Milwaukee Bucks: Search For Assistant General Manager

When the Milwaukee Bucks announced their agreement with John Hammond to extend his contract through to the end of the 2016-17 season on Monday, the news of an opening at assistant general manager was one that flew under the radar in certain quarters.

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The team had decided against renewing David Morway’s contract as assistant GM, an interesting decision considering the extension of Hammond signalled a decision to maintain much of the continuity that had been successful to this point in the Bucks team-building process.

Morway was more than qualified to hold such a high profile role within an NBA front office, and in fact it wasn’t his first time in such a position either.

Morway had a long history of front office work for major organizations, dating back to his time in the MLB with the San Diego Padres in the 1980’s. More relevant than that perhaps though was his time as the Indiana Pacers’ GM.

What do the Bucks hope to achieve in moving on from an experienced veteran like Morway though? And most importantly of all, does it really matter?

Just because assistant GMs generally don’t hog the limelight, it doesn’t mean they’re unimportant. The NBA has grown more and more democratic in recent years, meaning that owners are more open than ever to hearing the input of multiple voices.

With a mixture of traditional scouting, analytics, and the financial intricacies of identifying and acquiring suitable players in the modern NBA, it helps to have a brain trust of executives with different skill sets.

As a result when a team chooses which player to draft, or which free agent to sign, a team’s assistant GM may have a much greater say than many casual fans realize.

In looking to freshen up that aspect of their front office, the Bucks could be looking to achieve a number of different things.

They may want to partner the minds of Hammond and Kidd with a salary cap expert, or an analytics whizz-kid, or a high profile name, or maybe just somebody with a good understanding of how to develop a winning organization.

With that in mind who could represent some worthwhile candidates?

According to Gery Woelfel of the Racine Journal Times, Bobby Marks and Ed Stefanski are two of the names garnering heavy consideration from Milwaukee.

Two individuals being prominently mentioned as candidates for vacant Bucks Asst. GM position: Bobby Marks and Ed Stefanski.
— Gery Woelfel (@GeryWoelfel) September 17, 2015

Marks has become one of the NBA’s best known cap experts over the past few months, as the former Brooklyn Nets executive has become one of the most knowledgable and vocal cap experts to share his thoughts regularly on Twitter.

Stefanski is currently employed by the Memphis Grizzlies, and has been around the league for a number of years. Having only recently stepped up into a major personnel role in Memphis, it’s believed to be unlikely that he would be open to stepping away for what would effectively be a sideways move though.

There are others the Bucks could reach out to as well though.

Former Atlanta Hawks general manager Danny Ferry is currently unemployed following on from a long-running saga created by comments he made about Luol Deng. With that issue now effectively resolved with all parties, Ferry remains one of the NBA’s smartest execs, and he may be prepared to take a step down to assistant standing in order to get his way back into the league.

Another notable name who has recently found himself available on the open market is Dean Oliver. Oliver was the Kings director of player personnel and head of analytics, and is one of the trailblazers around the league in the data department. If that was the direction Milwaukee wanted to head in, they couldn’t do much better.

Out of the left field, but another progressive move and one that would follow in the same vein as many others around the league in recent years, would be to consider reaching out to a key member of San Antonio’s model front office.

Brian Pauga, currently the Spurs director of scouting and Austin Toros GM, would be an interesting addition and one that could potentially leave the team with the flexibility to move in a different direction in the not so distant future, if they so wished.

Whoever the Bucks do eventually choose will give us an even greater insight into the organization’s thought process heading into the future.

Next: The Milwaukee Bucks are Seriously Planning on Owning The Future

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