Spurs stamp evident as Sean Marks hires staff

The Nets have almost finished hiring their staff and among several things that are evident —beyond the focus on performance, sports science and the occasional out-of-the-box thinking— is the Spurs stamp.

We count eight new staffers who have a background with San Antonio, starting of course with Sean Marks, who had been assistant GM with the Spurs. Of the eight, four were direct hires. The other four worked with Marks in San Antonio before moving elsewhere.

Here’s our list, which were have derived from Nets announcements and social media...

DIRECT HIRES:

--Sean Marks, 40, General Manager, hired directly from the Spurs. Had been a player, assistant GM and assistant coach with the Spurs. Won two championship rings with the Spurs, as a player in 2005 and assistant coach in 2014.

--Jacque Vaughn, 41, Lead assistant coach, hired directly from the Spurs.  Vaughn was a player for two years with the Spurs, then an assistant to Gregg Popovich for two years, beginning in 2010, After being fired as Magic head coach, he returned to the Spurs as a pro scout in 2015, then pro personnel director. Won a championship ring in 2007.

--Logan MacPhail, 29, director of coaching analytics, hired directly from Spurs where he had been manager of coaching analytics last season and before that an analytics specialist for two years.  Was with the Spurs championship team in 2014..

--Andrew Baker, 26, Coordinator, Strategic Planning, hired directly from the Spurs. He had been Basketball Operations Quality Assurance Assistant with the Spurs in 2015-2016 after serving as Basketball Operations and Legal intern the year before.  He's a lawyer.

INDIRECT HIRES:

--Trajan Langdon, 40, Assistant General Manager, hired from the Cavaliers. Langdon spent a year with the Cleveland front office. Before that he had served as a pro scout for the Spurs from 2012-15, and was a member of the team’s front office during their 2013-14 championship season.

--Chris Fleming, 46, assistant coach, hired from Nuggets. He had been a summer league coach for the Spurs in 2014. He's head coach of the German national team.

--Bret Brielmaier, 28, assistant coach, hired from the Cavaliers. Before joining the Cavs three years ago, Brielmaier worked for four seasons with the Spurs (2009-13), beginning his career as a player development assistant before becoming the team’s video coordinator his final three seasons.

--Mitch Heckart, manager public relations staff, hired from the University of Oklahoma. Before that, he worked for the Spurs public relations staff for two years. He accompanied the Larry O'Brien trophy on an 82,000 mile journey around the world, bringing it to the hometowns of all the Spurs players.

That’s about a third of the Nets new hires with a Spurs background. And we’re not counting those like Kenny Atkinson who are once removed from the Spurs tree. He worked with Mike Budenholzer, the Spurs assistant coach turned Hawks head coach.