Grizzlies young owner has new approach on running team

Steve Kyler, USA TODAY Sports | USATODAY

When 34-year-old Ubiquiti Networks founder Robert Pera led a group of 17 to buy the Memphis Grizzlies, he became the youngest NBA owner, and brought with him a new approach to running an NBA team.

During his introductory press conference Pera announced that Jason Levien, a long-time sports agent and former Sacramento Kings executive, would run the team as CEO and managing partner. With more than three months on the job, Levien has begun to transform the Grizzlies with some unexpected additions to his front office staff, tapping long-time business associate Stu Lash to oversee player personnel and long-time sports reporter and advanced analytics guru John Hollinger, formerly from ESPN, as his vice president of basketball operations.

"Both guys needed to be recruited a little bit," Levien told USA Today Sports. "I put my agent hat on, but I think both guys were excited."

Hiring Lash seemed almost inevitable, as he and Levien have a long history together. However, hiring Hollinger away from ESPN was something of a surprise.

"I always read his stuff so I sort of knew him from reading his stuff and saying, 'This guy is smart and he writes really well,'" Levien said. "We spent time at the Sloan Conference together (an annual sports analytics conference held by MIT in Boston), and I liked him even more.

"I leaned on John when I was an agent a few times to give me advice on how I can use analytics in promoting my clients through negotiation and even in the draft. I understood what he was looking at and what he saw and how that equated to what I was looking at and what I saw. And I said, 'This guy really gets it, he's really sharp.'"

The decision to leave a successful career at ESPN wasn't an easy choice for Hollinger, whose name and stat work still appear all over ESPN's NBA website.

"I felt it was place I could come in where my voice could be heard and I could make an impact," Hollinger said. "I've known Jason Levien for a long time and being able to come here and work with him and Robert Pera was just a perfect opportunity for me."

Hollinger admitted that several NBA teams had approached him over the years to fill an ever increasing need for advanced statistical input, but Memphis was the first that offered a real voice in the process. He is the team's vice president of basketball operations and shares an office next Levien.

"He is a humble guy who is easy to work with," Levien said. "I know bringing people in, John is a guy who personality wise would fit in well and even though he is the smartest guy in the room most of the time, he doesn't let people know that and he gives people a lot of respect. I thought his personality would always be great for an NBA front office, because you always want to get smart people but you want people who would work well with others."

Hollinger's ascension from NBA writer into management isn't unheard of; current Minnesota Timberwolves President David Kahn was a writer for the Oregonian, so it has been done before.

Stu Lash's transition from sports agent to executive isn't all that rare these days either. Phoenix Suns' President Lon Babby was a sports agent, as was current Golden State Warriors' General Manager Bob Meyer.

Both joined the Grizzlies in December and work daily with incumbent long-time General Manager Chris Wallace.

The new guys

Selling a vision for sports as outsiders in Memphis is no easy task and that's not lost on the new front office guys.

"I spent a lot of time here with my best friend from law school who ran for congress (Harold Ford, Jr.)," Levien said. "I came down to Memphis in 1996 when he was running and I really thought it was a unique city… I got to know a lot of people and enjoyed them, so that stuck in my head.

"When I was in the agent business and one of our clients was Shane Battier, I came down here several times when Shane was playing here. So I saw the city and saw how much of an impact having an NBA team, the Memphis Grizzlies, here had on the community; it was remarkable.

"When we were looking at opportunities, Robert and I, to purchase a NBA team with him as the lead owner, I brought that up to him. And I said, 'You know, this is a really unique community, and a special place,' so on a personal level I felt all that.

"On a business level, the new collective bargaining agreement really changed things for a team like Memphis because there was an opportunity with revenue sharing to run more of a viable business. I felt that there was a lot of upside here in terms of tapping more into the community, into the business community leadership and so a big part of our investment thesis was getting those people to be stakeholders in the team and we did that."

The buzz-word among the Memphis front office is sustainability. They don't want to be a team that is in the playoffs for a year or two and fall out the next. That's the puzzle the Grizzlies are trying to solve.

