Report: Michael Jordan Hoping to Replace Hornets GM With Mitch Kupchak
Hornets general manager Rich Cho will not receive a contract extension to return to the team next season, the team announced Tuesday.
Charlotte owner Michael Jordan is “is expected to pursue” former Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak to fill the role, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reports.
Kupchak would team with assistant GM Buzz Peterson, a former college coach who roomed with Jordan at North Carolina, Wojnarowski reports. (Kupchak is also a former UNC player.)
Cho joined the Hornets in 2011 after less than a year as GM of the Blazers. His title in Charlotte was general manager but he worked under president of basketball operations Rod Higgins. Cho was given control of the front office in 2014 when Higgins resigned after Jordan moved to give Cho some of Higgins’s responsibilities.
Kupchak was fired last February after more than 35 years with the Lakers as a player, assistant GM and general manager.
The Hornets have made the playoffs once since Cho was given control of the front office, when they went 48–34 in 2015–16. Their core of key players—like Kemba Walker, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Jeremy Lamb—are under contract through next season but will be free agents in 2019.
