The Sacramento Kings announced today additions and promotions within the team’s basketball operations department.
The new additions include Teena Murray as Senior Director of Athlete Health and Performance, where she will lead the Kings sports medicine, athletic training and strength and conditioning disciplines. Additional hires to the Athlete Performance staff include Mike Roncarati as Head of Prevention and Reconditioning, Joe Resendez as Head Athletic Trainer and Jesse Green as Performance Analyst.
Recent hires and promotions in the scouting department include Elizabeth Ramsey, who joined the organization in May as Director of Basketball Operations and Intelligence. Gene Cross has been promoted to Director of Amateur Scouting, Chris Alpert and Acie Law join the team as regional scouts and Robbie Lemons was promoted to Scouting Coordinator.
Staffing updates to the team’s Athletic Performance and Scouting departments are accompanied by additions to the organization’s Player Development group, including Bobby Jackson as Sacramento Kings Player Development Coach and several key roles filled for the NBA G League Stockton Kings: Tyrone Ellis as Head Coach, Rico Hines as Assistant Coach and Drake U’u as Assistant General Manager.
Additionally, Melanie Stocking was promoted to Senior Manager, Team Travel and Logistics and Matthew Baron was named Performance Chef’s Assistant.
Murray arrives in Sacramento after spending the previous 14 years as the Director of Sports Performance at the University of Louisville, where she built a high-performance model spanning 21 sports and served as head performance coach for the women's basketball and softball teams, both perennial NCAA Tournament squads. In addition, she served as an adjunct faculty member in the graduate program of Exercise Science and has published research papers in the areas of functional movement and physiological profiling.
Over the course of two decades in the sports performance industry, Murray has extensive experience with professional, Olympic and collegiate athletes, having worked as a consultant with USA Hockey, the NHL's Florida Panthers and Anaheim Ducks and the AHL's Hartford Wolfpack. Her experience includes roles at Cornell University as Assistant Director of Strength and Conditioning and a similar position at the University of Connecticut. As the strength and conditioning coach for the U.S. Women's National and Olympic ice hockey teams from 2006-2010, she shared in two World Championship gold medals and a silver medal at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
A native of Shawville, Quebec (Canada), she is a Master Coach with the Collegiate Strength & Conditioning Coaches' Association and is one of less than 100 certified strength and conditioning coaches by the National Strength and Conditioning Association. Murray received the Guiding Woman in Sport Award for her leadership in the strength and conditioning field from the National Association of Girls and Women in Sport (NAGWS).
Most recently with the Atlanta Hawks for three seasons as Director of Rehabilitation, Roncarati brings a wealth of experience at the NBA and collegiate levels to his new role with Sacramento. Before his tenure in Atlanta, he served as the Strength and Conditioning Coach for the Golden State Warriors from 2013-15, where his stint in Oakland culminated in an NBA championship. Before making the transition to professional basketball, Roncarati served as Physical Therapist and Strength and Conditioning Coach at South County Orthopedics, a sports medicine provider at that time for the University of Rhode Island. A graduate of Northeastern University and a Doctor of Physical Therapy, he worked with the athletic training and strength and conditioning staffs for the school’s basketball and baseball teams and co-authored a published paper regarding off-season medical screening for Division 1 Men’s Basketball players. In addition to his work in team athletics, the native of Cumberland, RI spent three years as a personal rehabilitation expert working with collegiate and professional athletes and members of the general population. Roncarati is a credentialed Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist through the National Strength and Conditioning Association.
Resendez joins the Kings having spent the previous seven seasons as assistant athletic trainer for the Los Angeles Clippers. Prior to his work at the NBA level, Resendez spent four seasons as the athletic trainer/strength and conditioning coach for the Rio Grande Valley Vipers of the NBA Development League, where he contributed to a pair of NBA D-League Finals Appearances (2010 & 2011). His tenure with the Vipers commenced before the club’s inaugural season after the Brownsville, Texas native served a two-year stint as head trainer for the Men’s Basketball team at Louisiana Tech, where he earned his Master’s Degree of Science in exercise physiology in 2006. After earning a Bachelor’s Degree of Science in kinesiology with an emphasis in Sports Medicine from the University of Texas-Pan American in 2003, Resendez spent one season as the assistant athletic trainer at the University of Texas-San Antonio. A certified athletic trainer through the National Athletic Trainers Association (NATA) and a licensed athletic trainer (LAT), Resendez specializes in joint and soft tissue manipulation/mobilization and restorative therapies.
Also relocating from the University of Louisville, Green served as an Athletic Performance Fellow and Analyst for the Cardinals after four years with the Brisbane Lions Australian Rules Football Club, where he worked as the Strength and Conditioning Coordinator. He holds a Master Degree in Performance Sport from Australian Catholic University and earned a Bachelor of Sports Science at Bond University.
