By Shams Charania, Sam Amick and Mike Vorkunov
Recently retired four-time NBA champion Andre Iguodala is expected to be named executive director of the National Basketball Players Association, league sources said Thursday. Here’s what you need to know:
- Current executive director Tamika Tremaglio, who took on the role in January 2022, is stepping down, the sources said.
- Iguodala, 39, officially announced his retirement from playing last month after 19 NBA seasons.
- The 2015 NBA Finals MVP told DealBook at the time of his retirement announcement he planned to focus on his career as a start-up investor, running a $200 million venture capital fund, Mosaic, with business partner Rudy Cline-Thomas. Iguodala is already an investor in Zoom, Leeds FC, Bay Area FC and a TGL team, according to The New York Times.
Just In: Four-time NBA champion Andre Iguodala is expected to be named the new executive director of the National Basketball Players Association, replacing Tamika Tremaglio who is stepping down, sources tell @TheAthletic @Stadium. pic.twitter.com/FMuIHnTvtB
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) November 9, 2023
What Iguodala brings to the job
Tremaglio’s choice to step down is stunning, and we’ll surely learn in the coming days and weeks what might have led to her choice. But if you scoured the entire NBA world to find the most logical fit for her replacement, that endeavor would almost certainly lead to Iguodala’s doorstep. Not only has he earned an incredible amount of respect from his peers in these past two decades before officially retiring, but he has spent these past few years building his brand as a businessman in the kind of way that offers him even more credibility in the boardroom.
There’s this key factor too: Iguodala, a longtime NBPA vice president who worked closely with former executive director Michele Roberts before she stepped down in September 2021, already has a positive working relationship with NBA commissioner Adam Silver. Most notably, they worked hand in hand in 2020 as part of the group that led the efforts to pull off the Walt Disney World bubble during the height of the COVID-19 crisis. That partnership between the top official from the NBA and the NBPA has always been crucial when it comes to the league’s business.
What’s more, it certainly helps that a collective bargaining agreement was agreed on in April that runs through the 2029-30 season. The hard part is over for now, in other words, and Iguodala will have a chance to grow into the job without a CBA situation looming. — Sam Amick, NBA senior writer
Examining Tremaglio’s tenure as executive director
Tremaglio took over at the NBPA in January 2022 and jumped right into an impending CBA negotiation. While the CBA talks took a little longer than expected, with several extensions packed in, the new CBA did notch several wins for the players, not least of all opening up several new avenues to wealth-building through limited team ownership and new sponsorship opportunities, as well as keeping the league’s interest in implementing a hard cap at bay.
The NBPA also ramped up its business side and the work it does at Think450, its investment arm. Both were goals for her when she took over. — Mike Vorkunov, basketball business writer
Required reading
(Photo: Cary Edmondson / USA Today)
