Gregg Popovich has glowing remarks for Sean Marks

Gregg Popovich has glowing remarks for Sean Marks
Sean Marks (left) with Tony Parker in 2014. Marks has been offered the Nets GM job. (AP)
Sean Marks (left) with Tony Parker in 2014. Marks has been offered the Nets GM job. (AP)

The Nets have reportedly offered their vacant general manager position to San Antonio Spurs assistant general manager Sean Marks. Update: Marks took the job on February 18.

Publicly available interviews of Marks in his post-playing career are few and far between. One short YouTube clip of Marks at a D-League tryout shows him promoting the Spurs’ “culture”: selfless, team-style basketball, with the #1 priority being the player’s skillset.

As a general manager of the Toros, he obviously values having a one-to-one affiliation with a D-League team, which the Nets will have next year. Another shows him talking about his work as a D-League general manager, mostly about the specific Toros situation.

One person has spoken publicly about Marks: Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich, the NBA’s longest-tenured coach and five-time NBA champion with the Spurs. Popovich first worked with Marks from 2003 to 2006, when Marks was a member of the Spurs as a player, and Marks also joined his coaching staff as one of his many jobs in the Spurs organization after his playing career.

From Paul Coro of the AZ Central:

“It was a like a year sabbatical on the coaching side, really,” Popovich said. “Now, he’s back on the management side with R.C. (Buford),where he’s going to be. It was a great experience for him to be able to do that. It’s going to really help him when he gets his job.”

From Tom Orsborn of the San Antonio Express-News:

“He’s going to be a star … He really has a great feel for talent and has a great personality, really commands respect and gets along with people. He is going to have a bright future. We’ll have to kick him out of the door here pretty soon.”

Marks has equal regard for Popovich, as he noted in 2013 in an interview with New Zealand’s Sunday Star Times, right at the beginning of his short tenure as an assistant coach under Popovich:

“In my playing days here Pop helped shape me into the person I am and I think he does that with all of us. His outlook on life and his perspective is very unique, especially for this industry.”

One last video: among his five favorite things? Kids. Nobody tell him about the Nets’ draft pick situation.