{"id":624549,"date":"2026-02-25T18:53:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T18:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/624549\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T18:53:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T18:53:13","slug":"tony-bennett-surprisingly-joins-la-as-special-nba-draft-advisor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/624549\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony Bennett surprisingly joins LA as special NBA Draft advisor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/nba\/los-angeles-lakers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> announced on Wednesday that they have <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Lakers\/status\/2026726670519169458?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">hired<\/a> former Virginia Men&#8217;s Basketball head coach Tony Bennett to serve as their new NBA Draft Advisor. In this new role, Bennett will hold a key role alongside executive <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/tag\/rob-pelinka\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rob Pelinka<\/a> in the Lakers&#8217; decisions both during and before the draft, aiding in players evaluations, scouting, and final decisions as to who the organization should select.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe&#8217;re thrilled and honored to welcome Tony as an advisor to the Lakers basketball operations department,\u201d Pelinka said in the team&#8217;s statement on Wednesday. \u201cAs we refine and build out our NBA draft scouting processes, we could think of no better basketball mind than Tony Bennett to have as a resource. Tony&#8217;s track record of forming culture, with high-character, high-skill, and high-IQ players, is revered and respected across all basketball circles.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTony will be an incredible asset to our basketball leadership, to our scouts, and to our draft department as a whole. We are truly excited.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bennett, 56, <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/ncaa-basketball\/virginia-basketball-news-tony-bennett-retires-out-of-nowhere\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">retired as the head coach of Virginia in 2024<\/a>, stunning many around the college basketball atmosphere with his decision. He left after being named the national coach of the year three different times and leading Virginia to a national championship in 2019, becoming the fourth former NBA player to win a national championship as a head coach.<\/p>\n<p>As the head coach of Virginia, Bennett went 364-136 (.728), including 189-82 (.697) in ACC play.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen Rob and I began talking, what stood out to me was the chance to help out such a storied organization,\u201d Bennett said. \u201cThe Lakers carry a tradition that speaks for itself, so to be connected to it and assist Rob and the Lakers in any way I can is exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At Virginia, Bennett was known for developing several notable NBA talents through the years like Malcolm Brogdon, Joe Harris, De&#8217;Andre Hunter, Trey Murphy III, and Ty Jerome.<\/p>\n<p>This is a developing story that will be updated shortly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Lakers announced on Wednesday that they have hired former Virginia Men&#8217;s Basketball head coach Tony&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3790],"tags":[7,4034,1698,300,4044,251,150,4033,4043,6,3088],"class_list":["post-624549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles-lakers","tag-basketball","tag-la","tag-la-lakers","tag-lakers","tag-lalakers","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-losangeles","tag-losangeleslakers","tag-nba","tag-rob-pelinka"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116132787858001123","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}