What Dan Grunfeld's Hiring as General Manager Means for Stanford Basketball

Stanford basketball has a new general manager. Earlier this month, the program announced that it had hired Dan Grunfeld to be the new general manager, succeeding Eric Reveno.

Grunfeld will take over ahead of the 2026-2027 season and run all basketball-related operations such as recruiting, roster construction, NIL and other aspects. But what does the hire mean for Stanford basketball and what does Grunfeld bring to the table?

Grunfeld, a former standout player for Stanford from 2002-2006, is another guy who understands the culture. Hiring him gives the program someone who is familiar with the lay of the land on The Farm and understands what needs to happen for Stanford basketball to be successful.

The Cardinal have not made the NCAA tournament in well over a decade, and since Kyle Smith became the head coach, snapping that streak has been the number one goal. The hope is that Grunfeld can lure top players to the program and get them to buy in.

Ebuka Okorie is the latest example of a superstar the Cardinal were able to recruit, but coming out of high school, he was generally overlooked.

Now, the Cardinal will turn to Grunfeld to reset the standard and put the program in a position to not only consistently be in the running for high-level players, but bring it back into the national spotlight. Grunfeld will double as an assistant coach on Smith's staff.

Grunfeld was a centerpiece during his time playing for Stanford, leading the program in scoring as a junior, averaging 17 points per game. Despite tearing his ACL in February of that season, he was still named to the First-team All-Pac-10. 

Grunfeld went undrafted in the 2006 NBA Draft and went on to play overseas, signing his first professional contract with the German team EWE Baskets Oldenburg. He played in multiple different countries including Spain and Israel before retiring in 2014.

After his playing days were over, he returned to Stanford and received an MBA. Grunfeld then began a career as a technology executive in Silicon Valley and is involved in social and political issues. But through it all, he has stayed close to basketball and will take full advantage of the opportunity he is getting to return to the game full-time.

Reveno, Grunfeld's predecessor, left Stanford to take the head coaching job at Brown University. A former Stanford basketball player from 1985-1989, he served as an assistant for the program in multiple stints—first from 1997-2004, then in 2005-2006 as the associate head coach and finally from 2024-2026 as both the associate head coach and general manager.

In between those stints, he was the head coach at Portland from 2006-2016, an assistant at Georgia Tech from 2016-2022 and the associate head coach at Oregon State from 2022-2024. 

Stanford has a new-look roster this season, but managed to add several high-level recruits including guards Aziz Olajuwon, Isaiah Rogers, Elias Obenyah and Julius Price and center Drew Anderson.

Beginning training camp soon, the program will play its first exhibition game against Santa Clara on Oct. 17 followed by a second exhibition contest against Oregon on Oct. 25. Stanford officially begins its season on Nov. 2 at home against Eastern Washington.