"(Sustainability) is the dynamic we face and that's the dynamic a lot of teams face," Lash said. "I think if you look at a team like Utah and certainly San Antonio, that's the ideal scenario. I think Utah is a better example of going from the (John) Stockton and (Karl) Malone era to the (Carlos) Boozer and Deron Williams era to this new era and really haven't missed a beat. Now, they are a championship caliber organization that has yet to win a championship, but in terms of sustaining consistency, I think that's what you have to look at and that has to be done in a responsible, financial, economic structure within the impact of the new collective bargaining agreement."

Sellers become buyers

Lash and Levien worked together as player agents for several years. They both represented Oklahoma City Thunder guard Kevin Martin, Miami Heat forward Udonis Haslem and Chicago Bulls forward Luol Deng before Levien left the agent business to join the Kings.

Lash represented the likes of Boston Celtics guard Courtney Lee this summer and negotiated a huge contract for Milwaukee Bucks forward Drew Gooden.

Both now find themselves as buyers in the talent world, not sellers.

"It was Stu (Lash) who I was on just this summer with Courtney Lee," Wallace joked. "We were calling and pushing him, we just couldn't work it out. It shows you the world we live in. I never thought it would come at the other end of the phone line to this end of the phone line in such a short period of time."

Lash credits his recent interactions with Wallace as an agent as a key benefit to his new role in Memphis.

"I dealt with Chris some on the agent side," Lash said. "He's a very good communicator; he's very open-minded on some ideas. He's allowed us to come in and have the presence that we want, but at the same time, he has a lot of experience and he's been with a lot of organizations at a lot of levels."

Levien, who is a few more years removed from pushing players, says the lessons learned on the agent side have been invaluable on the ownership side.

"The analogy that I would draw is to a prosecuting attorney who then becomes a defense attorney," Levien said. "Maybe it's because I am a lawyer. A lot of friends of mine were prosecutors, and then they started defending guys who were charged with crimes. I see the same thing when I am on the phone. You have to remember that you are now in the role of the buyer and not the seller, but I think that it gives me a lot of perspective in making decisions or helping to make decisions with our management team."

A group effort

Most NBA teams have a group process in making key decisions. While general managers usually get the credit or the blame for transactions, most decisions are made collectively.

"The staffs in an NBA front office are not that large in terms of volume when you think of some of the other sports," Wallace said. "It's much more stream-lined in the NBA. So no matter what your title is, whether you're the cap guy or the personnel director, you're all jumping in and doing pretty much the same thing. You need to do what basically needs to be done at that particular time."

The Grizzlies recently pulled off their first major transaction of the season sending out forward Marreese Speights and guards Wayne Ellington and Josh Selby to the Cleveland Cavaliers in exchange for big man Jon Leuer; a deal that everyone had a hand in crafting.

When the Grizzlies traded three players for one, they found themselves one player under the NBA's required 12-player minimum. To make sure their trade would go through the league office, the Grizzlies had to sign a player.

Wallace and Hollinger had just attended the annual Development League Showcase in Reno, where 6-6 shooting guard Chris Johnson had played for the Rio Grande Vipers. Wallace had his eye on Johnson for most of the season and offered Johnson as an option. Hollinger ran the stats on Johnson and gave his approval, while Lash reached out in the coaching world to understand who Johnson had played for and whether he would fit the coaching philosophies in Memphis. Together the three made their recommendation to Levien and Johnson was signed to a 10-day contract and has played well in his stint with the Grizzlies.

"If you look at the dynamic of our group, with Jason making the final decision," Lash says, "Chris brings a tremendous amount of experience and he's been here, he's done a great job with the foundation and the core of what this team is. John and myself, having different backgrounds and the transition early on was not very difficult. Chris was very open on how he got to this point with this team and it's been good."

It's this kind of synergy of information that Levien envisioned when he brought together his front office.

"We definitely have a plan and vision for what the future here looks like," Hollinger said. "I'm sure you want me to share all of it, but unfortunately I can't really disclose."

Kind of odd to hear that coming from a sports writer, but that's how things are going to be done in Memphis' new front office.

Steve Kyler writes for HoopsWorld