The Atlanta Hawks announced Friday that both team president Mike Budenholzer and general manager Wes Wilcox (who was rumored to have been fired) stepped down from their current posts.
Budenholzer will stay on as the head coach; Wilcox will be a special advisor to ownership.
UPDATE: We have announced a reorganization of Basketball Operations & will begin the search for a new GM.
Details: https://t.co/XbIlaCcFir pic.twitter.com/XQYMKr4Pi3
— Atlanta Hawks (@ATLHawks) May 5, 2017
Budenholzer says this is a “necessary and positive set of changes.”
Per The AJC:
“I had and have an enthusiast view of where this team is going and where we need to be going,” [Hawks principal owner Tony] Ressler said. “I do think both Bud and Wes are talented, good guys. By the way, we did have at the end of the end of the season, shall we call it, thorough, exhaustive discussions with each of them. In their defense, all recognized and recommended that we could be better and that these changes could help us be better.”
Ressler said he didn’t believe that Budenholzer and Wilcox could not work together.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “I think it was a matter of could we bring in a new GM a new body, a new advisor, a new professional who would make us better. The simple answer is I think we can. That is what we are going to try to do.”
