Bucks announce hiring of Jon Horst as GM

The Milwaukee Bucks officially have a new general manager.

The Bucks announced Friday that Jon Horst, who has served as the team's director of basketball operations since 2008, will take over the GM job recently vacated by John Hammond.

"Our No. 1 priority is building a championship-caliber organization and we believe Jon is the right person to be our general manager," Bucks owners Wes Edens, Marc Lasry, and Jamie Dinan said in a statement. "He has been an integral part of basketball operations for the last nine years, and has helped advise us on every major basketball decision since we purchased the team. Jon is very talented, capable, organized and someone we have leaned on for his strategic thinking and ability to execute our vision."

Horst was a bit of a dark horse in the Bucks' GM search. After conducting a series of interviews last week in New York, they'd reportedly narrowed the field down to three candidates, and none were Horst. In fact, the 34-year-old wasn't even the leading candidate among potential in-house hires.

Bucks assistant GM Justin Zanik was considered a front-runner, along with former Atlanta Hawks GM Wes Wilcox and Denver Nuggets assistant GM Arturas Karnisovas. Bucks ownership could not reach a consensus on Zanik, though he had the backing of Lasry and head coach Jason Kidd, according to The Vertical's Adrian Wojnarowski. Karnisovas was taken out of the running when he got promoted to GM in Denver.

"I'm extremely grateful to our ownership group for their faith and trust in me,” Horst said. "In my new capacity, I'm looking forward to working with Jason Kidd and the coaching staff, along with our world-class performance team, to give our talented players the support they need to bring a championship to Milwaukee and the state of Wisconsin."