The Philadelphia 76ers have hired former New Jersey Nets president
Rod Thorn as President of all basketball operations.
Fun fact: Thorn drafted
Michael Jordan
Rodney King "Rod" Thorn (born May 23, 1941, in
Princeton, West Virginia) is the current president of the
NBA's
Philadelphia 76ers.
Biography
Thorn attracted nationwide attention after a high school
basketball career at
Princeton High School that saw him average more than 30 points per game as a senior. He was a three-time all-state selection and was a two-time High School All-American. He was also a highly-regarded high school athlete in
baseball.
Thorn attended
West Virginia University, where he was an All-American guard in basketball, as well as playing three seasons on the WVU baseball team.
In the
1963 NBA Draft, Thorn was the second player selected overall, drafted by the
Baltimore Bullets. He was named to the
NBA All-Rookie Team, but was traded by the Bullets following his first season. After brief stints with Detroit and St. Louis, he concluded his career as a player with the
Seattle SuperSonics (1967-71).
After retiring, Thorn stayed with the SuperSonics as assistant coach and graduated from the
University of Washington with a degree in political science.
In 1973, former teammate
Kevin Loughery hired Thorn as assistant coach of the
New York Nets of the
American Basketball Association. The Nets won the
1974 ABA championship, led by
Julius Erving.
Thorn later became head coach of another ABA team, the
Spirits of St. Louis in 1975, but after a 20-27 start he was fired in the middle of the season in December 1975 and replaced by
Joe Mullaney for the remainder of the season.
In 1978, Thorn became the general manager of the
Chicago Bulls and was instrumental in the team's selection of
Michael Jordan in the 1984 draft. He also selected track star
Carl Lewis much later in the same draft, mostly for publicity purposes; Lewis would never play for the Bulls. Thorn served briefly as interim head coach of the Bulls in 1981-82.
From 1986 to 2000 Thorn was the NBA's Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations.
Thorn rejoined the Nets organization on June 2, 2000, and he was named the
NBA Executive of the Year in 2002 after the Nets advanced to the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history.
[1] During the 2010 offseason, Rod Thorn announced he would step down from the Nets' organziation.
On August 11, 2010, Thorn was hired as president of the 76ers, taking over the title from
Ed Stefanski, who remained with the team as the general manager.