Rick Sund has more than 40 consecutive years of managerial NBA experience spanning five decades. The longtime league executive was the Atlanta Hawks Executive Vice President and  General Manager from 2008-2012. Under his leadership, the Hawks won nearly 60 percent of their games (184-128), reaching the playoffs in each of his four seasons and advancing to the  

Eastern Conference semifinals three times. After retiring in 2012, he remained with the Hawks as  Senior Advisor of basketball operations until 2019. 

Formerly the General Manager of the Seattle Sonics from 2001-07, Sund and the Sonics were the inaugural champions of the Northwest Division in 2004-05, advancing to the semifinals in the  Western Conference.  

Sund was also a member of the Detroit Pistons organization when he became Vice President of  Player Personnel in 1995 and was later named Executive VP and General Manager of Basketball  Operations. 

Prior to his time with the Pistons, he served in several executive capacities with the Dallas  Mavericks. Sund was part of their expansion season in 1979 until his final season as their Vice  President of Basketball Operations in 1994. 

Sund began his NBA career in Milwaukee under the tutelage of famed basketball executive  Wayne Embry, spending five years with the Bucks after graduating with a Master’s in Sports  Administration and Management from Ohio University in 1974. 

He was a two-sport athlete at Northwestern University, where in basketball (as a 6-4 guard) he earned Co-SIDA Academic All-American (third team) honors in 1973, and was twice named  Academic All-Big Ten, while also seeing action as a tight end and wide receiver his senior year  on the football team. He holds a Bachelor’s in Political Science from Northwestern University. 

He is currently a consultant to the Beijing Ducks in the Chinese Basketball Association where he has been working since 2019. 

Born on June 4, 1951, Sund has completed three marathons and a mini-triathlon. Richard Walker  Sund is a native of Elgin, Illinois, and is a member of the Illinois Basketball Coaches Hall of  Fame as well as the Elgin Sports Hall of Fame. He and his wife Lea are the parents of two  children, daughter Hali and son Patrick and they also have two grandchildren. They presently live in Seattle, Washington.