San Antonio Spurs executive Dell Demps and former Portland Trail Blazers assistant GM Tom Penn have emerged as the two frontrunners for the Phoenix Suns’ general manager’s job, league sources told Yahoo! Sports. Suns owner Robert Sarver is working on an agreement with player agent Lon Babby to take over as the team president and the new GM would work under him. Demps has steadily risen in the Spurs organization and recently was promoted to vice president of basketball operations. He’s played a major role in the Spurs’ scouting over the past several years under GM R.C. Buford, including the drafting of George Hill(notes), Tiago Splitter(notes) and DeJuan Blair(notes). Demps was undrafted out of college, but played for three NBA teams. Penn lost his job with the Trail Blazers in April in what turned out to be an eventual front-office purge. Penn had been considered a salary-cap specialist under GM Kevin Pritchard and, prior to that, with Jerry West on the Memphis Grizzlies staff. Since leaving the Blazers, Penn has been working in television. Source: Woj
much like how KP hired him after he told KP how to structure the Z-bo deal to get Rudy, his on-air restructuring of the Amare deal to get the big TPE seems to have gotten him a decent shot at a GM job.
