The problem with moving Buddy to the bench is that athletes aren't chess pieces, they're people. Maybe if we we're winning 60 games a year and competing for a championship you can convince him to subsume his ego for the good of the team but we're not winning 60 games. I also don't think it's fair to say that his ego is a problem. Part of what makes an athlete excel is feeding their ego. It's why we hated Kobe and admired him at the same time. It's a move that gets us a short term benefit (a few more wins this year) but at the cost of discontent. I don't think that's an equation that benefits the team.
But there's a bigger issue behind all this which is what I've been trying to write about lately. The games are one thing. Obviously it feels better to see the team win games but that goal has to extend beyond one season. The long term planning required to take a last place team and move them into being competitive every night is almost entirely absent. We're signing veterans and then trading them or buying them out 6 months later. We're not hanging onto our own draft picks. Every year there's a new plan. That's just not going to work. My hope has been that somebody in the front office is learning from all this and starting to draw up a 5 year plan of some kind but I don't know. The propoganda machine that ramps up every time we make a move sortof throws sand in the idea that this front office is learning from their mistakes.
I really think if Vivek is going to start getting involved and cutting people loose the first person that needs to be gone is Grant Napear. Some people think he's harmless or maybe they enjoy his contentious attitude but I've felt for a long time now that his attitude is actively hurting the team. When Buddy goes to the bench he immediately explodes with a string of strong performances because now he's got a chip on his shoulder. So here we go with the "Buddy to the bench is the right move, see look at the coaching staff's genius" talk. Don't you think that stuff gets back to the players? Absolutely it does. When somebody gets traded and Grant goes on the air to muddy the waters and explain to all of us why they were hurting the team, they hear all that too. The players may have been traded but those relationships don't cease to exist. If you bad mouth every player that leaves the organization, how does that look to the players who are still here? The front office could hold him accountable but they don't and this just adds to the prevailing negativity infecting the team.
I don't quite know how to articulate this better, but I feel like all of us have been way too obsessed with wins and losses and forgotten that sports organizations excel when they put people first. Treat everyone with respect, work to build a positive environment, stop pointing fingers and looking for skapegoats and instead commit to improving every day. We're not going to suddenly be the Spurs through any trade or draft pick or coaching change. Sustained excellence is a complete team effort.
I'm just one person and I don't even live in Sacramento any more so I don't make it to many games. I've gotten so tired of all the finger pointing that I don't even watch the games on TV anymore. Fans booing their own team for any reason has never sat right with me. These players don't owe us anything. We need to somehow find a way to creep back from the ledge, put the last 15 years behind us, forgive the NBA for getting it wrong with calls in 2002, and find that family atmosphere we abandoned at some point in the early 2000s. This is not life and death stuff, it's just basketball. It's entertainment. Most of these kids came to this team not knowing who we are or what we're about but motivated to put their stamp on history with a team that basically doesn't exist yet in any meaningful way in basketball history. I still remember Vivek and Vlade telling Buddy that they fought to bring him here cause they believe in him. That's how you elevate people. And that's what we need to do more of collectively. Barnes had to sit on the sideline for Dallas knowing he'd been traded. Fox got passed over by 4 other teams in the draft. Giles went from a projected top 5 pick to praying he'd even have an NBA career. I'm rooting for all of these guys. Let's figure this out. We've been a hopeless rabble of losers before and then someone with a plan came in and showed us we could be more. All it takes is a plan. And any time would be a good time to start.
There's a lot to digest here. I feel like I just read a second article on The Athletic.
For Buddy, from about early December, to when he was moved to a bench role in late January, he wasn't just bad, he was atrocious. I don't think there is another way to look at it. He was shooting near, or under, 40% every game. He wasn't hitting threes. He was committing low IQ turnover, after low IQ turnover while at the same time trying more and more to take on lead guard duties for some reason. I don't know what caused this string of poor play, but what I do know is that the Kings gave him every opportunity to play his way out of it. He was given over a months worth of games to make the necessary improvements, but never did. His move to the bench was very justified by the team. If he sees it as a slight in anyway than that's very unfortunate. The team has catered to Hield as much as any team has ever catered to a player.
Grant Napear is no different than any other mouthpiece that other teams employ. If you play in Sacramento and are playing well, Grant will prop you up beyond what you deserve. If you play in Sacramento and aren't playing well, he'll say you need to be taken out or adjustments need to be made. If you aren't in Sacramento anymore, he'll be indifferent. If you aren't in Sacramento anymore and left the team on poor terms he'll go out of his way to explain why the team is better off. So many other teams commentators do this too. Celtics, Jazz (Harpring mostly), Blazers, Spurs (Elliott), Bulls, Clippers just to name a few. Even if we replaced him I'm sure Vivek would just hire another mouthpiece.
Like the Napear situation, the finger pointing isn't unique to the Kings either, neither is the complaining. The 76ers are in the news right now for booing freaking Joel Embiid. The Lakers, winners of 16 championships, organized protests at Staples Center to complain about the state of the team. The Celtics boo their team at least 10 times a year. There must've been two or three articles last year about Wolves fans booing. Discontent with your team is common, especially when you aren't winning up to expectations and playing with poor effort. Most teams only experience these things a couple of times in a decade. The Kings have experienced it for 14 seasons in a row. We've earned the right to voice our displeasure. That doesn't mean we've abandoned the team. We all want the players to succeed and we want them to succeed here. We want our ownership to do well and for Vlade to redeem himself. But if there is no incremental improvements it's hard to stay positive because the last thing we want is for 14 seasons to turn into 15, and then 16, then 17, and so on.
