Trajan Langdon, Alaska's first NBA player, used his Russian and Texan connections to land his new job as the assistant general manager for the Brooklyn Nets.
Langdon, 39, joined the NBA team's front office on Tuesday. His hiring was the first major move by Sean Marks, who became the team's general manager three weeks ago.
Langdon has a history with both Marks and Mikhail Prokhorov, the Russian billionaire who bought the Nets in 2010.
He worked as a pro scout for the San Antonio Spurs from 2012-15, a span that overlapped with Marks' time with the Spurs as an assistant coach.
Before that, Langdon spent six seasons as a star guard for CSKA Moscow, which he led to two Euroleague championships. The owner of the Moscow team at that time was Prokhorov.
"Trajan is someone I worked with closely at the Spurs, and he brings a unique combination of NBA and European experience to the position," Marks said Tuesday when Langdon's hiring was announced.
Langdon comes to Brooklyn from the Cleveland Cavaliers, who hired him as the director of player administration at the start of the current season.
That job took Langdon back to his NBA roots. Cleveland picked him in the first round of the 1999 draft, and Langdon played sparingly during three seasons with the Cavs before leaving to Europe.
After nearly a decade of success overseas, Langdon retired after the 2010-11 season -- after helping Moscow to a ninth straight Russian League championship -- and almost immediately began his NBA front-office career.
Known for his jump shot and his smarts, Langdon starred at East High and Duke University.
Although he graduated from Anchorage's Steller Secondary School, he made his name as an East T-bird. He was a top college prospect who helped put Alaska high school basketball on the map, drawing attention from colleges that seldom before looked so far north for talent.
At Duke, Langdon was a first-team All-American who also earned academic accolades.
"People around the NBA rave about Langdon's international scouting background, articulateness and ability as a talent evaluator," ESPN's Mike Mazzeo wrote after Tuesday's announcement.
Langdon's connections go beyond Marks and Prokhorov.
When he played for CSKA Moscow, Nets board member Sergey Kushchenko was the team's general manager and Spurs assistant coach Ettore Messina was the head coach. And while in Cleveland, Langdon worked with former Cavs coach David Blatt, the former head coach of Team Russia.