBA powerhouses.
Obviously, the Hawks have tried to implement the Spurs model of unselfishness and 100 percent professionalism. The Spurs did not have a traditional superstar either but Tim Duncan was his own breed of legend. That model is hard to replicate. Billups’ Piston team also was absent a traditional star and was a gang of great role players that became a great team.
Barry and Billups would, presumably, try to build an NBA team in a similar manner of their own successful teams and that would fit what the Hawks want to do. But would they be able to execute this?
It is difficult to gauge the future success of someone that has never been an executive. That does mean, though, that these men would bring unique, fresh ideas to a job that has, maybe, been executed in a copycat way for too long.
We are seeing teams in multiple sports take the route of having a former player take the reins of a team without any front office experience.
Magic Johnson, of course, has become the president of basketball operations for the Los Angeles Lakers. Also in the NFL, John Lynch is now the GM of the San Fransisco 49ers. Neither man has entered his first full season with the team but their approaches have been rewarded.
Maybe this is a route that the Hawks need to take. It is bold to hire someone for a job for which they have no experience.
But it is a gamble that could pay off. A fresh face in the front office would be surrounded with people like Mike Budenholzer and Wes Wilcox, who served as the top executives previously, and would not be going in completely alone.
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The Hawks have become a steady, solid organization over the past ten years. Perhaps it is time to be bold, swing for the fences, and embrace someone like Billups or Barry to lead the charge in the front office.