MIKE ABDENOUR

MIKE ABDENOUR

[DIRECTOR OF TEAM OPERATIONS]

by DETROIT PISTONS 2021 MEDIA GUIDE

Mike Abdenour is in his seventh season as director of team operations for the Detroit Pistons after 35 years as the team’s athletic trainer. This will also mark his 45th overall season in the NBA. 

Abdenour’s name has been virtually synonymous with the Pistons since he first started as the team’s trainer in 1975. He worked in Detroit for 17 seasons before joining the Philadelphia 76ers in 1992. After a three-year stay in Philadelphia, he returned to the Pistons in 1995. The 2020-21 season marks Abdenour’s 25th in Detroit since his return. 

Abdenour was always considered an integral part of Coach Chuck Daly’s staff on the Pistons’ championship teams of 1989 and 1990, leaving Detroit after the 1991-92 season to take the job in Philadelphia. 

He originally joined the Pistons staff in 1975, making the jump to the professional level from Wayne State University. He has been a member of the NBA’s tight training fraternity since making that move. 

A long-standing certified member of the National Athletic Trainers’ Association, as well as a Performance Enhancement Specialist with the National Academy Sports Medicine, Abdenour has handled a number of prestigious duties during his tenure as a trainer in the NBA. Included on that list are serving as trainer for the 1979, 1994 and 2007 NBA All-Star games and the 1981 NBA All-Stars tour of mainland China. He served as secretary on the NBATA Executive Committee from 1987-89. He and his brother, Tom, made history of sorts in 1987, when they became the first brother training combination in professional sports when Tom was appointed trainer for the Golden State Warriors. 

Abdenour and his wife, Janice, have two sons, Michael and Keith.