National Basketball Association

How Mike Tannenbaum's detour from an NFL front office influenced the NBA Finals

Published Jun. 3, 2015 9:53 a.m. ET

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Ross Jones

Two first-year head coaches meet in Thursday night's Game 1 of The NBA Finals, and they have a unique connection.

Shortly after Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr landed that job last May, he was in search of a top-flight assistant.

David Blatt, a veteran coach who led Maccabi Tel Aviv to the 2014 Euroleague championship, found himself on the West Coast days after his father's funeral. During a layover, a meeting between Kerr and Blatt consisted of sharing backgrounds, basketball ideals and ties involving a common friend.

The meeting -- arranged by their then-agent Mike Tannenbaum -- sparked the beginning of a professional relationship. Tannenbaum, hired as the Miami Dolphins' VP of football operations in January, spent his previous 18 months working with Priority Sports' Mark Bartelstein, heading up that agency's coaching division.

"When I first mentioned it to Steve, it was almost like a favor," Tannenbaum told FOXSports.com. "I said, 'This guy is a great candidate and is well worth your time.' "

Not long after their meeting, Kerr was impressed.

"The first call I got was from Steve," Tannenbaum said. "And he was like, 'I'm hiring this guy. He was incredible. The amount of time you spend with the staff on the road, there's so much that goes on. This guy would make me a better human being let alone head coach.' "

Blatt shared mutual interest in what seemingly was a perfect match.

But before the deal could become official, preliminary interest in Blatt trickled in from the Cleveland Cavaliers -- this time for their vacant head coaching job.

Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert and general manager David Griffin were employing an exhaustive search to replace Mike Brown as they prepared to lure LeBron James back to Cleveland as a free agent. No stone was left unturned as they interviewed on-the-rise assistants, big-name college coaches and veteran NBA head coaches over 39 days.

Finally, the Cavaliers made an outside-the-box hire, naming the bright-minded Blatt head coach.

Now, Tannenbaum's two former clients aim to outwit each other for this year's Larry O'Brien Trophy.

Selling Steve

From their very first conversation, Kerr assured Tannenbaum of the ferocity with which he planned to meet his newest task. Spending more than the last decade intermittently in the broadcast booth and as a Phoenix Suns general manager, Kerr was ready for a challenge.

"I want to be a great coach," Kerr told Tannenbaum. "I'm not just doing this to try something new in my life. If we're going to work together, you have to make me better."

Kerr, 49, a five-time NBA champion as a player, had an incredible base of knowledge. Tannenbaum strived to be a good listener and to give him advice where appropriate.

The agent quickly arranged meetings for Kerr with some of the biggest names in coaching: Pro Football Hall of Famer Bill Parcells, Pete Carroll and then-defensive coordinator Dan Quinn of the Seattle Seahawks and Gregg Popovich of the San Antonio Spurs, who coached Kerr when he was a player.

Tannenbaum would send Kerr email summaries of articles that detailed typical challenges coaches deal with -- such as managing player egos and media responsibilities. For 14 months, Tannenbaum strategized and planned ways to make Kerr a more appealing candidate to potential suitors. When jobs opened a year ago, Kerr was ready.

It came down to the Warriors and New York Knicks. Despite what Tannenbaum called serious discussions with the Knicks -- led by team president Phil Jackson, another of Kerr's former coaches -- Kerr felt a tremendous alignment with Golden State's ownership group.

"Listening to Steve's voice as he walked out of the meeting, you could hear the enthusiasm," Tannenbaum said. "They had the same values and beliefs. Again, the culture that has been set by Peter Guber and Joe Lacob, they're very transparent, uber-competitive and do things in a first-class way. There's a great vibe there."

Certainly, a clincher also may have been Warriors team president Rick Welts, who served the same role in Phoenix during Kerr's tenure as that team's GM.

Doing more with less

Ten minutes separated Blatt and Tannenbaum as they grew up in Boston suburbs, even though they never met. Blatt, 56, was raised in Framingham, Mass. Tannenbaum lived in nearby Needham.

Years later, having proved all he could as a coach overseas, Blatt longed to ply his trade in the NBA while he was fresh off leading Tel Aviv to its championship win over Real Madrid. Given the vast economic difference between those two teams, Blatt's ability to get the most out of his players proved to be significant.

"You can do more with less as long as you do it right," Blatt told reporters after winning the title.

Tannenbaum sent the video of Blatt's inspirational speech about teamwork and sacrificing for the greater good to NBA teams, and that's when interest in Blatt became apparent.

"In my mind, the credit goes to the Cavs, for being so open-minded," Tannenbaum said. "Let's face it, now it looks like an easy decision. But back then no one had hired someone directly from Europe."

The man in the middle

Prior to his stint as an agent, Tannenbaum had spent 16 years working for the NFL's New York Jets. Serving as the team's general manager for the last seven of those years, he was let go in 2012 after the Jets failed to make the postseason in consecutive seasons.

The time away from the front office gave him a chance to take a step back and self-assess the things he could've done differently or better.

"Getting fired is hard, but looking back I think it was a great moment in my career because it gave me perspective," said Tannenbaum, 46.

Tannenbaum was well-versed in dealing with football front offices, but he spent time at the Peach Jam basketball tournament in Georgia and at the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas to get to know NBA executives.

"I really just wanted to immerse myself and earn my stripes in the basketball community," he said.

Eighteen months as an agent provided Tannenbaum with experience that has certainly helped in his new endeavor with the Dolphins.

"One of the things that happens every offseason in the NFL is you have 90 players, 90 agents, 90 stories, and it's easy to get desensitized and not be empathetic and understand people's fears or vulnerabilities and goals," Tannenbaum said. "Each transaction is so important to their life and their family. I have a better understanding of that."

Since he was hired in January, Miami has been one of the most active franchises in the league.

In March, the Dolphins signed defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh to the richest deal for a defensive player in NFL history. More recently, they put together a solid draft -- headlined by first-round wide receiver DeVante Parker -- and gave quarterback Ryan Tannehill a $100 million contract extension.

Turning away from a thriving business at Priority Sports, Tannenbaum got an opportunity he couldn't refuse in working for Dolphins owner Stephen Ross.

"I love building teams," Tannenbaum said. "I love walking into the office every day and seeing people with the same logo on their jersey that I do. We're trying to accomplish something that is transformative, and that's winning a championship."

It's an accomplishment that one of his former clients will soon be able to claim.

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