Marty Blake (March 22, 1927 – April 7, 2013) was a

general manager A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...

of the

Atlanta Hawks The Atlanta Hawks are an American professional basketball team based in Atlanta. The Hawks compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Southeast Division. The team plays its home games at ...

franchise, and the NBA's longtime Director of Scouting. He was a recipient of the Basketball Hall of Fame's

John Bunn Award The John Bunn Award—in full, the John W. Bunn Lifetime Achievement Award—is an annual basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete wit ...

Life

Born in Paterson, New Jersey in 1927, the son of two Russian Jewish immigrants, Blake served in the US Army at the end of World War II and attended Wilkes College in

Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania Wilkes-Barre ( or ) is a city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Luzerne County. Located at the center of the Wyoming Valley in Northeastern Pennsylvania, it had a population of 44,328 in the 2020 census. It is the s ...

. He spent his early career promoting local boxing matches, stock car races, and baseball games. He later worked for several professional baseball and football teams, and helping to found the Continental Basketball Association. Blake became manager of the Hawks in 1954, when the team was based in

Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee ...

. From 1954 to 1970, Blake guided the team to seven division titles and one NBA championship (

1958 Events January * January 1 – The European Economic Community (EEC) comes into being. * January 3 – The West Indies Federation is formed. * January 4 ** Edmund Hillary's Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition completes the third ...

).Basketball Hall of Fame Announces Prestigious Bunn Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient
. Basketball Hall of Fame. 22 August 2005. One of Blake's most notable player acquisitions for the Hawks was

Lenny Wilkens Leonard Randolph Wilkens (born October 28, 1937) is an American former basketball player and coach in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He has been inducted three times into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, first in 1989 as ...

, a point guard from Providence College whom Blake had watched in the 1960 National Invitation Tournament. Blake selected Wilkens with the seventh pick of the

1960 NBA Draft The 1960 NBA draft was the 14th annual draft of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The draft was held on April 11, 1960, before the 1960–61 season. In this draft, eight NBA teams took turns selecting amateur U.S. college basketball pl ...

, and Wilkens went on to have a Hall of Fame career as a player and a coach. At the

1970 NBA Draft The 1970 NBA draft was the 24th annual draft of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The draft was held on March 23, 1970, before the 1970–71 season. In this draft, 17 NBA teams took turns selecting amateur U.S. college basketball player ...

, Blake became the first general manager in NBA history to select a player from a foreign league by drafting

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

Manuel Raga Manuel "Manolo" Raga Navarro (born March 14, 1944) is a Mexican former professional basketball player. During his playing career, he was nicknamed, "The Flying Mexican", due to his nationality and his one of a kind 43 inch standing (no step) vert ...

in the 10th round. Blake followed that selection with

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

Dino Meneghin Dino Meneghin (, ; born 18 January 1950) is an Italian former professional basketball player. He is widely considered to be the best Italian player ever, as well as one of Europe's all-time greats. A 2.06 m (6 ft 9 in) tall center, Meneghi ...

in the 11th round. Neither player ever signed with the Hawks, since the team could not afford to buy out their contracts, but the draft selections set the stage for the later influx of global talent into the NBA. In 1970, Blake left the Hawks to become president of the

Pittsburgh Condors The Pittsburgh Condors were a professional basketball team in the original American Basketball Association (ABA). Originally called the Pittsburgh Pipers, they were a charter franchise of the ABA and captured the first league title. The team pla ...

, a team in the rival American Basketball Association. He spent one season with them before founding his own basketball scouting service, Marty Blake and Associates. When the ABA-NBA merger occurred in 1976, Blake was named NBA Director of Scouting Services. Blake and his associates were credited with discovering such players as

Jack Sikma Jack Wayne Sikma (born November 14, 1955) is an American former professional basketball center. He was a seven-time NBA All-Star with the Seattle SuperSonics, who drafted him in the first round with the eighth overall pick of the 1977 NBA draft. ...

Terry Porter Terry Porter (born April 8, 1963) is an American former college basketball coach and former player in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He was most recently the head men's basketball coach at the University of Portland. A native of Wis ...

Dennis Rodman Dennis Keith Rodman (born May 13, 1961) is an American former professional basketball player. Known for his fierce defensive and rebounding abilities, his biography on the official NBA website states that he is "arguably the best reboundin ...

Scottie Pippen Scotty Maurice Pippen Sr. (born September 25, 1965), usually spelled Scottie Pippen, is an American former professional basketball player. He played 17 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA), winning six NBA championships with the ...

Tim Hardaway Timothy Duane Hardaway Sr. (born September 1, 1966) is an American former professional basketball player. Hardaway played in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for the Golden State Warriors, Miami Heat, Dallas Mavericks, Denver Nuggets a ...

, Ben Wallace,

Karl Malone Karl Anthony Malone (born July 24, 1963) is an American former professional basketball player in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Nicknamed "the Mailman", he is considered one of the greatest power forwards in NBA history. Malone sp ...

, and Joe Dumars. Official NBA publications referred to Blake as the "Godfather of the NBA Draft" because of his ability to identify skilled players at smaller colleges. In 2005, Blake received the Bunn Lifetime Achievement Award from the Basketball Hall of Fame, the hall's most prestigious honor outside of enshrinement. He once maintained a

blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order s ...

at NBA.com called "On the Road with Marty Blake." Blake died in suburban Atlanta in 2013.Chris Ekstrand.
Former scout, GM Marty Blake, 86, lived a full basketball life
. NBA.com. 7 April 2013.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blake, Marty 1927 births 2013 deaths Sportspeople from Paterson, New Jersey American Basketball Association executives Continental Basketball Association executives National Basketball Association executives Pittsburgh Condors executives