The Nets hired Kiki Vandeweghe as their special assistant to Rod Thorn earlier today, a move the Bergen Record’s Dave D’Allesandro hails as “a good choice for a number of reasons”.
For starters, if this is Rod Thorn’s successor someday – and most people in the organization would be very surprised if Rod makes it to Brooklyn – he has experience in demo jobs, which this team may need two years hence. He can judge young talent, and he can salary dump with the best of them.
And if that’s what it takes, he can do it dispassionately, because he doesn’t have any emotional ties to this current group.
The only question is whether Thorn can give him enough responsibility to make him indispensible to Bruce Ratner, who may delegate the task of picking the next basketball operations major domo to Brett Yormark.
The thing is, Yormark might feel the need to hire a bigger name, even though names don’t come much bigger than Ernest Maurice Vandeweghe III.
For now, look at the bright side: The team can always get its news out instantaneously with one call to ESPN, where Kiki made the announcement of his new job today hours before the Nets could do it.
Regrets? He had a few when he ran the Nuggets.
Judging by our calculations, he and Jim Paxson were the only GMs in 2003 to pass up both Dwyane Wade and Amare Stoudemire, which is a pretty grim double-flub.
In a totally unrelated situation across the river —- where there’s no need whatsoever for a new General Manager-type — Knicks President Isiah Thomas has carefully reviewed the recent performance of Head Coach Isiah Thomas and has concluded (surprise!) there’s no need for a change at this time.
I can’t deny that Zeke has a way of making developing young talent look good. Joakim Noah yesterday, for instance.