SErgi Oliva continues to climb the ladder in his NBA career and, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the Blazers have hired him as assistant general manager Joe Cronin. He is the third assistant to join the Portland franchise, which previously signed Mike Schmitz and Andrae Patterson, a former Manresa and Estudiantes player.
Until now, the Catalan was the Jazz’s assistant coach, a position he held for the last two seasons. He had previously had extensive experience as vice president of strategy at the Sixers, a franchise he joined in the 2014-15 academic year, although he had already been collaborating with them for some time.
Born in Gelida, a town in the province of Barcelona, in 1984, Oliva has a doctorate in Computer Science and worked as a researcher at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia. His career on the bench started at Hortonenc, in the Third Division of Catalonia. Specialist in advanced statistics, in 2013 he applied for a statistical analysis position in the NBA and the following year he began working with the Philadelphia franchise, although it was not until some time later that he joined definitively. Within the Sixers he progressed to director of analytics and innovation and later became vice president of strategy.
Sergi Oliva poses in the middle of the Sixers court.
In October 2020, Oliva was named the Jazz’s assistant coach under manager Quin Snyder. After Jordi Fernndez, then in the Nuggets and now in the Kings, he became the second Spaniard on an NBA bench.
In March 2022, ‘The Athletic’ included Oliva in a list of 40 NBA executives, coaches and agents under 40 who will shape the future of basketball.
