A week after he was given the job of replacing the Jazz's resident genius, Kevin O'Connor finally showed up in Salt Lake City for introductions Thursday morning at the Delta Center.
The new vice president of basketball operations is from New York and has the accent to prove it. He deftly deflects questions about negotiations, favors self-deprecation, talks about things such as "integrity," "character," and "doing things the right way," and is as low key as a gray suit.So far, it's difficult to tell the difference between the new guy and the old guy.
"We have a certain personality in the franchise," says General Manager Tim Howells, "and it's fairly likely whoever we selected would have similar values and demeanor."
O'Connor replaces Scott Layden, who is credited with building the Jazz through shrewd dealing and perceptive player evaluations. Talk about a tough act to follow.
"I've got big shoes to fill in Scott," he says. "He was here a long time. He was a non-ego guy who got the job done . . . He was so effective. And understated. I hope I can follow along those lines."
He's off to a good start. Like Layden, O'Connor grew up in New York. The only child of an Irish cop, he was born in the Bronx, grew up on Staten Island and was reared on the inner-city game. He took two subways and a ferry each Saturday -- an hour's trip, one way -- to find games, and he has pretty much spent the rest of his life doing the same thing. He served as an assistant coach at VMI, Virginia Tech, Colorado and UCLA, where he worked under Larry Brown and Larry Farmer.
O'Connor dropped out of basketball about 10 years ago. He stayed out for more than three years, partly to settle his family in one place, and, he allows, to cope with the 1991 death of his son (a subject he declines to discuss). They settled in the basketball hotbed of Chapel Hill, N.C., and he took work as a manufacturer's rep in the clothing business. Eventually, he eased back into the game, working as a part-time scout on the side for several NBA teams, the Jazz included. Like Layden, O'Connor cut his teeth on the scouting end of the business, and by 1997 he was ready to return to basketball fulltime.
"I had a couple of options to go back into it during that time," he says. "I was a free agent. I told (Brown) if he got another job I wanted to go with him."
Brown made him director of player personnel in Philadelphia two years ago. When Layden left the Jazz to join the Knicks last month, Jazz general manager Tim Howells called O'Connor.
"He was someone who was known to our organization," says Howells. "He is well regarded by people in the league and has been in the business a long time . . . He felt like a guy who would fit well with our organization. We're a collaborative organization and we knew the chemistry would work well."
O'Connor, 51, got into the personnel side of the business rather late in life, and he has only two years of experience in management, but, as Howells says, "He condensed about five years of work in two years." O'Connor helped swing 36 transactions in those two years while completely overhauling the dismal 76ers. Only one player, Allen Iverson, remains from the roster that O'Connor began with, and the 76ers made a remarkable turnaround and qualified for the playoffs last spring.
As a result, O'Connor's career got a second wind. "Coach Brown likes to say he's never worked a day in his life because he was involved in basketball," he says. "That's pretty accurate."
Maybe not. O'Connor has more responsibility with the Jazz. In Philadelphia, Brown was in charge of basketball operations; in Utah, that job falls to O'Connor. "I'm the point man," he says. "The fact that I haven't been here 11 years means (as Layden was) I expect more questions asked."
O'Connor also faces markedly differently challenges than he faced in Philadelphia. The 76ers are young and had money under the salary cap to spend; the Jazz are old and are already over the cap. O'Connor also must find a way to sign new free agents, who generally treat the Jazz like a leper colony, and re-sign old free agents, a la Jeff Hornacek, John Stockton and Shandon Anderson, and somehow do all of the above with the understanding that he soon must begin the large, painful task of revitalizing an aging team. His degrees in business and economics could come in handy.
"He's coming to a franchise that has some real challenging years ahead," says Howells. "We'll be rebuilding. I liked (O'Connor's) maturity, and it's going to take maturity to not lose focus, to be able to endure what might be some controversy and pressure from fans and media when we're not knocking on door of the Finals consistently. That is likely to happen. I don't think we're all dreamers here. We'll be fortunate if three or four years from now we're back in the Finals."
For his part, O'Connor says, "If you can't excited about getting a promotion . . .then you shouldn't be in this business. Everyone aspires to play in the NBA. Everyone in personnel aspires to be the point man."
Next week he begins the business of signing Anderson ("Things will heat up Tuesday and Wednesday," he says.) Meanwhile, he spent his first day on the job meeting the media and huddling with Jazz officials.
"I've got to fit in the program," he says. "I've got to become part of the family."