(Photo courtesy of Local Sports Journal)
Hughes continues to make Muskegon proud on and off the basketball court
By Tom Kendra
LocalSportsJournal.com
The goal coming out of Reeths-Puffer and the University of Michigan was to become a lawyer.
The problem was that Mark Hughes was too good at the game of basketball - first as a player, then as a coach, later as a scout and now as one of the most highly-regarded executives in the NBA, who was promoted over the summer to the title of Senior Vice President and Assistant General Manager of the red-hot Los Angeles Clippers.
As a result, 35 years after captaining Michigan to the 1989 national championship, Hughes’ days are still dominated by the piercing sound of squeaky sneakers and the rhythmic bouncing of a basketball.
“I absolutely love it,” said Hughes, 57, in a telephone interview from his New Orleans hotel room on the afternoon of Jan. 5, shortly before leaving for the Clippers game that night against the Pelicans.
“For me, it’s not a job. It’s a joy. I have a goal that I want to accomplish here with the Clippers and I enjoy giving it everything I have to make it happen.”
That goal is, plain and simply, leading the Clippers to their first-ever NBA championship - something that is looking like more and more of a possibility every day. The Clippers defeated New Orleans on Jan. 5 to improve to 22-12 overall, having won 14 of their last 16 games.
Hughes has been a huge part of the Clippers’ resurgence, ever since leaving East Coast and the New York Knicks to join the Clippers organization in 2017. He played a key role in bringing in Kawhi Leonard in 2019 and then veteran point guard James Harden during the past offseason - who is starting to look like, perhaps, the missing piece of the championship puzzle.
“Adding James Harden to our group has been outstanding,” said Hughes. “He is a great passer and a great reader of the game. Now, the guys are getting used to each other and really playing well.”
Hughes has always had a knack for making everyone around him better, going back to his prep days at Reeths-Puffer, when the 6-8 Hughes led the Rockets to the 1985 Class B Semifinals - the longest basketball run in R-P history.
Then it was on to the University of Michigan, where he was the co-captain of the Wolverines’ 1989 national championship team. He saw his playing time reduced at the end of that season due to the emergence of Loy Vaught, but his attitude and leadership was critical to the team’s run.
“There was no way we could have won a national championship without Mark,” Steve Fisher, who took over as head coach of Michigan from Bill Frieder just before the tournament that year, told the Los Angeles Times in 2020. “His play, for one, but his influence on the locker room, his support that he had for players and coaches. He’s someone that makes everybody he’s around better.”
It was shortly after his Michigan playing days were done, as he was getting ready to take the LSAT, that he got a call from the Detroit Pistons.
Hughes ended up making the Pistons’ roster for the 1990-1991 season, playing with the likes of Isaiah Thomas, Bill Laimbeer and Dennis Rodman.
He then played several years in Italy and France, before making an NBA roster again in 1996 with the Toronto Raptors. After a short stint there, he came close to home with the Grand Rapids Hoops, where he had his first foray into coaching as the team’s player/coach for two seasons.
Hughes retired from playing in 1999, but by then his reputation as a great evaluator of talent and, more importantly, a great communicator with players of all abilities, was well-known throughout the NBA.
He spent the next eight years of his life as an assistant coach with Orlando, San Diego State (under Fisher), Sacramento and then as a scout with the New York Knicks - logging perhaps more frequent-flyer miles than anyone in basketball.
“I’ve alway enjoyed travel, starting in 9th grade when I flew with my AAU team to Sweden and Finland,” said Hughes, who still makes it a point to come home to Muskegon every summer. “I still travel with the (Clippers) for about 70 percent of the road games. I find that I’m able to spend quality time with the guys outside of Los Angeles and all the distractions and really get to know them.”
His ability to truly connect with others has allowed Hughes, who started his basketball odyssey on the courts at the Buel Avenue Playground in Laketon Township, to move up to the very top of the NBA food chain.
