Finals Buzz: Warriors GM Myers on Arn Tellem's jump from agent to exec
The biggest agent of them all, Arn Tellem, has made the jump to the team executive side, and Warriors GM Bob Myers knows the road all too well.
By
Ken Berger
•
6 min read
OAKLAND, Calif. -- Golden State Warriors general manager Bob Myers wasn't the first high-profile agent to make the jump from representing players to making executive decisions for an NBA team, and as it turned out, he wasn't the last.
But this, he didn't see coming.
His former boss, Arn Tellem, made substantial news Friday when he announced that he's leaving Wasserman Management Group to become vice chairman of Palace Sports & Entertainment, which owns the Detroit Pistons. When one of the most powerful and successful sports agents of our time makes that kind of jump, it has ripple effects throughout the industry.
"He climbed to rare air as an agent, so I don't know what more he could've done in that profession," Myers told CBSSports.com. "And he reached a point in his life where he wanted a new challenge."
Myers reached that point in 2011, when he decided to leave Wasserman -- where he worked for Tellem -- to become the Warriors' assistant GM. He quickly rose to GM and this season was voted executive of the year by his peers.
"For me, it was growing up here, getting a chance to meet Joe Lacob and Peter Guber and realizing how exciting it would be to work for those guys," Myers said. "Seeing an opportunity to work for an organization that I grew up a fan of and seeing the potential, wanting to be a part of that and wanting to get that going in the right direction. So that sealed the deal for me."
Tellem represented more than 500 clients in baseball and basketball over a 34-year career. His first NBA client was Reggie Miller in 1987, and his agency currently represents stars such as Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook, Pau and Marc Gasol and LaMarcus Aldridge. According to HoopsHype.com, Wasserman is the king of NBA representation, with 42 clients totaling $325 million in guaranteed salaries.
In an essay for Sports Illustrated explaining the move, Tellem, 61, said, "I realized that now was the time to pass the baton to the next generation of agents. ... I'm elated. I'm pumped. And quite frankly, I'm terrified. But if not now, when?"
Thad Foucher, Greg Lawrence, B.J. Armstrong and others will continue to serve Wasserman's NBA clients, and Casey Wasserman will continue to head up the organization.
Nobody, however, will replace Tellem, per se.
"I don't know that you can fill his shoes," Myers said. "I know Casey's a great leader and they've got a great company over there. I don't know exactly what their strategy is, but I'm sure they'll be fine. He's unique, so I don't know anybody who replaces him in that capacity, but they've got a good infrastructure and they'll figure it out. They were fine without me."
Tellem will be in an executive position above the basketball operations, which will continue to be run by coach and president Stan Van Gundy and GM Jeff Bower. Included in Tellem's role will be league-level initiatives as the team's alternate governor, as well as business strategy and community initiatives.
He follows in the path taken from the agent business to the executive side by the likes of Lon Babby (Phoenix Suns), Jason Levien (formerly with the Kings, Sixers and Grizzlies) and Justin Zanik (assistant GM of the Jazz).
"Certainly, learning the art of negotiating is beneficial and then maybe understanding the perspective of players and agents a little bit better by having done that," Myers said. "But there's so much about this side that I didn't know and still try to learn every day. We've never been here before as an organization, at this point in a season. How best to interact with your coach; how best to interact with your owner; how best to interact with Rick Welts, our president; where to spend the most time. How much to scout; how much to focus on trades; how much to focus on free agency. It's never done. You never have a perfect recipe for how to approach the job."
One recipe has been perfected, though: How to make the jump from NBA agent to team executive. And there has never been a bigger one to do it than Tellem.
Silver on NBA injuries: With Kyrie Irving being the latest NBA star lost to a significant injury, commissioner Adam Silver told USA Today that perhaps the workload on players is too great.
"It's always been part of the game -- injuries happen, and they happen to high-profile players, they happen to guys who aren't so high profile," Silver said Friday. "Whether there's better training practices, whether through better analytics we can get a sense of what precise movements lead to injuries, whether it's a function of the schedule are all things that we're [looking at].
"Things we can do is take the league resources by bringing together data from all 30 teams and not making it a solitary issue for any team or any given player," Silver said. "And trying to figure out the optimal amount of training players should be doing. I mean frankly, maybe they're working too hard. I mean, talk to a guy like [NBA president of basketball operations] Rod Thorn, who has been with the league 50 years, and he'll tell you that in his day [players] took more time off in the summer. Maybe that's what's necessary. But also, guys used to play more minutes [in games]."
Scheming against LeBron: As LeBron James delightfully pointed out Friday, the Warriors' defensive approach against him was somewhat misconstrued after Game 1. "You don't let me have 40; I go get 40," James said. "It's not like they're just getting out of the way."
The man charged with devising the plan for defending James, Warriors assistant Ron Adams, joined CBS Sports Radio for an interview Saturday night on Eye on Basketball.
"You have to be quite eclectic in your approach, I think," Adams said. "I think our team understands that. LeBron is so intelligent in his play that he adjusts to things -- he's seen everything -- and so we have to do the same in our own way without deviating from the script that we think can win for us. It's never one thing."
And it's never as simple as "letting" LeBron get his.
"I don't think you're going to stop him from scoring points, but 44 is a lot of points," Adams said. "I don't know if there's a magic number. But we kind of look at it like this: We thought we defended him much of the time quite well. He made some tough shots. Other times, we made him miss, I think. But that's one part of it. We'd like to do a better job on him. We know we're going to see a lot of isos from him, but we also want to take away some of the other things they do well."
Adams also addressed his departure in 2013 from Chicago, when he was removed from Tom Thibodeau's staff against the then-Bulls head coach's wishes and joined the Celtics. Thibodeau has since been fired by the Bulls and replaced by former Iowa State coach Fred Hoiberg.
"Tom is a very solid defensive coach," Adams said. "... Tom has a very, very solid view of defense, very thorough, and really understands defensive basketball and really understands offensive basketball, as well. I guess the reason I'm not there anymore is that one particular person in management didn't want me there. So that's about all I'll say about that."
