A Man Who Knows How to Lead
Few in professional sports had a résumé as diverse as Jerry Colangelo’s. He was an assistant with the Chicago Bulls who became the first general manager of the expansion Suns, then came to own the Phoenix franchise, as well as the W.N.B.A.’s Mercury and baseball’s Arizona Diamondbacks.
After the United States men’s basketball team’s uninspiring performances at the 2002 world championships and the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Colangelo was named the program’s managing director and charged with returning it to prominence.
The sports columnist Dan Bickley shared the story of the United States’ victory at the 2008 Beijing Olympics in a new book, “Return of the Gold: The Journey of Jerry Colangelo and the Redeem Team.” Colangelo recently visited the N.B.A. Store in New York to discuss the process.