Former two-time Academic All-American and All-Pac-10 shooting guard Dan Grunfeld returned to The Farm as Stanford men’s basketball’s General Manager in October, 2026. In his first season, Grunfeld will also hold responsibilities as assistant coach.
A former team captain for the Cardinal, Grunfeld was a first team All-Pac-10 honoree in 2005 after leading the program in scoring with 17.9 points per game. Grunfeld scored 979 career points for the Cardinal, playing two seasons for Mike Montgomery and two for Trent Johnson, and he is one of four student-athletes in program history to be named a CSC Academic All-American twice, coming in 2005 and 2006. Additionally, he was a three-time selection to the Pac-10 All-Academic team.
As a player, Grunfeld helped lead Stanford to three NCAA Tournaments and one NIT, the 2004 Pac-10 Championship as well as a No. 1 overall seed in the 2004 NCAA Tournament and four weeks as the AP and USA Today/ESPN top-ranked team in the nation.
Following a standout career at Stanford, Grunfeld spent two summer leagues with the Indiana Pacers and one NBA training camp with the New York Knicks. He spent eight professional seasons overseas, playing in Germany, Spain and Israel, winning a league championship with CB Valladolid in Spain in 2009 and playing in the Eurocup in two seasons with Hapoel Jerusalem from 2011-13.
Grunfeld earned his Master of Business Administration degree from Stanford in 2017, and he spent four years operating at a high-growth startup in Silicon Valley, STRIVR, in enterprise sales and strategic development. In 2019, Grunfeld moved to Lightspeed Venture Partners, and he has spent the last five years as the Vice President of business development and partnerships. His role at Lightspeed was to accelerate startup growth and manage relationships with some of the most influential technology companies in the world.
In addition to his successful career on the court and in the business world, Grunfeld authored the critically-acclaimed ‘By the Grace of the Game,’ a multi-generational story detailing his family history from the Holocaust to the NBA.
Grunfeld is the son of former NBA guard Ernie Grunfeld, a 1977 first round pick who spent nine seasons as a player in the NBA. Dan Grunfeld follows in the footsteps of his father, who was the general manager or president of basketball operations of the New York Knicks from 1993-99, the Milwaukee Bucks from 1999-2003, and the Washington Wizards from 2003-2019.