Associated Press
SEATTLE – The Seattle SuperSonics have hired Rick Sund as general manager, the team announced today.
Sund, a 20-year NBA veteran, most recently spent six years in the Detroit Pistons’ front office.
“Rick has tremendous NBA experience and is widely respected throughout the league,” Wally Walker, Sonics president and CEO, said in a news release.
“His personnel and administrative experience make him a perfect fit for this position.”
The post was created when Walker became CEO, after the team came under new management earlier this year.
“I’m very excited to join an extremely talented management team in (club owner and Starbucks Chairman) Howard Schultz, Wally Walker and (head coach) Nate McMillan,” Sund said in the release.
“The energy and enthusiasm of the new ownership group makes this an opportunity I could not pass up.”
It won’t be Sund’s first stint in Seattle. He was a consultant to the Sonics and Walker during the 1994-95 season, managing the Sonics’ college scouting program and helping Walker with personnel decisions.
In Detroit, he was executive vice president of basketball operations, helping Joe Dumars, the club’s president of basketball operations, with roster and player development, trades, contract negotiations, player drafts, free-agency acquisition and other team operations.
The Pistons made the playoffs his first two seasons there.
Earlier today, the Sonics announced that University of Missouri-Kansas City head coach Dean Demopoulos was hired as Seattle’s assistant coach. Demopoulos coached one season at UMKC, finishing 14-16, after spending 17 years at Temple.
Fourteen of Demopoulos’ former players went on to play in the NBA, including current players Eddie Jones, Aaron McKie and Marc Jackson.
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