Chris Spice, British Basketball Performance Director said: "This restructure has come at an important time for our organisation. We are improving year on year on the court and we have just signed a fantastic partner in Standard Life. It is now even more vital to ensure our resources are placed in the correct areas allowing British Basketball every opportunity to improve on-court performance and to grow our external revenues".
To build further commercial strength, drive new income streams and ensure first-class service of the British Basketball sponsor, Standard Life, a Head of Commercial and Business Operations is being recruited. Greater performance attention will be placed on Sport Science and Medicine innovations whilst at the same time athletes based in North America and developing young players in the UK will receive more focus.
Ron Wuotila has been appointed as the High Performance Manager based in North America and Warwick Cann takes on the new role of Performance Pathway Coordinator jointly funded with England Basketball - a first for the sport. Warwick will oversee the GB under 20 squads and he will chair British Basketball's Performance Management Group made up of performance representatives from the three home nations of England, Scotland and Wales. Ron will focus on building relationships with the NBA, NBA clubs and our NBA players as well as our GB under 20 men and women based at American colleges. Ron also becomes Team Manager of the senior GB men's team with his first challenge being their up and coming Eurobasket qualification campaign
In another significant move, Dr Mark Gillett has been appointed as Head of Sport Science and Medicine for British Basketball. Formerly the Chief Medical Officer, Gillet will now have responsibility for all sport science developments, staff and research. He will continue to oversee all medical areas including British Basketball's anti-doping policy and the British Olympic Association's athlete medical scheme.
These three key new roles all report direct to the Performance Director.
British Basketball is also pleased to announce Nick Nurse has been reappointed as Assistant Coach of the senior GB men's team working alongside Chris Finch as Head Coach. The pair recently clashed in the NBA D-League All-Stars game, where Finch's West Conference team were came out victorious over Nurse's East Conference side. While Ken Shields will continue as Assistance Coach of the senior GB women's team working with Head Coach Tom Maher.
