Should Monte get an extension?

[The_Jamal]

Yes, they need to keep him until they are at least ready to consider firing Brown. Otherwise they wind up in the same cycle of coach they won't fire with GM who doesn't get to run his team.

This is really year 1 for Monte right now.

Yep. However you feel about Monte's job performance, it doesn't matter at this point because you just let him hire a coach to a 4-year contract. What the Kings absolutely can't do is repeat the Vlade mistake, bring in a new GM, force him to keep Brown for a year or 2 and just waste another 5 years of this franchise.

A minimum 2 more seasons should not even be a question.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

Yep. However you feel about Monte's job performance, it doesn't matter at this point because you just let him hire a coach to a 4-year contract. What the Kings absolutely can't do is repeat the Vlade mistake, bring in a new GM, force him to keep Brown for a year or 2 and just waste another 5 years of this franchise.

A minimum 2 more seasons should not even be a question.

I also think that in the same amount of time as Monte has been here, Vlade had one franchise crippling offseason and was two years removed from being completely bailed out before passing on a generational talent that was gifted to them. And then after betting on the wrong horse, he fired the coach only to replace him with someone who would even further the divide between the new player and the team.

Meanwhile Monte has quietly restored some dignity to the franchise, actually created a balanced roster in two abbreviated offseasons, and actually seems to have hired a coach and competent bench staff without any indication that the coach is in a power struggle with the GM team. It's going to take YEARS to undo what the last two incompetent regimes did, plus the Maloofs before them. But Monte has very quietly shifted the culture and focus of an organization in disarray. But he hasn't achieved immediate results on the court so we should throw that away, or just play chicken with him and his contract. Absolutely ludicrous.

 

[jiimbob]

I’ve got no qualms with Monte. He’s preserved draft capital while bringing in good character/talent players.
I have my ideas, but clueless as the next guy how this coming draft pick might pan out. At least there’s a confidence he’ll get it right.

 

[Elektrik]

I know what some think - but this is more a prevalence question. How many think Monte should be extended now/ heading into the draft? How many want him gone? Who thinks we should wait and see?

I personally think he should be extended for mostly basic reasons. I feel he has drafted well, had success identifying talent in some otherwise discarded players, and think he did well to get Sabonis for relatively little. I think he will make better decisions with more certainty re his role. And, more than anything, do not think I have it in me to go over another 'new GM going to do better stint.'

Keep Monte. The revolving door needs to stop. It’s no wonder we are a laughing stock. A little stability may go a long way. What have we got to lose?

 

[kb02]

Yep. However you feel about Monte's job performance, it doesn't matter at this point because you just let him hire a coach to a 4-year contract. What the Kings absolutely can't do is repeat the Vlade mistake, bring in a new GM, force him to keep Brown for a year or 2 and just waste another 5 years of this franchise.

A minimum 2 more seasons should not even be a question.

This narrative that Brown is entirely Monte's dude is probably not completely accurate. I watched parts of CD's show on Youtube and he's implying that:

1. The candidate field was narrower than expected because of (essentially) Vivek. My bet, Atkins and probably others were like I'm not interviewing.
2. One candidate interviewed, but said no, because he was uncomfortable with the leadership structure above Monte (i.e, Vivek). Your guess is as good as mine as to who said no.
3. Brown got paid.

Given the above, there is no way that Vivek didn't have a say in Brown's hire. And there is also no way that Brown didn't think through the possibility of working under a different GM after 1 year. Brown came into this eyes wide open.

 

[Sam0ah]

Big Monte fan here... It has been so much better since He took over. You can at least see what He is trying to do with the Kings..

 

[pdxKingsFan]

Vivek owns the team. There's always going to be parameters on who a GM can hire in this regard. Mike Brown and the staff he has assembled make a lot of basketball sense. I did not want to go the retread route, and yet I feel like this whole team (Brown, Louck, Fernandez, and Triano) is as exciting as hiring any of the young candidates on their own.

 

[24 rick barry]

39-43
34-48
27-55

Vlade?
It's actually Petrie's 2-4th season with the team. Results don't happen overnight, but the culture has already began to shift. If you don't make a move to keep this guy someone is going to come get him.

Vlade should have been fired soon after missing on Luka. It's a tough business.

 

[24 rick barry]

I also think that in the same amount of time as Monte has been here, Vlade had one franchise crippling offseason and was two years removed from being completely bailed out before passing on a generational talent that was gifted to them. And then after betting on the wrong horse, he fired the coach only to replace him with someone who would even further the divide between the new player and the team.

