Marty Blake (March 22, 1927 – April 7, 2013) was a general manager of the Atlanta Hawks franchise, and the NBA's longtime Director of Scouting.
Born in Paterson, New Jersey in 1927, the son of two Russian Jewish immigrants,[1] Blake served in the US Army at the end of World War II and attended Wilkes College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
He spent his early career promoting local boxing matches, stock car races, and baseball games.
Neither player ever signed with the Hawks, since the team could not afford to buy out their contracts, but the draft selections set the stage for the later influx of global talent into the NBA.
Blake and his associates were credited with discovering such players as Jack Sikma, Terry Porter, Dennis Rodman, Scottie Pippen, Tim Hardaway, Ben Wallace,[3] Karl Malone, and Joe Dumars.