Report: Nets nearly hired Bryan Colangelo as GM over Sean Marks

Brooklyn Nets general manager Sean Marks has done admirably in his attempts to lift the team out of their abyss, but now we’re learning that he almost didn’t even get the job in the first place.

ESPN’s Zach Lowe reported on Thursday that the Nets were originally leaning towards Bryan Colangelo as their new GM after the 2016 ousting of Billy King before ultimately changing course and hiring Marks upon getting more intel.

Per Lowe:

As the league descended upon Toronto for All-Star Weekend in February 2016, the Nets were leaning toward hiring Bryan Colangelo over Marks, according to sources familiar with the process.

During All-Star Saturday night, [Nets chairman Dmitry] Razumov and Spurs general manager R.C. Buford, then Marks’ boss, had a long talk in the chairman’s suite inside the Air Canada Centre, according to several sources. Buford’s message was clear: The Spurs might not grant their assistant GM permission to take the job unless he would get to do it his way. Several other executives, including Bob Myers, the Warriors’ GM, also praised Marks in chats with Razumov that weekend, sources say.

Less than a week later, Marks had the job — and a mandate.

Colangelo, who had indeed been linked to Brooklyn at the time, went on to get the Philadelphia 76ers’ GM job instead and is now tasked with modernizing The Process. Meanwhile, Marks has turned the worst situation in the league into somewhat of a state of respectability by swinging moves for previously lacking young assets like D’Angelo Russell, Caris Levert, and Allen Crabbe.

The Nets themselves now sound quite optimistic about their future, and it’s hard to imagine that things would have gone quite this well for them had Colangelo in fact been chosen instead of Marks.