From PR to GM: Wizards' Sheppard likely to be running a team soon

Today I have posted an article that was written by SI.com writer Ian Thomsen on March 29, 2007.

The article can be found by going to: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/ian_thomsen/03/29/future.gms/index.html

"From PR to GM: Wizards' Sheppard likely to be running a team soon"
Thursday March 29, 2007 7:18PM

In the next year or two Tommy Sheppard will become a role model for all of the college graduates who want to make a career in pro sports but don't know how. A dozen years ago Sheppard was a young nobody with a twanging New Mexico accent who had just been hired as a media relations director by the Denver Nuggets. During his first week he told himself he was going to become a general manager in the NBA.

Now serving as assistant to Wizards president Ernie Grunfeld, Sheppard, 38, is one of the top candidates to fulfill his goal. It will be no surprise if he is running a team by next season.

Sheppard's playing career went no further than as a point guard -- "and not a good one'' -- for St. Pius X High School in Albuquerque. He was a backup free safety at New Mexico State, where he graduated in 1991 and went to work in sports media relations at his alma mater and later at UNLV. Bernie Bickerstaff, who was running the Nuggets, hired Sheppard in 1994 to run their media relations department.

How has a non-player climbed so high in 13 years? The answer is that Sheppard was far more than a press officer in Denver. He was also in charge of player relations, which is a humble title for someone who spent a decade preventing executives, coaches and players from killing one another. It's hard to say that anyone is the best at anything in a business as competitive as the NBA, but trust me on this: No one in the league is more intuitive, understanding or generous than Sheppard.

I am convinced that Kiki Vandeweghe would have kept his job with the Nuggets had he promoted Sheppard to a basketball operations position in 2003-04. It is no coincidence that the relationship between Vandeweghe and owner Stan Kroenke crumbled over the next three years, because Sheppard -- like Jimmy Stewart in It's A Wonderful Life -- wasn't there to fix it, to help each side see things from the other's point of view. After Vandeweghe's departure last summer, league insiders say the Nuggets tried to bring Sheppard back in a quasi-GM role. But instead he signed a three-year extension with Washington as its VP of basketball administration.

"He had a PR background, but he's a good people person and this is a people business,'' says Grunfeld, explaining why he hired Sheppard to work in basketball operations in 2003-04. "He was around the game a long time, he knew lot of people in the game. And he has a good eye, a good feel for the game.''

Grunfeld's "go-to guys,'' as he calls them, are Sheppard and VP of player personnel Milt Newton, who was interviewed to be the Cleveland GM two years ago when the Cavaliers were planning to hire Larry Brown as team president. While Newton's specialty is scouting -- he's a former CBA player who starred for Brown's 1988 NCAA champion at Kansas -- Sheppard hasn't stopped working to develop an eye for talent.

"I'd ask guys like Bernie, 'What are you looking for? What's important? What does this player do well?''' says Sheppard. "And the old scouts, guys like Dick McGuire, Al Menendez, you go to a game and sidle up to them and ask questions.''

How did Sheppard convince himself to pursue a dream that most people would have dismissed as impossible?

"I haven't done the counting lately, but at one time I remember there were 14 GMs who didn't play in the league,'' says Sheppard. "There is no set road that says if you did this, it enables you to work in the NBA. There's more than one way in this business to succeed. The exciting part is there are so many different ways to put things together and be successful. I believe in my heart that this is a people business, and every single player has a story, everybody has something tangible they can offer to help an organization get better.''

Grunfeld is one of the league's most respected basketball executives with a diverse winning record at New York, Milwaukee and now Washington. As a nine-year NBA player he has a rich basketball background, but he has established a model that could also work for Sheppard when he becomes a GM: Grunfeld hires people he trusts, and trusts the people he hires. He filters their evaluations of player talent, and when he decides whom to choose in the draft, free agency or trades, much of his decision is based on chemistry and how a new player will fit with the others on the roster. Those kinds of relationships are Sheppard's specialty.

Jerry Krause -- a non-player -- will go down as one of the winningest GMs in the history of the league with six championship rings in Chicago. Will Sheppard learn to judge pure basketball talent as well as Krause? That remains to be seen. But he will never be the antagonist that Krause was.

Stand in the hallway of any NBA arena with Sheppard for 10 minutes and he will appear to know half of the people who walk by, whether they are famous coaches and players or anonymous equipment managers and video coordinators.

"We were outside the locker rooms the other day and Sam Dalembert [the Haitian 76ers center] walked out and of course he knew Tommy,'' says Wizards P.R. director Zack Bolno. "Eric Hernandez, our Internet guy, said we could walk into the White House and Tommy Sheppard would know everybody's name from the Secret Service.''

He has served as a U.S. Olympic Committee press attaché at the last three Summer Olympics and other events, providing him with an enormous breadth of helpful friendships. He is also well-connected in Europe, where he helped Sarunas Marciulionis form the Northern European Basketball League.

Those who have worked with Sheppard will vouch for his unusual abilities to work with people, to bring out the best in colleagues and resolve problems. Those skills should in turn help him judge the qualities that can serve his team on the court.

"He has a passion and work ethic,'' says Suns coach Mike D'Antoni, who worked with Sheppard while coaching the Nuggets during the 1999 lockout season. "Tommy does things that go beyond the normal stuff, and though he was in media relations he had a big hand -- and knew what was going on -- in the administrative and GM side of things.''

What of the natural criticism that he will lack the expertise to judge basketball talent?

"They always say that if you didn't play. They say how are you going to be able to do it?'' says D'Antoni. "But they can say the same thing about people who did play. There is no science to it. It's all about being around it and doing your homework. A lot of it has to do with surrounding yourself with good people who know how to scout it and work it and have a vision of how to put it together. What you see in successful people is that they come from way, way different backgrounds.''

How many NBA teams turn out to be less than the sum of their parts? They have a lot of talent but don't work well together. When Sheppard is running his own team, he will help fix those problems. He won't eradicate them -- no one can -- but he will help his team reach its potential. If he fulfills his talent for working with people, then everything else -- the acquisition of talent, as well as the relations between front office, coaches and players -- will work more efficiently.