Meanwhile Monte has quietly restored some dignity to the franchise, actually created a balanced roster in two abbreviated offseasons, and actually seems to have hired a coach and competent bench staff without any indication that the coach is in a power struggle with the GM team. It's going to take YEARS to undo what the last two incompetent regimes did, plus the Maloofs before them. But Monte has very quietly shifted the culture and focus of an organization in disarray. But he hasn't achieved immediate results on the court so we should throw that away, or just play chicken with him and his contract. Absolutely ludicrous.

Monte McNair on Luke Walton: ‘He’s the coach who is going to get us back to the playoffs’ March 18th, 2021 Kings Herald

“The thing we are definitely all doing is rowing the boat in the same direction,” McNair said. “Now we want to row as fast as we can and as straight as we can. …But we are for sure rowing in the same direction, and that makes it a lot easier. We’ve got a great group. And so now, it’s just, ‘Can we do it?’” The Athletic Nov. 9, 2021

“After a thorough evaluation of where we’re at, I’ve decided to make a coaching change," McNair told reporters. "As you’ve seen, coach Luke Walton has been relieved of his head coaching duties, and Alvin Gentry will be our interim head coach. NBC sports.

Despite Walton having two years remaining on his contract worth $11.5 million, bringing him back was a "basketball decision," McNair said. "I understand that's kind of out there, but I've been given every resource I need to get this team back to the playoffs and this was a basketball decision."-CBS sports.

 

[hrdboild]

Yes, they need to keep him until they are at least ready to consider firing Brown. Otherwise they wind up in the same cycle of coach they won't fire with GM who doesn't get to run his team.

This is really year 1 for Monte right now.

Yeah, this is a great point. Monte didn't hire Luke Walton or Alvin Gentry. It's pretty unfair to hire a guy to clean up the previous GM's mess and then hold him responsible for poor performance in his first two seasons while the team was still led by the coaching staff he was forced to keep on. Vlade got 5 years to attempt to make the team better and he had no previous NBA front office experience. Monte came in with 13 years of front office experience. At the very least he should get 5 years himself to complete a turnaround or at least show measurable progress.

 

[24 rick barry]

Yeah, this is a great point. Monte didn't hire Luke Walton or Alvin Gentry. It's pretty unfair to hire a guy to clean up the previous GM's mess and then hold him responsible for poor performance in his first two seasons while the team was still led by the coaching staff he was forced to keep on. Vlade got 5 years to attempt to make the team better and he had no previous NBA front office experience. Monte came in with 13 years of front office experience. At the very least he should get 5 years himself to complete a turnaround or at least show measurable progress.

If he needed a 5 year contract, I'm guessing Vivek wouldn't go that long. If not, why did he not sign a five year contract?

Instead, he signed a 3 year contract. The owner and the GM knew the parameters to be 3 years and further evaluate prospects in time.

Why did he take the job with only a 3 year contract-but in actuality needed 5?

 

[pdxKingsFan]

Vlade should have been fired soon after missing on Luka. It's a tough business.

He was fired after Bagley's second year. You may recall the first year actually went pretty well.

All that is really here nor there, Monte has cleaned up the mess admirably. Why put him on a tighter timeline than the people who made the mess to begin with?

Also, the numbers I posted were Petrie's numbers. Just to show that being hasty 3-4 years into a GM's tenure may lead you to miss out on the payoff.

 

[fansinceday1]

What the kings do with monte before the draft will tell everyone what direction they are really going in.

 

[Section 101]

He was fired after Bagley's second year. You may recall the first year actually went pretty well.

All that is really here nor there, Monte has cleaned up the mess admirably. Why put him on a tighter timeline than the people who made the mess to begin with?

Also, the numbers I posted were Petrie's numbers. Just to show that being hasty 3-4 years into a GM's tenure may lead you to miss out on the payoff.

Kinda hard to go bad when he was hurt all his first year.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

Kinda hard to go bad when he was hurt all his first year.

His first year he played 62 games. It was the year we should have finished over .500 (Joerger intentionally lost the final game to keep us from 40, and there was definitely 2 more wins in the final 10 or so) and the one glimmer of hope since Malone's dismissal. Bagley looked good.

 

[24 rick barry]

Big Monte fan here... It has been so much better since He took over. You can at least see what He is trying to do with the Kings..

But while Monte is GM for the past 2 years- the Kings record has sucked.

 

[Padrino]

But while Monte is GM for the past 2 years- the Kings record has sucked.

I'm as weary of losing as the next Kings fan, but fifteen years of futility doesn't just get overwritten with a winning culture and a winning record at the snap of a finger. You have to give a GM time to hire a coach and shape a roster to fit his vision. Consistent, sustainable winning usually takes at least a few seasons when a good GM inherits a basement dweller with a well-established culture of losing.

