Cho and Babby have benefited from a recent tendency among team owners to seek candidates with multifaceted backgrounds when hiring executives. Before the Houston Rockets promoted Daryl Morey, an M.I.T. graduate and an expert in statistical analysis, to general manager in 2007, teams usually turned to former scouts, players or coaches to run their basketball operations.

Photo

Shortly after Morey’s promotion, the Sonics hired the highly respected Sam Presti away from the San Antonio Spurs and made him their general manager. Cho worked as an assistant general manager under Presti, who was a Rhodes scholar nominee at Emerson College, when the Sonics moved to Oklahoma City and became the Thunder. The two quickly earned a reputation for shrewd trades to acquire high draft picks.

In a similarly innovative organizational move, the Minnesota Timberwolves last year hired David Kahn, a former sportswriter and lawyer, as their president of basketball operations. And this summer the Cleveland Cavaliers promoted Chris Grant, who holds a master’s degree in educational leadership, to general manager.

Still, even as some teams seem to lean toward executives with nontraditional skills, others have benefited from executives with strong N.B.A. backgrounds. The teams in last season’s N.B.A. finals were each led by former players: Mitch Kupchak of the Los Angeles Lakers and Danny Ainge of the Boston Celtics. The Miami Heat president, Pat Riley, a former player and coach, pulled off the free-agency coup of the summer by landing LeBron James and Chris Bosh while retaining Dwyane Wade.

The Nets with Billy King and the Charlotte Hornets with Dell Demps turned to men with traditional backgrounds this summer to fill top positions in their front offices.

But the tide may be turning. Babby, a graduate of Yale Law School, first joined the sports hemisphere by representing the N.F.L.’s Washington Redskins and baseball’s Baltimore Orioles.

Later, as a player representative, he carved out a client list that included basketball ambassadors like Grant Hill, Tim Duncan and Ray Allen.

Advertisement Continue reading the main story

Last summer Babby negotiated Hill’s deal with Phoenix. This summer he found himself in a conversation with Robert Sarver, the Suns’ owner, that touched on several topics.

Photo

“At one point, I said this is starting to sound like a job interview,” Babby said. “We talked about how to run an organization, and it evolved into a great opportunity for me, but it wasn’t something that I set out to get.”

Babby quickly called Hill, his first client as an agent, and alerted him to the potential of a deal.

“The last week or two he’s been calling me ‘boss,’ so he’s been very enthusiastic about it,” said Babby, who plans on hiring a general manager to oversee player personnel.

Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters.

This summer the Suns traded for Hedo Turkoglu, another of Babby’s former clients. His trade coincided with the discussions between Babby and Sarver.

“I had recused myself long before the trade occurred,” Babby said.

Cho, who once worked as an engineer for Boeing, graduated from Pepperdine’s law school. After immigrating to the United States from Burma with his family as a child, Cho developed a strong interest in sports. He recognized sooner than most that a law degree would be a useful tool for a sports executive. He served his internship with the Sonics while attending law school and soon after his graduation in 1997 was named Seattle’s director of basketball affairs.

“He had a law degree and a diverse background, but he also has a pretty rich basketball background,” Larry Miller, Portland’s team president, said of Cho. “That was one of the things that was really appealing. He’s got some pretty vast experience when it comes to working for a basketball organization. I’ve heard him referred to as the Swiss army knife of basketball.”

Cho said, he will use an “eyes, ears, mind” approach.

“The eyes are the in-person live scouting and film scouting, the ears are all the background work you do on a guy and trying to get intel about his work ethic and what’s he like as a person, and a numbers approach is the analytical portion,” Cho said.

Cho says he will process the information before delivering a verdict. As the game evolves, he and Babby are now among the next generation of executives whose job it is to guide their franchises in the best direction.