Atlanta Hawks announce assistant coaches and front office additions
InsideHoops.com NewsWire | June 24, 2008
Atlanta Hawks General Manager Rick Sund announced
today that the team has signed assistant coaches Larry Drew and Bob
Bender to new contracts to continue on Mike Woodson's staff, and in
addition, he has named league veterans David Pendergraft and Steve
Rosenberry to the Hawks' Basketball Operations staff.
Pendergraft becomes Atlanta's new Assistant General Manager/Director of Player
Personnel, while Rosenberry will serve as Director of Pro
Personnel/College Scouting.
Drew and Bender, each of whom concluded their fourth seasons on the
Hawks staff, will return as assistants to Woodson as the franchise seeks
to improve upon a first-round playoff berth which culminated with a
seventh game defeat at the hands of the eventual NBA champion Boston
Celtics.
Drew, who has over 25 years of NBA experience as a player or assistant
coach, has spent the last 16 years on the sidelines since retiring from
the game after the 1990-91 season. Prior to coming to the Hawks, Drew
was an assistant with the New Jersey Nets and also coached on the staffs
of the Los Angeles Lakers, Detroit Pistons and Washington Wizards.
Having worked six seasons in the NBA as an assistant (also with the
Philadelphia 76ers), Bender also coached for 13 years on the collegiate
level as a head coach at Illinois State and the University of
Washington.
Pendergraft, a former member of the Seattle Sonics basketball operations
staff, served as a consultant last season for the Milwaukee Bucks and
the Park Lane basketball club in Dongguan, China. In Seattle, he was an
eight-year member of the Sonics scouting staff, before becoming the
team's Director of Player Personnel in his third season. Pendergraft
concluded his final three years as Seattle's Director of Basketball
Operations, overseeing the scouting and assessment of potential Sonics
players and assisted then-GM Sund with player personnel decisions.
He also served as a coach in 1999 and 2000 for the Canadian Olympic
Basketball Team that competed in Sydney, Australia, and worked as the
New Jersey Nets' Director of Player Personnel for three years beginning
in the 1996-97 season. Prior to that, Pendergraft spent the previous
two years as a scout for the then-expansion Vancouver Grizzlies.
Before joining the Grizzlies, he was an assistant coach and recruiting
coordinator at Texas Christian University. He spent nine years
performing similar duties with the University of North Carolina at
Charlotte from 1985 through 1994. From 1979 to 1985, Pendergraft was an
assistant coach at East Carolina University.
Rosenberry's background includes two different stints with the Sonics,
most recently as the team's Director of Scouting before spending last
season as a consultant with the Milwaukee Bucks. Following the
reorganization of the Bucks' staff, he spent the past few months working
out potential NBA draft picks in Philadelphia.
A longtime NBA scouting veteran, Rosenberry started with Seattle in
1985-86 and was there for six seasons before joining Dave Twardzik's
staff in a similar capacity in Charlotte. Following three years with
the Hornets he rejoined the Sonics and then-GM Wally Walker and later,
Sund, and worked for 13 seasons on his second time around - the last
four as the team's Director of College Scouting.
The Guilford College graduate (1978, history) was a three-year guard for
the NAIA school, and following his collegiate days, Rosenberry played in
the Continental Basketball Association (CBA) for the Lancaster Red
Roses' for two seasons (1978-80). After two seasons in Europe with the
McGregor Power All-Stars he returned to the states to embark on a career
in basketball management.
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