Tina Thompson, Jonah Herscu headline new Blazers basketball operations hires
Joe Cronin continues to revamp the Blazers' staff with a new assistant coach and a WNBA legend, among others.
Going into his first full season as Trail Blazers general manager, Joe Cronin has continued to revamp the basketball operations staff, announcing 14 new hires across the coaching, scouting, data and athletic training departments on Tuesday morning. You can read the full release here.
There are two hires that jump out immediately. The biggest name, by far, is Tina Thompson, the WNBA legend and Hall of Famer. She will serve as a scout, a departure from her previous role as head coach of the University of Virginia women's basketball program for four seasons. Thompson was fired by UVA in March; this story from The Next is worth reading for insight into why her tenure there ended. It seems she didn't like or wasn't suited for the political side of the coaching game and, at this point in her career, is more interested in a front-office role. Thompson becomes the third former WNBA player in Cronin's front office, joining Asjha Jones (Director of Planning and Strategy) and Sheri Sam (Scouting Manager).
Thompson has a few pre-existing connections with the Blazers. She's a close confidant of Damian Lillard, with a longstanding relationship with the superstar point guard. She's also close friends with Chauncey Billups, and in fact was instrumental (along with fellow Hall of Famer Swin Cash) in recommending Edniesha Curry to Billups when he was looking to fill a spot on his first coaching staff with a woman. Curry was let go earlier this summer for reasons that are still unclear.
On that subject: Curry's spot on Billups' staff will be filled by Jonah Herscu, who spent the last three seasons on Luke Walton's staff in Sacramento after working his way up from the scouting department. Herscu parted ways with the Kings when they hired Mike Brown as head coach this spring and he brought in his own staff. From what I've been able to gather, Herscu was well-liked by Kings players and in particular had a strong relationship with star guard De'Aaron Fox.
The Blazers also made four more coaching hires further down the staff: David Adkins will serve as Director of Player Development after holding similar roles with the Clippers and Wizards; Portland-area native and former Lake Oswego High School and Lewis & Clark College star Jason Luhnow will be an assistant video coordinator; former Wake Forest and University of Buffalo player Inneka Smart, also an assistant video coordinator; and Jacob Mooallem joins in a new role, Analytics Coach. Mooallem previously worked with new assistant general manager Mike Schmitz at DraftExpress.
The other notable takeaway, consistent with what Cronin has prioritized since taking over in December, is the addition of two new international scouts, Swenge Lomani and Nico Mathieu, both French natives. Under previous president of basketball operations Neil Olshey, the Blazers only employed one international scout and largely ignored overseas talent. The hiring of Schmitz in May, as well as the expansion of the international scouting department, would appear to signal a change in that approach. Given that the two players to win the league's last four MVP awards (Nikola Jokic and Giannis Antetokounmpo) are from other parts of the world and were both drafted outside of the lottery, placing more of an emphasis on international scouting makes a lot of sense. There are some international prospects, like Luka Doncic in 2018 and next year's projected No. 1 overall pick Victor Wembanyama, who aren't secrets; enhancing the organization's overseas presence makes it more likely they'll be one of the teams that discovers the next under-the-radar talent like Giannis or Jokic.
Given these investments on the scouting and player-development side, it's logical to wonder whether the next move for the Blazers will be finally getting their own G League team. As it stands now, they're one of two NBA teams (alongside the Phoenix Suns) who don't have their own affiliate. Olshey was strongly opposed to it for years; in a July radio interview on 1080 The Fan, Cronin said this:
"We were actually talking about it just yesterday. It's something that we're definitely interested in. It's just got to make sense for us as far as location, financials, all those different things. It's something we believe in and think is an important part of player development and also staff development. It's something we want to explore further."
It's probably too late for the Blazers to have a G League team start playing this season, but don't be surprised if in the next year or two, it finally happens.
The other hires Cronin announced on Tuesday are: assistant strength coach Dale Boyd, previously with the startup league Overtime Elite; senior data scientist Katherine Overman; software developer Juanita Samborski; assistant athletic trainer Micah Smith; software engineer Trevor Smith; and Manager of Performance Science Taylor Walden.