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The Utah Jazz lost another person in their organization today, not to injury, but to the New York Knicks. Walt Perrin, Utah’s VP of Player Personnel, is set to become the Knicks new Assistant General Manager under Leon Rose according to Shams Charania of The Athletic. Leon Rose who was previously a player agent—and more specifically, Mike Conley’s agent—is building quite the treasure trove of organization talent in New York.
Sources: The Knicks are finalizing hiring Jazz VP of Player Personnel Walt Perrin as assistant general manager as they reshuffle front office under Leon Rose. Perrin is a well-respected executive who has worked in Jazz organization for 19 years.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) May 18, 2020
Walt Perrin has been responsible for helping the Jazz scout and identify sleeper talent like Rudy Gobert, Paul Millsap, Royce O’Neale, Wes Matthews and Joe Ingles. He’s also helped the Jazz scout players like Donovan Mitchell and Deron Williams. There are always going to be the ones that got away when it comes to the NBA Draft, but a lot of people in Perrin’s line of work would give up a lot to have the type of success Perrin has had in landing top tier talent outside of the Top 10 in the the NBA Draft and in the second round.
Back in March, Justin Zanik had been interviewing for the VP of Basketball Operations job in Chicago and now it appears others in the Utah Jazz organization have been on opposing NBA team’s shortlists for hiring. Is there something going on behind the scenes that we’re not seeing hastening Utah front office executives to look for greener pastures or is this talent poaching just a byproduct of Utah’s past success?
Good luck to Walt Perrin. He did a great job in Utah and will be missed.