D-League president Dan Reed has stepped down from his post to take a job with Facebook, sources tell Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. The Harvard Business School grad had been with the NBA or the D-League in some form or fashion since 2004, and had overseen the D-League for the past seven years. It’s unclear if the NBA has plans to immediately name a replacement or an interim chief for the 18-team minor league.
Only one team in the D-League had a one-to-one affiliation with an NBA franchise when Reed took over in 2007, and now there’s only one club without such an arrangement for 2014/15. Figuring out how to have the Fort Wayne Mad Ants, the lone team without a direct partnership, serve 13 NBA clubs this coming season will be an immediate challenge for whomever assumes the job in Reed’s place.
Reed served as the NBA’s Senior Director of Team Marketing and Business Operations before he moved into the role of D-League president. He succeeded Phil Evans, who had held the D-League presidency since 2002, a year after the league’s inception.