The Milwaukee Bucks have hired Milt Newton, formerly the general manager of the Minnesota Timberwolves, as their assistant general manager.
In college, Newton played at Kansas alongside former No. 1 overall pick Danny Manning as well as NBA executive Kevin Pritchard. His head coach was Hall of Famer Larry Brown and his assistant coach was two-time NBA Executive of the Year RC Buford.
Newton worked with Flip Saunders when he was the head coach of the Washington Wizards and Timberwolves.
He also has experience as the director of player personnel for the Wizards, where he worked with notable NBA players including John Wall, Jerry Stackhouse, Nick Young, Gilbert Arenas, Kwame Brown and Caron Butler among others.
Shabazz Muhammad, currently a free agent, was on the Timberwolves roster when Milton took over as the general manager in September 2013. He was also instrumental in landing Andrew Wiggins, who also went to Kansas, in a trade for Kevin Love.
After he left the Timberwolves, he worked with Hasheem Thabeet as the big man was attempting an NBA comeback. Here is what Thabeet told Alex Kennedy about Newton in October 2016 (via Basketball Insiders):
“He told me a lot of the things that were said about me [by executives] and I had no idea about them. That helped me grow a lot and I worked on fixing those things through hard work.”
There are several players succeeding overseas that he has ties to including Jan Vesely, Alexey Shved and Andray Blatche.
He also has obvious connections to former Timberwolves coach Sam Mitchell, who is currently the head coach of the U.S. Virgin Islands national basketball team. Newton is also from the Virgin Islands, which is the home of two-time NBA MVP Tim Duncan.
