DETROIT — Former NBA star Derrick Coleman, who was named as the replacement for Detroit Public School League Athletics Commissioner Lafayette Evans on Wednesday afternoon, will be paid $40,000 more than his predecessor did, the Detroit Free Press reports.

Coleman has been Mayor Dave Bing’s longtime protégé and the move to name him leader of the district’s athletics came as a surprise to some. Coleman has no administrative experience but some believe his clout as a respected pro athlete may get the athletic league more funding.

Derrick Coleman celebrating Dave Bing's victory in the mayoral primary. (Photo by Minehaha Forman/Michigan Messenger)

Over the past few years, cuts to school athletics left Evans with a lot more work. He retired in September and told the Detroit Free Press that he had been “doing the work six or seven people used to do.”

Coleman will make $135,000 a year. Evans’ annual salary was $95,000, according to the Detroit Free Press.

In February, Coleman’s Detroit fine dining restaurant, Sweet Georgia Brown, was evicted from its location Greektown for nonpayment of rent. Coleman now owes owes $125,000 in rent and utilities and rent to the Greektown Casino and DTE Energy according to a report on Channel 7/WXYZ in Detroit.

Coleman said the economic downturn was responsible for the restaurant’s decline.

In 2007 Bing made Coleman a major investor in his $60 million luxury residential development on Detroit’s east riverfront.