The franchise has been in Sacramento for thirty-eight years. In that span, they've had exactly eight winning seasons. All eight were under the same regime, with Geoff Petrie as general manager and Rick Adelman as head coach. But as has been pointed out a few times in this thread, even Petrie posted losing records early in his tenure before the "golden years" we all remember so fondly. It took him some time to collect assets and configure the roster to fit his vision.

If the Maloofs had been as impatient as some in this thread (or as impatient as Vivek has been, for that matter), the Kings might instead have zero winning seasons in the thirty-eight years they've been in Sacramento.

 

[24 rick barry]

I'm as weary of losing as the next Kings fan, but fifteen years of futility doesn't just get overwritten with a winning culture and a winning record at the snap of a finger. You have to give a GM time to hire a coach and shape a roster to fit his vision. Consistent, sustainable winning usually takes at least a few seasons when a good GM inherits a basement dweller with a well-established culture of losing.

The franchise has been in Sacramento for thirty-eight years. In that span, they've had exactly eight winning seasons. All eight were under the same regime, with Geoff Petrie as general manager and Rick Adelman as head coach. But as has been pointed out a few times in this thread, even Petrie posted losing records early in his tenure before the "golden years" we all remember so fondly. It took him some time to collect assets and configure the roster to fit his vision.

If the Maloofs had been as impatient as some in this thread (or as impatient as Vivek has been, for that matter), the Kings might instead have zero winning seasons in the thirty-eight years they've been in Sacramento.

Monte has one year left on his contract, year 3. If you extend Monte now to an addiional 2 years for instance, what happens, if we have another 30 win season, or don't make the playoffs, or continue to be between 27th and 30th in defense another year, what would you do then? Would you then fire him at the end of next year, and continue to pay him for 2 more years?

 

[kb02]

Monte has one year left on his contract, year 3. If you extend Monte now to an addiional 2 years for instance, what happens, if we have another 30 win season, or don't make the playoffs, or continue to be between 27th and 30th in defense another year, what would you do then? Would you then fire him at the end of next year, and continue to pay him for 2 more years?

This board seems to think an extension = guaranteed job security. We all know it doesn't. It's manufactured trauma. Kudos to Vivek for learning from his past mistake when he extended Vlade before any real results.

 

[hrdboild]

If he needed a 5 year contract, I'm guessing Vivek wouldn't go that long. If not, why did he not sign a five year contract?

Instead, he signed a 3 year contract. The owner and the GM knew the parameters to be 3 years and further evaluate prospects in time.

Why did he take the job with only a 3 year contract-but in actuality needed 5?

He doesn't need 5 -- he's already done more to help this team win in less than 2 years than anyone who has had that job since Geoff Petrie. It's the other way around from my point of view. The team needs him here for at least 4 more years to get the most out of his new partnership with Mike Brown. At that point if we're somehow still not a playoff team it would be the right time to reconsider our options.

 

[Warhawk]

Monte has one year left on his contract, year 3. If you extend Monte now to an addiional 2 years for instance, what happens, if we have another 30 win season, or don't make the playoffs, or continue to be between 27th and 30th in defense another year, what would you do then? Would you then fire him at the end of next year, and continue to pay him for 2 more years?

If they didn't trust his vision for the team and his work to date, why did they let him pick a coach?

If you trust him for that, you need to give him some time to keep updating the roster in his vision and work with the coach to improve the team. If you don't, he's likely gone after a year and we are again in the Kings ineptitude merry-go-round, with a coach being hired before the next GM. Frankly, our problem is with ownership and not the current GM. His moves this past trade deadline (while not giving away draft assets) were more than enough to warrant an extension.

 

[Padrino]

Monte has one year left on his contract, year 3. If you extend Monte now to an addiional 2 years for instance, what happens, if we have another 30 win season, or don't make the playoffs, or continue to be between 27th and 30th in defense another year, what would you do then? Would you then fire him at the end of next year, and continue to pay him for 2 more years?

I'd let him serve out the remainder of that hypothetical extension, and I'd encourage him to keep experimenting with ways to improve the team's standing. Monte McNair is a good GM. His moves suggest someone with particular player profiles in mind, with a strong sense of asset management, with vision, with guts. Is he a great GM? Who knows? Time will tell. But I value stability to a far greater degree than the disruption that results from constantly churning through general managers and head coaches in the hopes that the next one will be the great one. Give Monte McNair and Mike Brown a half-decade together, and I'd be pretty satisfied as a fan. The Kings would also be much more likely to win in that span than if Vivek threw darts at yet another GM and yet another head coach. At this point, I'll take steady, professional competence any day of the week over the tumultuous bullsh*t that has characterized Vivek's stewardship of the franchise.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

If he gets poached to another club are y'all skeptics/haters gonna call Vivek cheap and blame him or applaud him for some godforsaken reason rather than admit the positives this guy has done are real?

