Sean Marks began his basketball career at Rangitoto College. In 1992, he moved State-side to study and play for the University of California, Berkeley. He was the first New Zealand-born player to play in the NBA. In the 1998 NBA draft Marks was drafted by the New York Knicks, but went on to play for the Toronto Raptors.
Between 1998 until his retirement from playing in 2011, he played for the Miami Heat, San Antonio Spurs, Phoenix Suns, New Orleans Hornets and the Portland Trail Blazers. He also did a brief stint in Poland playing for Slask Wroclaw between 2000 and 2001. Upon retirement from the game he took up a position in 2012 as Director of Basketball for the Spurs, and a year later became Assistant Coach for the team. In 2015 he returned to the front office becoming Assistant General Manager of the Spurs.
Career highlights included playing for the Spurs who won the 2005 NBA Championship. The Spurs won the NBA Champs again in 2014 while Sean was Assistant Coach. He played for the Tall Blacks in the 2000 Sydney Olympics and the 2004 Athens Olympics, and was part of the Tall Blacks team that finished fourth at the 2002 FIBA World Championships held in Indianapolis, USA. That team went on to be awarded New Zealand’s team of the year and overall winners of the Halberg Awards for that year.
In February 2016, Marks started as General Manager for the Brooklyn Nets, part of the reason he was not able to attend the awards. His father, Gregory Marks, attended to accept the award on Sean Marks’ behalf.
