The master of the turnaround: Rod Thorn took over a Nets team that was simply shooting for .500—two seasons later, he has New Jersey thinking about a title - Interview: Rod Thorn - Interview

Basketball Digest, Dec, 2002 by Brett Ballantini

YOU'D THINK THAT THE GUY responsible for the Chicago Bulls drafting Michael Jordan would find success wherever he went. But with the New Jersey Nets? That's really pushing it

Yet in two years, Rod Thorn has turned around the fortunes of a franchise that's been cursed ever since it traded its red, white, and blue ball for a brown one 26 years ago. From the coaching staff to players, Thorn has completely and quickly remade the Nets, reversing their fortunes from castaways and cellar-dwellers to Eastern Conference champs in 2001-02.

He's been a college star at West Virginia, a high NBA draft choice who played eight NBA seasons, the GM who drafted the greatest player of all time, and a top executive at NBA HQ for a decade and a half. But as Thorn approaches his 40th year in pro basketball, his greatest triumph appears still to be ahead of him: bringing an NBA title to an also-ran of a league outpost, New Jersey.

BASKETBALL DIGEST: Does someone best known as the guy who drafted Michael Jordan have no fear walking into any GM job? [Thorn laughs] What made New Jersey right for you?

ROD THORN: When I was working for the NBA, I had several opportunities to come back to teams in a president/GM type of position. I never did it, because I was very happy at the NBA. I had some good relationships and felt that I probably would work there until they got tired of me.

The New Jersey opportunity came along a couple years ago. I felt it was that time in my career that if I was ever going to do it, it was time. The Nets had some good building blocks, and I didn't have to move. So there were a lot of factors that came together in my mind that precipitated my accepting the challenge.

BD: The first of five major steps you took in shaping this New Jersey team came on June 27, 2000. Hiring Byron Scott, who had no head-coaching experience, took guts, didn't it?

RT: Well, I've been around a long time, and I've been a GM with several coaches, and I was looking for someone who knew basketball, who could get the best out of players as someone the players would respect, and someone I could have a good working relationship with.

I interviewed several people, and with Byron the only negative was that he had not been a head coach on any level. We were a team that was trying to build, so why not have a coach who you have a lot of confidence will become very good in the NBA? Why not build with him?

BD: The next day, you drafted Kenyon Martin No. 1 overall. He was a foregone top pick, but with his injuries, were you worried you might spend a No. 1 pick on a second-round career?

RT: At the time, I was really going back and forth as to whether to draft Kenyon, and you hit the pertinent point. Virtually everyone would have drafted him had he not had the injury. But in my mind, I'm coming into a new job, and here's a player who has suffered what could be a terrible injury, We finally decided to take him because the feeling was, after consulting with our doctors, he would recover.

When you looked at Kenyon as a college player, he was a tough, competitive guy, and we were a little bit of a soft team at the time. Getting a personality like Kenyon, a guy with his athletic ability, would be a good building block for us.

BD: On June 27, 2001, you dealt your No. 7 pick, Eddie Griffin, to the Houston Rockets for Richard Jefferson, Jason Collins, and Brandon Armstrong. Didn't you say later you would have traded Griffin straight-up for Jefferson?

RT: After a couple months [into 2000-01], it wasn't hard to figure out what we needed. You have to have a base of good players. Not necessarily great ones, but you've got to have good players as a base of your team. You've got to have depth; players who can play. We didn't feel strong at No. 7 about any one player, where we felt we had to have him.

We didn't [yet] have Todd MacCulloch, so we needed help at center. We felt we could get a center who could play, we felt strongly we could get a small forward with some potential at No. 13, and we didn't know if Kerry Kettles was going to play or not, so we needed a 2-guard. Lucious Harris was the only 2-guard we had and he's an excellent player, but in case Kittles couldn't play, we felt we needed a 2-guard. We had a chance to get quality players at three positions instead of just one.

BD: Is there a risk sending a local star like Griffin, at one time rumored to go No. 1 overall, for a package ... any package?

RT: Yes. There was a definite risk there. Griffin's going to be an outstanding player in the NBA, there's no doubt about it. He had an excellent rookie season once he got a chance to play. But it's a deal that obviously helped us. Richard and Jason became key players for us. So it worked out well for us and for Houston. They had different needs than we had. If you ask them, they're happy, and we're certainly happy. That's the way trades should be.

BD: You pulled another 1-2 punch when you traded Stephon Marbury for Jason Kidd the next day. Was this trade easy in the sense that Stephon had worn out his welcome in New Jersey, or was Jason too hard to pass on at any cost?