Throughout the course of the season, rumors began to float around that Kupchak would step down as the GM at the end of the season or potentially retire altogether. During a Thursday afternoon press conference, Kupchak revealed his status and future plans. “I will be here for the foreseeable future,” Kupchak said. “I’ve agreed with the Hornets to continue to work for years to come. I think the expression would be a ‘multi-year deal’. I’m thankful to still be working in this league, going to meetings with general managers and the commissioner, and all of these great people at the league office. I’m lucky to be in this position and to continue to do it. For better or worse, I’ll be here for the next couple of years. “As far as I know, it’s the same role,” Kupchak said with a laugh and a wink.
That particular internship was with PRIMETIME Sports & Entertainment – a marketing agency in Los Angeles – and also the first stop in a crisscrossing continental journey that ultimately landed Angeles her current role with the Charlotte Hornets. Today, she is the organization’s Vice President of Partnerships and as a first-generation Mexican-American, believed to be the only Latina Vice President in a partnerships department at an NBA team. “I was into sports from Day 1,” says Angeles. “My dad and grandpa were huge baseball fans. I’m a big Los Angeles Dodgers fan through and through. I was drawn to sports throughout my whole growing up. I’m from Carpinteria, CA, which is maybe an hour and twenty minutes from Los Angeles. It’s an agricultural town with lots of nurseries and avocado orchards. My graduating class was 125 students and we had only three streetlights. I was a small-town athlete. At first, I never played soccer – basketball was my thing. I got to high school, tried out for soccer and ended up falling in love with it.”
It’s just not the kind of winning we associate with the maniacally competitive Michael Jeffrey Jordan. He came across as more cutthroat than we ever knew in those 10 documentary episodes, which traced a career arc that encompassed six championships with the Chicago Bulls. How on earth does he stomach three measly playoff wins in 11-plus seasons in charge? “He is very competitive and understandably impatient,” Kupchak said. “But he gets it.”
The signings of Rozier and Hayward were criticized as overspends in some NBA circles (and by the media), but Kupchak couldn’t care less. He has been working in the NBA for too long, in some of the largest markets and smallest markets, to give a hoot whether somebody is second-guessing him. “It’s kind of hard to shake me up, you know? There might have been some criticism; I didn’t follow it that closely at the time,” Kupchak said. “But you’ve got to weigh everything: the draft, free-agent signings, trades. You really have to wait four or five years to look back on it and that’s when you know really whether you made a mistake or you didn’t make a mistake. So at the time, I didn’t get the feeling that there was this uproar about overpaying somebody. Maybe there was, but it didn’t really don’t bother me.”
That was conveyed to Borrego in the interview process. As Kupchak put it Friday, “When he was hired, the understanding is he is going to coach the players (already) on this team and the players we bring into this team going forward.” Borrego said he was comfortable with that, saying he anticipates most of the improvement between now and training camp in late September will be “internal.” “My vision here,” Borrego said, “is to maximize this roster as it stands.”
Kupchak will keep assistant GM Buzz Peterson in a front office role, and ultimately add own personnel changes to the management and scouting structure, league sources said. Jordan and Kupchak have had a longstanding relationship built around their ties to the University of North Carolina and late coach Dean Smith.
Kupchak worked in the Los Angeles Lakers’ front office from the mid-1980s until he was fired as that team’s general manager in February of 2017. From the little I’ve been around him, and more importantly from the conversations I’ve had with some of his peers, he is liked and respected by agents, players and other general managers. You hear words such as “sensible,” “practical” and “collaborative.”
Polk said the goal is for the Hornets – 24-33 at the All-Star break – to have a new GM by the end of the season, which would be mid-April assuming the franchise does not qualify for the playoffs. Polk said he anticipates four to six candidates receiving interviews. Polk said some attractive candidates might not be available to interview until the franchises they currently work for have completed their seasons.
Chris Mannix: Hornets will not extend Rich Cho, per team. As @The Vertical reported earlier this month, Mitch Kupchak is a favorite among high ranking team officials to take over.
Whitfield has the respect of NBA commissioner Adam Silver and team executives throughout the league, and Jordan is glad to have the NBA’s lone African-American COO as part of his team professionally and personally. “I’ve known him for over 35 years, and we have been through a lot together,” said Jordan, the Hornets’ owner and chairman. “We worked together when he worked with my agent, at Nike when we launched the Jordan Brand and he worked with me in the front office of the Wizards. We know and trust each other well, and that allows us to work cohesively with the same goals. I am thankful to have him as the team president and as my friend.”
Charlotte Hornets General Manager Rich Cho announced today that the team has named Buzz Peterson Assistant General Manager. “Throughout his tenure with our organization, Buzz has been an integral part of all aspects of our basketball operations department, with a focus on scouting and player evaluation,” Cho said. “He brings a wide breadth of basketball knowledge to the position, having been involved in the game at various levels for close to three decades. I’m excited to be working more closely with Buzz in his new role and look forward to his continued contributions to our basketball team.”
“I thought they crossed the line,” Kerr added. “I’m all for booing guys, cheering for your own team. The appropriate cheer — if you want to go down that path — is ‘so-and-so sucks, so-and-so sucks.’ … when they were saying ‘F you Draymond,’ 20,000 people, I thought of Draymond’s kid too.