OKLAHOMA CITY, Sept. 29, 2014 – The Oklahoma City Thunder has made multiple promotions and additions to its Basketball Operations and Blue staffs, it was announced today by Executive Vice President and General Manager Sam Presti.
The Thunder has promoted Jesse Gould to director of basketball research and analysis and Ryan Lambert to college scout. In addition, the club has added Adam Harrington as shooting coach, David Howarth as athletic performance coordinator, Steve Scalzi as video analyst, and Oliver Winterbone as basketball information analyst. The Blue has hired Phil Beckner, Royal Ivey, and Drew Jones as assistant coaches.
Gould is entering his sixth year with the Thunder and has been involved with the organization’s analytics processes. In his new role, Gould will help the club identify areas of research and strategy relevant to basketball operations as well as continue to oversee its analytics processes.
Lambert started with the club in September of 2012 in the role of basketball operations assistant. During his time with Oklahoma City, he has increased his duties and responsibilities related to player evaluation.
Harrington has spent the past several years building Aspire Basketball Training, working with various NBA and NCAA athletes. After competing collegiately at both North Carolina State and Auburn University, Harrington spent eight seasons playing professionally in the NBA, China, Spain, Israel, Germany, Croatia, France, and Poland.
Howarth comes to the Thunder from Sparta Performance Science in Menlo Park, Calif. A native of Australia, Dave has worked as a performance coach in professional rugby and surfing before coming to the United States.
Scalzi arrives in Oklahoma City after spending last season as a video analyst and assistant coach with the Thunder’s D-League club. Prior to his time with the organization, the Boston College alum spent seven seasons as the director of basketball operations with Northeastern University’s men’s basketball team.
Winterbone most recently spent five years with University of Florida men’s basketball program serving in several capacities including video coordinator. A 2005 graduate of Rutgers University, Oliver spent three years at Virginia as video coordinator and director of basketball operations followed by two years at Rutgers as director of basketball operations.
Beckner comes to the Blue after spending the previous seven seasons at Weber State, the first two as director of basketball operations and the last five as assistant coach. The native of Buckeye, Ariz., Phil graduated from Kansas Wesleyan University in Salina, Kan. where he played four years on the basketball team.
Ivey recently concluded a 10-year NBA playing career which included 171 games as member of the Thunder organization. Drafted in 2004 by the Atlanta Hawks, Ivey also played for Milwaukee and Philadelphia.
Jones spent last year at Penn State as a graduate assistant coach. He was a four-year starter for Penn State, graduating in 2011 and then spent two years playing professionally in several European leagues.