Just curious.

 

[SacTownKid]

This board seems to think an extension = guaranteed job security. We all know it doesn't. It's manufactured trauma. Kudos to Vivek for learning from his past mistake when he extended Vlade before any real results.

And the one thing that happened recently that shows Monte has more stability than almost any other GM in Viveks tenure even without an extension was Dumars getting the boot when Dumars tried to gobble up even more power while still shielding himself from the spotlight. This is on Monte now. I think Monte has enough sense to not nuke the Kings future to save himself. If Monte trades that pick for win now garbage, or busts his cap space moving forward on marginal role guys like Vlade did he'll NEVER get another job in a major front office position again because teams won't be able to trust him.

 

[SacTownKid]

If he gets poached to another club are y'all skeptics/haters gonna call Vivek cheap and blame him or applaud him for some godforsaken reason rather than admit the positives this guy has done are real?

Just curious.

Haha, they probably will. But he ain't getting poached by anybody. Not even on the horizon yet. Monte has no name value, no track record... yet. And if he's in a position to get poached that means most of the work to build back up is done anyway. The Kings could pull off a Celtics. Thanks Danny Ainge! lol.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

Haha, they probably will. But he ain't getting poached by anybody. Not even on the horizon yet. Monte has no name value, no track record... yet. And if he's in a position to get poached that means most of the work to build back up is done anyway. The Kings could pull off a Celtics. Thanks Danny Ainge! lol.

I wouldn't rule it out, Kings are a joke to the national media but I think it's already obvious things are being done differently in Sac around the league. The Sabonis deal showed that, I feel like when we were hiring Monte and all the people that worked as assistant GMs got leaked and we'd get excited, I am very sure if Monte came up you'd see pressings like "Monte quietly turned around the disarray in the Kings front office but for some reason was not locked into a long term contract allowing the Lakers/Knicks to buy him out"

 

[kb02]

Haha, they probably will. But he ain't getting poached by anybody. Not even on the horizon yet. Monte has no name value, no track record... yet. And if he's in a position to get poached that means most of the work to build back up is done anyway. The Kings could pull off a Celtics. Thanks Danny Ainge! lol.

Yea. Nothing else needs to be said at this point. Go do something first.

 

[kb02]

And the one thing that happened recently that shows Monte has more stability than almost any other GM in Viveks tenure even without an extension was Dumars getting the boot when Dumars tried to gobble up even more power while still shielding himself from the spotlight. This is on Monte now. I think Monte has enough sense to not nuke the Kings future to save himself. If Monte trades that pick for win now garbage, or busts his cap space moving forward on marginal role guys like Vlade did he'll NEVER get another job in a major front office position again because teams won't be able to trust him.

Well, they slotted Gentry into some FO role and Vivek went out of his way to praise/leak praise for Wilcox rather than McNair in a recent article. Then CD is basically saying HC candidates were well aware of the Vivek power dynamic.

Vivek has a certain leadership structure that he prefers. And it doesn't look like he's strayed very far from that preference.

 

[SacTownKid]

Well, they slotted Gentry into some FO role and Vivek went out of his way to praise/leak praise for Wilcox rather than McNair in a recent article. Then CD is basically saying HC candidates were well aware of the Vivek power dynamic.

Vivek has a certain leadership structure that he prefers. And it doesn't look like he's strayed very far from that preference.

Whatever that dynamic is it's already looking like Monte can navigate it much better than Vlade did. If Monte can be as much politician as he is basketball mind but not all the way politician like PDA or all the way BBall like Vlade was, then it can work. Not that I'm buying all the Vivek wanted Jackson stuff to begin with, but if that were true and Monte and Wes are a united front, then that was a really good sign as far as decision making power is concerned. Vlade wanted full control, which can be either really bad, or really good depending on who that is haha. Honestly, I'm not sure there are many teams these days that have a true ruler at the helm. And the ones that do are led by HOF, GOAT types with names like West and Riley.

 

[Warhawk]

Well, they slotted Gentry into some FO role and Vivek went out of his way to praise/leak praise for Wilcox rather than McNair in a recent article. Then CD is basically saying HC candidates were well aware of the Vivek power dynamic.

Vivek has a certain leadership structure that he prefers. And it doesn't look like he's strayed very far from that preference.

So you agree that the issue is with ownership and not Monte himself. Good to know. No reason not to extend him then instead of leaving him as a lame-duck coach his first season with the head coach he selected to work with.