Report: Pistons hiring Nets executive in front office role

J.R. Holden, Brooklyn’s director of player personnel, is about to depart the team to take a front office position with the Pistons, according to Jake Fischer and Vincent Goodwill of Yahoo Sports, who are reporting via Twitter that the Nets are about to lose another important executive.

When the Hornets appointed Jeff Peterson, an associate general manager in Brooklyn, as their new director of basketball operations in March, Sean Marks already lost one of his top lieutenants. Holden will be moving to Detroit to work with Trajan Langdon, the new president of basketball operations.

Despite the fact that Langdon and Holden were both employed by Marks in Brooklyn, their time with the team was completely separate from one another. In 2019, Langdon joined the Pelicans as general manager after leaving the Nets. Afterwards that summer, Holden was employed

But during their playing days, Langdon and Holden were colleagues with CSKA Moscow. Holden was a great player at Bucknell before turning pro in 1998–2011, competing in Russia, Greece, Belgium, Latvia, and other countries. He and Langdon were selected to the EuroLeague’s All-Decade squad for the 2000s. He and Langdon won two EuroLeague championships with CSKA in 2006 and 2008.

Holden left the game to become a scout, first for Detroit and then Philadelphia, before joining the Nets in 2019. Four years later, it looks like a reunion is on the horizon. It was reported that the Pistons were interested in bringing him back in an executive capacity in 2020, but nothing came of that desire at the time.