Jerome Richard Krause was an American sports scout and executive who was the general manager of the Chicago Bulls in the National Basketball Association from 1985 to 2003.
33 Facts About Jerry Krause
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Jerry Krause received the NBA Executive of the Year Award in 1988 and 1996.
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Jerry Krause was posthumously inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2017.
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Jerry Krause was born in 1939 to a Jewish family and grew up in Chicago.
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Jerry Krause played high school baseball as a catcher at Taft High School in Chicago and attended Bradley University.
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Early on Jerry Krause gained a reputation of being able to eye talent.
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Jerry Krause is credited by some for discovering future Hall of Famer Earl Monroe.
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The Bullets did not draft him, but Jerry Krause continued to keep in touch during Jackson's playing career and into his first years as a coach.
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Jerry Krause worked in the 1970s for the Cleveland Indians, Oakland Athletics, Seattle Mariners, and Chicago White Sox.
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Jerry Krause's first hire was longtime personal friend Tex Winter as a Bulls assistant bench coach.
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Jerry Krause urged Winter to teach all of the Bulls players, especially Michael Jordan, the Triangle Offense.
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Jerry Krause even had to fire then Bulls head coach Doug Collins and replace him with assistant coach Phil Jackson because Collins would not let Winter do as Jerry Krause had instructed.
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Jerry Krause made a number of moves that began building the foundation for future success.
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Jerry Krause turned over the Bulls roster and built up a collection of draft picks, although the moves in 1985 and 1986 were not particularly noteworthy.
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Jerry Krause selected forward Brad Sellers in the first round of the 1986 NBA draft, but Sellers did not garner significant playing time, and was traded after three seasons.
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Jerry Krause continued in 1989 and 1990 to add some important depth to the roster.
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Jerry Krause attempted to replace Jordan with defensive specialist Pete Myers and free agent Ron Harper, but neither proved capable of leading Chicago to a championship, although Harper played an invaluable role in the second "three-peat".
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Just before Jordan announced his retirement, Jerry Krause was finally able to persuade Kukoc to buy himself out of his European contract and join the Bulls.
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When Jordan returned to the NBA at the end of the 1995 season, Jerry Krause went to work in assembling what has been labeled the best team in NBA history, after the offseason acquisition of Dennis Rodman.
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The Bulls won a then-NBA record 72 games, and Jerry Krause was named Executive of the Year for the second time.
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Jerry Krause planned on selecting tall forward Brad Sellers in the 1986 NBA draft.
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Sellers, Jerry Krause reasoned, handled the ball very well for a big man, and had a solid outside jumper.
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However, Jerry Krause picked Sellers anyway, and spent the summer trying to sell him to Jordan.
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Jerry Krause made another transaction in 1988 to which Jordan strongly objected.
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All of the Bulls assistant coaches and their wives were invited to the wedding, as was Tim Floyd, then the head coach at Iowa State, whom Jerry Krause was openly courting as Jackson's successor.
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Jerry Krause has said that he had not spoken to Jackson since.
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When Jordan was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2009, Jerry Krause was not in attendance.
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Jerry Krause said he would not attend the ceremony over the Hall of Fame's refusal to induct Winter.
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Jerry Krause believed that the tandem of Chandler and Curry would develop into elite players and provide the foundation for another dynasty.
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Jerry Krause went back to his roots and worked briefly for the New York Yankees as a scout before joining the New York Mets in 2005.
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Jerry Krause was appointed by the Arizona Diamondbacks as a special assistant in its scouting department on April 1,2011.
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Jerry Krause had been struggling with health issues such as osteomyelitis.
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Jerry Krause was inducted into the 2017 Basketball Hall of Fame class posthumously.