The Thunder announced seven internal promotions Tuesday for members of its front office. Most notably, Will Dawkins and Rob Hennigan will share the title of vice president of basketball operations. Troy Weaver, who spent the last three seasons in that role, and was with the Thunder for 12 total seasons, was hired by the Detroit Pistons in June as their new general manager.
G League Rumors
The Knicks will begin their team workouts on Wednesday. Per NBA rules, the workouts can run through Oct. 6. All teams who did not get an invite to the Orlando bubble are allowed to have voluntary team workouts in a bubble setting. The NBA will allow non-roster players from teams’ G League affiliates to participate. So you should expect some non-roster players from the Knicks’ G League club – the Westchester Knicks – to participate in the workouts.
Adam Zagoria: Can confirm via sources @Shams Charania report that the NBA G League Select team featuring @JalenGreen and @jonathankuming6 may play in a bubble later this year against other teams. More info to come. “It’s super fluid,” source says of plans pic.twitter.com/wD9cLgsxzM
To guard against risk, the Warriors are limiting the group of employees allowed inside the bubble — the “Dubble,” according to some staffers — to 50 people. That includes coaches, players and trainers. In addition to most of the 2019-20 roster, five players from the G League affiliate in Santa Cruz — Roger Moute-a-Bidias, Zach Norvell, Jeremy Pargo, Jonathan Simmons and Ryan Taylor — are expected to attend.
Hornets Sports & Entertainment today announced that the Fieldhouse at the Greensboro Coliseum Complex, the home of the Greensboro Swarm, will serve as an early voting site for Guilford County residents for the upcoming 2020 elections as part of the organization’s “Swarm The Polls” campaign. The organization previously announced that Spectrum Center, the home of the Hornets, will host early voting in Mecklenburg County.
Walnut Creek, an East Bay town of roughly 70,000 perched at the junction of two major highways, certainly doesn’t look as if it would have any real significance to basketball’s elite. But in addition to being the hometown of recent No. 1 WNBA draft pick Sabrina Ionescu and a popular workout destination of two-time NBA MVP Stephen Curry, it is now the training hub of NBA G League Ignite — a team loaded with lottery hopefuls created in April as an alternative to college basketball. Over the past two weeks, players have trained individually at the Ultimate Fieldhouse, a 40,000-square-foot facility that boasts four courts and plenty of office space.
But when Ultimate Fieldhouse CEO Mike Samuels learned this past spring that the G League was looking for a facility for its select team, he knew that he’d need more than a recommendation from Curry to land the contract. His pitch to Abdur-Rahim highlighted the shooting technology that can only be found at eight gyms world-wide, the partnership with COPA Soccer Training Center and Walnut Creek’s tight-knit community. To make sure Ignite’s six players would have the best housing possible, Samuels partnered with the city’s chamber of commerce to identify high-quality homes within a few miles of the Ultimate Fieldhouse.
Omari Sanfoka II: The Pistons’ announced group workout roster so far: Luke Kennard, Sekou Doumbouya, Bruce Brown, Svi Mykhailiuk, Tony Snell, Thon Maker, Khyri Thomas, Jordan Bone, Louis King, Justin Patton. Plus five unnamed G League players.