Hired in May after 11 years with the NCAA, Ramsey most recently served four seasons as Associate Director of Enforcement and Basketball Development managing cases regarding NCAA violations in men’s and women’s basketball while working closely as a liaison between coaches, athletes, conferences and other third-party entities. In her new role, she will assist with the day-to-day functioning of the basketball operations and scouting departments. A graduate of the University of Indianapolis, Ramsey also earned a masters of Sports Administration from Canisius College and law degree from Indiana University McKinney School of Law. As a collegiate athlete, she ranks first Hounds history in points, field goals, scoring average, rebounds, rebounding average and double-doubles—earning induction into the University of Indianapolis Hall of Fame in 2017.
Cross begins his third season with the Kings organization and first as Director of Amateur Scouting. He previously served as a regional scout after spending the 2015-16 season as an assistant coach with the Reno Bighorns. Cross adds more than two decades of basketball experience to his new role, including stops as a head coach for the University of Toledo (2008-10), Erie Bayhawks (2012-14) and Rayos de Hermosillo (Sonora, Mexico). Cross’ tenure in the coaching ranks also features assistant duties at the Universities of Notre Dame, Illinois-Chicago, DePaul and Virginia in addition to stints with D-League franchises Utah Flash, Iowa Energy and Los Angeles Defenders. A Chicago native, he played collegiate basketball at the University of Illinois from 1989 to 1994.
Alpert joins the Kings scouting department after 20 years working around professional basketball in a variety of capacities. Before serving as COO of Up2Us Sports, he spent 14 seasons in several roles within the NBA Development League, leaving in 2015 as Vice President of Basketball Operations and Player Personnel.
Selected No. 11 overall in the 2007 NBA Draft, Law played seven seasons in the league and three internationally, winning Greek (Olympiacos) and EuroLeague Championships before retiring in 2017. Known as “Captain Clutch” during his time at Texas A&M, he earned the 2007 Bob Cousy Award bestowed upon the nation’s top point guard. Most recently, Law was chosen for the NBA Basketball Operations Associate Program, spending last season working across various areas of league operations.
Lemons begins his third season with the organization and first as Scouting Coordinator after serving in a Basketball Operations role during the previous two campaigns. A Sacramento native, the 2015 Stanford graduate earned First-Team PAC-12 All-Academic honors as a member of the Cardinal basketball team (2010-2014). Lemons secured his public policy MA in Palo Alto and MSC in banking and finance from Newcastle University.
A mainstay in Sacramento on and off the court during his playing tenure, Jackson will join head coach Dave Joerger’s staff this season as a player development coach after spending the previous three seasons as a collegiate scout for the organization. His coaching experience includes two seasons on the Kings bench (2010-12) and another in Minnesota (2013). The Salisbury, North Carolina native played 12 seasons in the NBA, accruing averages of 9.7 points (.417 FG%, .354 3pt%, .793 FT%), 3.1 rebounds, 2.6 assists, 0.98 steals and 22.2 minutes per contest in 755 games (started 143), punctuated by an NBA Sixth Man of the Year Award in 2003 as a member of the Kings after registering a career-best 15.2 points (.464 FG%, .379 3pt%, .846 FT%), 3.7 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 1.53 steals and 28.4 minutes per game.
Ellis arrives in Stockton having spent the previous 20 years involved in basketball as a collegiate and professional player and coach at the NBA G League, USA Basketball and NBA levels. He takes the helm ahead of the Kings 2018-19 debut season in California’s central valley after relocating from Reno, Nevada where the club played for 10 seasons. The opportunity marks Ellis’ second instance as a head coach for an inaugural NBA G League campaign after being tapped to lead the Northern Arizona Suns (Prescott Valley, AZ) in 2016. Following his retirement from the court in 2012, Ellis accepted his first coaching position with the Tulsa 66ers (NBA D-League), where he served as an assistant for one year before taking similar roles with the Reno Bighorns (2013-14), Grand Rapids Drive (2014-15) and Bakersfield Jam (2015-16). He spent last season as an assistant coach for the Phoenix Suns.
Hines joins the Stockton Kings bench as an assistant coach for Tyrone Ellis after serving the last two seasons in a similar role with the Reno Bighorns. His coaching experience includes five years as an assistant under Steve Lavin at St. John’s University (2010-15) and four seasons in Golden State working under Don Nelson as a player development assistant (2006-10). Hines is a 2002 graduate of UCLA.
U’u enters his fourth season with the organization and first as Assistant General Manager of the Stockton Kings after serving in a variety of roles, most recently as Pro Personnel Scout. Before joining the Kings, U’u played professionally for two seasons in Australia’s National Basketball League (NBL) for the Perth Wildcats, where he won a championship in 2014. The Sacramento native played collegiately for the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
Stocking begins her 13th season with the Kings after being named Senior Manager, Team Travel and Logistics. Prior to her new role, she served as Manager of Basketball Operations and in various other capacities during her tenure with the organization. A native of Winters, California, Stocking is a Sonoma State University graduate.
Baron enters his third season with the Kings after being named Performance Chef’s Assistant. Previously, Baron served as the Sports Nutrition Intern after receiving his BA in Nutrition from California State University, Sacramento.