The Charlotte Hornets are reportedly hiring Nets executive Jeff Peterson to be the team’s next head of basketball operations according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.
At 35, Peterson is completing a meteoric rise to become the NBA’s youngest lead front office executive. He emerged for owners Rick Schnall and Gabe Plotkin out of a search that included interviews with 12 candidates. Now Peterson will be tasked with leading the Hornets’ rebuild. https://t.co/G5h9SWbRY0
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) February 29, 2024
As Woj notes in his followup Tweet, the Hornets quietly interviewed 12 candidates for the job. At age 35, Peterson will be the youngest person in his position in the league (to my knowledge at least).
From Woj’s article on ESPN.
Peterson — one of a dozen candidates who sources said had interviews with the Hornets ownership — has history with Schnall, who served as a minority owner for the Hawks when Peterson rose from an intern to an assistant GM within four years. Peterson built a good professional relationship with Hornets coach Steve Clifford with the Nets, where Clifford served as a coaching consultant in the 2021-2022 season.
To go from intern to an assistant general manager of an NBA team in four years is a truly remarkable rise. He’d been serving as the second in command to Brooklyn Nets general manager Sean Marks since 2019, and most places around the Internet have had him tabbed as the next second in command to get a lead job of his own. The Hornets are the team that made it happen.
For some deeper reading, you can check out this profile The Athletic did on him a couple of years ago (subscription required).
Clearly the new ownership group is serious about their desire to make the Hornets a competent franchise. They reportedly nudged former general manager Mitch Kupchak into asset collection mode and then turned around and hired a young up-and-coming hopefully superstar to run the basketball side of the organization.
