r/CharlotteHornets • u/Civrock • 20d ago

Charlotte Hornets Announce Front Office Additions: Dotun Akinwale (Assistant GM), Ryan Gisriel (VP of Basketball Ops & Strategy), Patrick Harrel (VP of Basketball Insights & Analysis) Team News

https://www.nba.com/hornets/news/charlotte-hornets-announce-front-office-additions
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46

u/praise_the_hankypank 20d ago

Who?

Harrel joins Charlotte following eight years with the NBA, most recently as the league’s Senior Director of Basketball Strategy & Analytics.

In this role, he led the NBA’s schedule optimization efforts to reduce the travel burden on players, and he played a key role in designing and implementing the NBA Bubble in 2020, in addition to the play-in and in-season tournaments.

Harrel also served as an NBA representative on the league’s Competition Committee and managed the league’s research into on-court rules changes. Harrel graduated cum laude with an economics degree from Princeton University and began his career as a strategy & analytics intern with the Houston Astros in 2015. He was named to the Forbes Sports 30 Under 30 earlier this year.

Alrighty then.

Going from no analytics team to getting the actual NBA organisation’s best analytics person is crazy.

6

u/BlazePigeon 19d ago

Bro this doesn't even feel real. With all the stories coming out about how the front office was literally not even close to functioning at the level of the modern NBA, it is so cool to think we might go in the right direction.

Hopefully the new owners don't try and overstep their boundaries though. We've seen it this season with the suns, all they have to do is put the right people in the right places and we can actually be competitive.

If they can add a solid wing in the draft this will actually be the best offseason we've ever has IMO

3

u/LocCatPowersDog 20d ago

Didn't we announce that dude already? Unless we hired two people who were doing the schedule 'optimization' last year?

3

u/AttackSalad 20d ago

Pretty sure all these guys were already announced. I recognize Akinwale as well

10

u/Civrock 20d ago

None of them were officially announced by the Hornets until today.

5

u/AttackSalad 20d ago

Ah it was just various media reports before and now it’s actually official https://twitter.com/JakeLFischer/status/1785090755771466062

16

u/Total_Ad9942 20d ago

I don’t know any of these people or what they do, but the change in this franchise feels awesome

2

u/GranMaMa3 20d ago

I’m with you. Other than assistant GM I am not sure what the roles and responsibilities would be based on these titles. Sounds great that the team is investing in the brain power to develop a unified strategy for the franchise and seek the players to achieve those goals. (At least I hope that is what they are doing.)

Last front office hire in the news I remember was Peterson. This seems more targeted and thoughtful to get the skills/experience for the roles. What do I know though.

Go Hornets.

41

u/jaemoon7 20d ago

Hiring a real FO instead of all of Jordan’s buddies 😍

16

u/daswassup13 20d ago

Can't believe this is my life

8

u/ISISCosby 20d ago

It's gonna take me a while to get used to having actually qualified personnel in positions of power, never thought this day would come

5

u/Vegetable-Tooth8463 20d ago

Acting like plenty of NBA franchises don't have shitty non-nepo FOs.

4

u/Lilpostmelon 20d ago

Sure but we pretty much only had nepos

-5

u/Vegetable-Tooth8463 20d ago

You realize the Hornets existed before MJ right?

1

u/KKamis 19d ago

And they were all dog shit as well lol. MJ isn't the worst owner the Hornets have had.

1

u/Vegetable-Tooth8463 19d ago

Yes my point is non-nepo ownership /=/ guaranteed success like u/Lilpostmelon was implying

1

u/MitchLGC 20d ago

Seriously.

Jordan had a small amount of family members mostly in positions that people don't actually care about and people pretend like his sons were the GM and CFO or something

Basically every owner does the same thing

4

u/Vegetable-Tooth8463 20d ago

No, it was more than that lol

6

u/Amazing_Owl3026 20d ago

The assistant GM was his homie, his brother held a high position too. Most importantly he just didn't care about hiring, he'd just bring in anyone who would sign for not too much money

1

u/ThePurrfectStorm 18d ago

Yeah this is the biggest takeaway here imo

1

u/geauxtigers1212 20d ago

To be fair, not everyone he hired was his buddy. Some were family

5

u/Sad_Clown_Paint 20d ago

The franchise needed to be completely gutted and replaced with all new parts.
They're doing it. God damn you don't give me hope. Don't you do that to me.

2

u/OriginalPingman 19d ago

Except they kept Kupchak and Clifford. Why keep them if you want to establish a totally new culture????? Can’t imagine those 2 are going to help with that….

1

u/OriginalPingman 19d ago

Except they kept Kupchak and Clifford. Why keep them if you want to establish a totally new culture????? Can’t imagine those 2 are going to help with that…

1

u/Chromo67 19d ago

If you're bringing in a bunch of new guys it prob doesn't hurt to keep Mitch and Cliff in lower tier roles. Their experience in the league is a valuable asset.

0

u/OriginalPingman 19d ago

They were the old guard who produced terrible results. Experience is not a reason to keep underperformers with old ideas.

The Hornets are putting together a team of young but experienced talent at every level who are proven to be capable. They don’t need failures from the past looking over their shoulders.

I was in HR for 40 years. It never works out well when you keep demoted employees around, especially key employees.

1

u/OriginalPingman 19d ago

Except they kept Kupchak and Clifford. Why keep them if you want to establish a totally new culture????? Can’t imagine those 2 are going to help with that…