From boardroom to the bedroom
Kiwi running Brooklyn Nets NBA franchise from home
New York, the city that never sleeps, is deep in the REM cycle — though not by choice. It’s a state that’s struggling, and it’s eerie.
“It’s been a trying time. But you hope you see the best in humanity,” Brooklyn Nets general manager Sean Marks tells the Herald on Sunday.
The Kiwi, like most Americans, is stuck at home. His days are filled with more phone calls than usual.
“I’ve commandeered the master bedroom and I roam around the house on all sorts of calls. But when you’ve got four rambunctious boys who are all home-schooling and needing to burn off some energy, it does make it a bit of a tough task to find somewhere quiet.”
That means Marks the GM sometimes has to become Marks the referee or mediator.
“We have the basement downstairs where the boys have their oneon-one or two-ontwo matches, so they’re getting after it and burning off some steam. It often ends in a sore loser or some tears, but that’s to be expected.”
In between wiping cheeks, Marks still has an NBA franchise to run.
“It’s been weird. I probably haven’t spent six weeks at home in over 20 years. But the priority has always been get your own health and your family’s health sorted. Work can wait. This pandemic transcends this silly game of basketball.”
The new parameters of his role are almost unrecognisable.
“I’m the first to admit I don’t know what I’m doing during this time. There isn’t a rulebook, and I’m sure I’ve screwed up plenty of times. It’s far more than ‘if you need me, I’m here’. We’re looking over 200 staff and players who are quarantined. That means delivering food to these guys or attending to personal needs. It’s also about what are we doing for the community.”
Marks, who speaks to other league GMs most days, faces two further big tasks. The NBA draft is scheduled for late June, and he doesn’t have a head coach. The Nets and Kenny Atkinson agreed to part ways last month and his replacement still hasn’t been named, with Jacque Vaughn, Atkinson’s assistant, serving as interim coach.
“Everything is on the backburner with that. It’s not a priority for us right now. We’re going to give our current coaching staff 100 per cent support, and navigate how or if the season unfolds.
“This would have been the case regardless of the current situation. This pandemic’s put a hindrance on a lot of the way we conduct business. But it’s enabled us to think and debrief and wonder if we were doing it right in the first place.”
So for Marks, it’s back to the phone calls, the master bedroom and helping his wife run their four-pupil school. “Jennifer’s taken on a whole new role. She’s acting principal, so I just help as much as I can, but more often than not, I just get in the way. I can take on being gym teacher, though. That’s a pretty fair role for me.”