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Boston Celtics guard Derrick White has a new job with his old team. But he wasn’t traded away by Boston in any deal related to the NBA Draft this week, contrary to recent rumors.
He instead returned to Colorado, where his old college in Boulder introduced him as its first president of basketball strategy. This is a volunteer job that White, 31, will work on the side as he tries to help the Buffaloes get back to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament for the first time since 2024, when they also had three NBA draft picks.
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Colorado athletic director Fernando Lovo called the hiring “transformational” at a news conference June 24.
“It changes our trajectory,” Lovo said. “I really believe that.”
White himself said he doesn’t “know too much about college athletics” and its turbulent current landscape but hopes to serve as a resource for the program in several ways, including by giving $2 million to the men’s basketball program.
“The first thing I want to do is learn,” White said. “I know that I’ve learned a lot in the NBA, but this is a whole new position, whole new title, whole new everything that I don’t really know that much about.”
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Why Derrick White is latest to join this trend
This is the latest in a recent string of college basketball programs hiring former players who currently are in the NBA. The general goal is to leverage the star power of the player to help attract recruits in the age of unlimited annual player transfers and the constant need to come up with more money to pay players. At Colorado, the football team similarly leveraged the fame of coach Deion Sanders to help generate buzz and rebuild a dormant brand after hiring him in December 2022.
Colorado head men’s basketball coach Tad Boyle had a more colorful way to sum up the larger college sports environment Wednesday:
“College athletics is a little messed up right now.”
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So he wants White to help navigate it with his background as an NBA champion and Colorado native. Boyle, Colorado’s all-time winningest coach, even was moved to tears at the news conference as he enters his 17th…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/derrick-white-other-nba-stars-091349917.html
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Publish date : 2026-06-25 09:13:00
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