Another trait which has contributed to his success is loyalty.
Hughes has had many opportunities to leave Los Angeles over the past seven years (he was a finalist for the position of General Manager of the Chicago Bulls in 2020), but has stayed loyal to the Clippers - which led to his promotion to Senior Vice President in June.
“Mark is a pillar of our organization, with an incredible eye for talent and way with people,” said Lawrence Frank, Clippers President of Basketball Operations, when Hughes’ promotion was announced in June. “He is a natural leader who helps steer our departments and set our trajectory.”
Loyalty is a big part of Hughes’ life off the court, earning his reputation as a true family man.
Hughes and his wife, Ronna, live in Hermosa Beach near Los Angeles and have three children - Mark Jr. (29), who is an engineer living in Oakland; Madelyn (27) who graduated from U-M Law School and is now a public defender in Seattle; and Jackson (24), who is currently choosing a graduate school to pursue a career as a psychologist.
The Clippers went to the Western Conference Finals in 2021 for the first time in franchise history, before losing to the Phoenix Suns. That led to the disappointment of last season, as the Clippers failed to make the playoffs for the first time since 2018, leading Hughes and the front office to take a gamble and put together a big package to bring Harden to the City of Angels.
After a tough start, Harden and the Clippers are hitting their stride.
The future looks even better as, after 25 years of sharing the Crypto.com Arena (formerly known as the Staples Center) with the Los Angeles Lakers, the Clippers will be moving next season to the Intuit Dome in Inglewood - an incredible facility which will feature a one-acre scoreboard. That scoreboard measures 44,000 square feet, while the average main scoreboard in NBA arenas is 9,000 square feet.
Even though the Lakers have LeBron James, it’s starting to feel like the next team to bring a title to Los Angeles could very well be the Clippers.
That sounds like a fantastic way for Hughes to cap his career in basketball.
“It is a joy working with all of the fantastic people in this organization,” said Hughes. “Yes, I’ve had opportunities to go elsewhere, but we have a great group here. I want to finish what we’ve started.
“I know what it feels like to win a championship. I want to experience that here with the Clippers.”
The problem was that Mark Hughes was too good at the game of basketball - first as a player, then as a coach, later as a scout and now as one of the most highly-regarded executives in the NBA, who was promoted over the summer to the title of Senior Vice President and Assistant General Manager of the red-hot Los Angeles Clippers.
As a result, 35 years after captaining Michigan to the 1989 national championship, Hughes’ days are still dominated by the piercing sound of squeaky sneakers and the rhythmic bouncing of a basketball.
“I absolutely love it,” said Hughes, 57, in a telephone interview from his New Orleans hotel room on the afternoon of Jan. 5, shortly before leaving for the Clippers game that night against the Pelicans.
“For me, it’s not a job. It’s a joy. I have a goal that I want to accomplish here with the Clippers and I enjoy giving it everything I have to make it happen.”
That goal is, plain and simply, leading the Clippers to their first-ever NBA championship - something that is looking like more and more of a possibility every day. The Clippers defeated New Orleans on Jan. 5 to improve to 22-12 overall, having won 14 of their last 16 games.
Hughes has been a huge part of the Clippers’ resurgence, ever since leaving East Coast and the New York Knicks to join the Clippers organization in 2017. He played a key role in bringing in Kawhi Leonard in 2019 and then veteran point guard James Harden during the past offseason - who is starting to look like, perhaps, the missing piece of the championship puzzle.
“Adding James Harden to our group has been outstanding,” said Hughes. “He is a great passer and a great reader of the game. Now, the guys are getting used to each other and really playing well.”
Hughes has always had a knack for making everyone around him better, going back to his prep days at Reeths-Puffer, when the 6-8 Hughes led the Rockets to the 1985 Class B Semifinals - the longest basketball run in R-P history.
Then it was on to the University of Michigan, where he was the co-captain of the Wolverines’ 1989 national championship team. He saw his playing time reduced at the end of that season due to the emergence of Loy Vaught, but his attitude and leadership was critical to the team’s run.
