{"id":443659,"date":"2026-05-15T20:48:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T20:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/443659\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T20:48:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T20:48:13","slug":"blakes-joins-stanford-staff-as-director-of-player-personnel-stanford-cardinal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/443659\/","title":{"rendered":"Blakes Joins Stanford Staff as Director of Player Personnel &#8211; Stanford Cardinal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>STANFORD, Calif. \u2013 After starring at Stanford in 2024-25 in the first year of the <a href=\"https:\/\/gostanford.com\/staff\/kyle-smith\" title=\"Kyle Smith\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kyle Smith<\/a> era and playing professionally last season, <a href=\"https:\/\/gostanford.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/player\/jaylen-blakes\" title=\"Jaylen Blakes\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jaylen Blakes<\/a> has returned to The Farm as the basketball program\u2019s director of player personnel.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are blessed to have Jaylen come back to the Farm,\u201d said Smith. \u201cHe bet on our staff and Stanford when we first arrived, and now he wants to elevate the program as a coach.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Blakes appeared in 32 games as a graduate transfer at Stanford in 2024-25, averaging 13.1 points, 2.9 rebounds, 4.7 assists and 1.7 steals per game while ranking fourth in the ACC in free throw percentage (89.6%) in conference play. His totals ended up ninth all-time in a single-season at Stanford for steals (54) and 13th in assists (149).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am blessed and grateful for the opportunity from Coach Smith to allow me to join the coaching staff and be a part of the Stanford community once again,&#8221; said Blakes. &#8220;I am excited to assist in the continued growth and excellence of this basketball program.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Successful on the court and in the classroom, Blakes was an ACC All-Academic Team selection at Stanford and his game-winning shot on the road at North Carolina earned him the Stanford Athletic Board\u2019s Bob Murphy Award for the department\u2019s play of the season.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJaylen has tremendous knowledge of the game and a passion for competition, and he will be a great role model for our current team, especially our incoming players,\u201d continued Smith. \u201cHis playing experiences paired with his coaching talent should be a great addition for Stanford basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Blakes spent his first three seasons at Duke, where he was a two-time ACC All-Academic team honoree and a two-time recipient of Duke\u2019s Dr. Deryl Hart Award, given to the team\u2019s top scholar-athlete. He helped the Blue Devils to the 2022 NCAA Final Four and the 2024 NCAA Elite Eight.<\/p>\n<p>Last season, Blakes played for Hapoel Upper Galilee Safed in Israel, where he averaged 15.6 points, 2.4 rebounds, 4.6 assists and 2.0 steals per game before a season-ending injury cut his campaign short.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STANFORD, Calif. \u2013 After starring at Stanford in 2024-25 in the first year of the Kyle Smith era&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":443660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-443659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}