NetsDaily Survey: Basketball operations grow in rebuild

It’s hard to imagine that nine years ago next month, the Nets had three assistant coaches and three scouts, a bare bones basketball operations staff operating out of an antiquated training facility in East Rutherford, N.J. That was the situation Mikhail Prokhorov faced when he signed the agreement to buy control of the New Jersey Nets.

Now housed at HSS Training Center, what many call the best training facility in the NBA, the Nets staff has quietly grown both in numbers and sophistication, a NetsDaily review of social media shows. (The Nets stopped publishing a directory of basketball operations staff not long after Sean Marks took over in the spring of 2016.)

The survey, primarily using LinkedIn and Twitter, shows growth, some of it explosive, in a number of areas, particularly scouting and performance, areas Marks believed needed upgrades. The G-League operations have also been upgraded. It’s the underreported side of the Nets rebuild and rebrand and it’s cost a significant amount of money, all approved by Prokhorov and his No. 2, Nets chairman Dmitry Razumov. (In addition to staff, millions have been spent on improving the two-year-old training facility, Marks has said.)

Indeed, staff upgrades permit the Nets to “flood the zone”, as they did during the Las Vegas Summer League...

Or when a few weeks earlier when they scouted Rodions Kurucs at an agent’s “Pro Day”..

In the scouting department, the Nets have added both high profile figures like Tiago Splitter, who was a member of the Spurs during San Antonio’s championship run in 2014, as well as respected executives like Gianlucca Pascucci, who had been Daryl Morey’s righthand man in Houston, and B.J. Johnson, USA Basketball’s assistant men’s national team director.

The performance team, headed by Zach Weatherford, the former head of the Navy SEAL Human Performance Team, recently got an upgrade with the naming of a director of sports science and a director of sports medicine ... both Australians. That team, as well as others, include a variety of staff who’ve worked in a variety of sports, not just basketball and not just for Team USA. There are those who’ve worked in World Cup soccer, Olympic alpine skiing and Australian rules football. And yes, there are a number of staff from the Spurs “tree.”

Here’s a list we compiled (in lieu of an official list) of who’s who in the Nets basketball operations, based as we noted on social media. We can’t claim it’s complete or completely up-to-date either. There may be some inaccuracies. Moreover, some titles may not fully explain job duties but that’s true of any large organization.

And there’s nothing secret about it either. It’s all developed from public sources.

EXECUTIVES

• Dmitry Razumov, Chairman of the board
• Sean Marks, General manager
• Trajan Langdon, Assistant general manager; Long Island Nets general manager
• Ryan Grisriel — director of basketball administration
• Natalie Jay — Cap and contract specialist
• Andrew Baker — Director of contract management
• Matt Tellem — Strategic planning coordinator
• Matt Riccardi — Long Island Nets assistant general manager/scout

COACHING STAFF

• Kenny Atkinson — Head Coach
• Jacque Vaughn — Assistant coach
• Chris Fleming — Assistant coach
• Bret Brielmaier — Assistant coach
• Pablo Prigioni — Assistant coach
• Adam Harrington — Assistant Coach and Director of player development
• Trevon Bryant — Assistant coach for player development
• Jordan Ott — Assistant coach and Manager, advance scouting
• Logan MacPhail -- Director of Coaching Analytics
• Shaun Fein -- Player Development Coordinator
• Matt MacDonald - Basketball Operations Assistant
• Trevor Hendry - Basketball Operations assistant
• Cameron Baskerville - Player Development and Video Assistant
• Ronnie Burrell -- Player Development and Video Assistant
• Beau Levesque — Player Development and Video Assistant
• Wesley Stafford — Video Coordinator
• Nathan Babcock - Video Coordinator

SCOUTING

• Gianluca Pascucci — Director of global scouting
• B.J. Johnson — Coordinator of player evaluation
• Danko Cvjeticanin — European scouting coordinator
• Tiago Splitter — Pro scout
• Shawn McCullion — Scout
• Bob Ferry — Scout
• Eddie Oran — Scout
• Charles Payne — Scout
• Bill Dooley — Advance Scout
• Simone Casali — International scout
• Jared Ralsky — International scout

ANALYTICS

• Glen DuPaul — Director of analytics
• Rami Antoun — basketball analyst

PLAYER SUPPORT

• Marivic Lardizabal — Manager, travel and services
• Annabel Padilla - Director, player engagement
• Savannah Hart — Coordinator, player services
• Joe Cuomo -- Equipment Manager

PERFORMANCE

• Zach Weatherford — Director of Human Performance
• Dan Meehan — Director of Sports Science
• Les Gelis — Director of Sports Medicine
• Sebastian Poirier — Trainer
• Jana Austin — Assistant Trainer
• Daniel Liburd — Strength and conditioning coach
• Lauren Green — Assistant strength and conditioning coach
• Stefania Rizzo — Director of Performance Rehabilitation
• Amy Arundale — Rehabilitation Therapist
• Kathryn Sullivan — Sports science analyst

MEDICAL

• Riley J. Williams III, MD -- Medical Director & Head Team Physician
• Michael Farber, MD -- Team Physician/Internal Medicine
• Martin O’Malley, MD -- Team Physician/Orthopedics
• Paul Groenewal, PsyD — Team Psychologist
• Joseph Osipow, DDS — Team Dentist

PUBLIC RELATIONS

• Aaron Harris — Senior Director of Public Relations.
• Eli Pearlstein — Senior Manager of Public Relations.
• Mitch Heckart — Manager, Public Relations
• Megan Walsh — Coordinator, Public Relations

BROADCASTING

• Chris Carrino — Executive Director of Broadcasting
• Tim Capstraw — Radio Analyst

LONG ISLAND NETS

• Will Weaver — Head coach
• Ryan Forehan-Kelly — Associate head coach
• Scott Simpson — Assistant coach
• Milt Palacio — Assistant coach
• Jimmie Oakman — Head video coordinator
• Michael Brooks — Assistant video coordinator.
• Shanice Johnson, Trainer
• Rahsaan Robinson — Strength and conditioning coach
• Kevin Conwell, Equipment Manager