“There was no way we could have won a national championship without Mark,” Steve Fisher, who took over as head coach of Michigan from Bill Frieder just before the tournament that year, told the Los Angeles Times in 2020. “His play, for one, but his influence on the locker room, his support that he had for players and coaches. He’s someone that makes everybody he’s around better.”
It was shortly after his Michigan playing days were done, as he was getting ready to take the LSAT, that he got a call from the Detroit Pistons.
Hughes ended up making the Pistons’ roster for the 1990-1991 season, playing with the likes of Isaiah Thomas, Bill Laimbeer and Dennis Rodman.
He then played several years in Italy and France, before making an NBA roster again in 1996 with the Toronto Raptors. After a short stint there, he came close to home with the Grand Rapids Hoops, where he had his first foray into coaching as the team’s player/coach for two seasons.
Hughes retired from playing in 1999, but by then his reputation as a great evaluator of talent and, more importantly, a great communicator with players of all abilities, was well-known throughout the NBA.
He spent the next eight years of his life as an assistant coach with Orlando, San Diego State (under Fisher), Sacramento and then as a scout with the New York Knicks - logging perhaps more frequent-flyer miles than anyone in basketball.
“I’ve alway enjoyed travel, starting in 9th grade when I flew with my AAU team to Sweden and Finland,” said Hughes, who still makes it a point to come home to Muskegon every summer. “I still travel with the (Clippers) for about 70 percent of the road games. I find that I’m able to spend quality time with the guys outside of Los Angeles and all the distractions and really get to know them.”
His ability to truly connect with others has allowed Hughes, who started his basketball odyssey on the courts at the Buel Avenue Playground in Laketon Township, to move up to the very top of the NBA food chain.
Another trait which has contributed to his success is loyalty.
Hughes has had many opportunities to leave Los Angeles over the past seven years (he was a finalist for the position of General Manager of the Chicago Bulls in 2020), but has stayed loyal to the Clippers - which led to his promotion to Senior Vice President in June.
“Mark is a pillar of our organization, with an incredible eye for talent and way with people,” said Lawrence Frank, Clippers President of Basketball Operations, when Hughes’ promotion was announced in June. “He is a natural leader who helps steer our departments and set our trajectory.”
Loyalty is a big part of Hughes’ life off the court, earning his reputation as a true family man.
Hughes and his wife, Ronna, live in Hermosa Beach near Los Angeles and have three children - Mark Jr. (29), who is an engineer living in Oakland; Madelyn (27) who graduated from U-M Law School and is now a public defender in Seattle; and Jackson (24), who is currently choosing a graduate school to pursue a career as a psychologist.
The Clippers went to the Western Conference Finals in 2021 for the first time in franchise history, before losing to the Phoenix Suns. That led to the disappointment of last season, as the Clippers failed to make the playoffs for the first time since 2018, leading Hughes and the front office to take a gamble and put together a big package to bring Harden to the City of Angels.
After a tough start, Harden and the Clippers are hitting their stride.
The future looks even better as, after 25 years of sharing the Crypto.com Arena (formerly known as the Staples Center) with the Los Angeles Lakers, the Clippers will be moving next season to the Intuit Dome in Inglewood - an incredible facility which will feature a one-acre scoreboard. That scoreboard measures 44,000 square feet, while the average main scoreboard in NBA arenas is 9,000 square feet.
Even though the Lakers have LeBron James, it’s starting to feel like the next team to bring a title to Los Angeles could very well be the Clippers.
That sounds like a fantastic way for Hughes to cap his career in basketball.
“It is a joy working with all of the fantastic people in this organization,” said Hughes. “Yes, I’ve had opportunities to go elsewhere, but we have a great group here. I want to finish what we’ve started.
“I know what it feels like to win a championship. I want to experience that here with the Clippers.”
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