Best coaching candidate for next season?

#7
We need a new GM to actually put a decent team together, the team sucks we spent all our money overpaying Barnes/Cojo/Ariza/Hield/Dedmon and o yeah we drafted Bagley that's just awful GM work, it's not the coach we lost this year in the offseason.

Put with Fox playing like he is last two games Mike Dantoni would probably help him a lot he builds his teams around PG's/elite playmakers.
 
#9
Doesn't matter unless we have a full regime change.

I'd be curious what the cut-off point would be for Vivek to make the move. Possibly if we win less than 30 games? If we're 10+ games worse than last season?
 
#16
Did Luke's coaching cause all the player injuries? This season sucks but I am not sure how it's all on Luke.
To be honest, it doesn't matter. Luke doesn't get any leeway because he replaced a coach that improved our win total by 12 games from the previous season and lead us to our best finish in 13 years. He gets the same expectation we would have given Joerger; Playoffs or bust.

We should be in a much worse place than we are now. Richaun Holmes was an absolute gift and has probably been worth a couple wins by himself. Take him out of the equation this season and we're right there with all the bottom feeders (instead of just a level above the bottom feeders)
 

gunks

Hall of Famer
#18
You gotta ride it out. Both Malone and Joerger looked like bad coaches their first year here, now everyone is pining for them.

It takes time to put in a new system, especially with a bunch of kids.

Let's see how we look next season under Luke, I reckon it'll be much improved.

If anyone needs to get the ax, it's Vlade. But we have another thread for that.
 
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#23
Well, it certainly is a concern when you look at how things ended in LA. The question with Luke is whether he can coach talent. We know his personal preference is playing a defensive oriented style and clearly his best options there this year meant surviving with role players who can perform in that way and bought in. During his brief stretch of success that's exactly what he had to work with. Why was LeBron so eager to usher Walton out the door? From the looks of it, it may very well have had something to do with that. You have two types of coaches in the NBA. One that demands a certain style of play and one that plays to the strengths of their available talent. The GM has to be extremely certain of what is going on at all times and how those two things mesh together. Before Luke, Vlade had two coaches that fell into the first category and he didn't really make moves to appease them in terms of the roster outside of maybe the Barnes trade who Dave Joerger was apparently really pushing for well before the deal. I mean there were a few ancillary moves here and there but nothing that defined their desired style of play.
 
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#24
The Kings are in a position where if this continues to go off the rails the only realistic option is to push the reset button about half way down at the very least. Going with an unknown, or unproven coach that appears to have a decent grasp on what's going on is probably the right move. I think DC has more than a decent grasp and considering the type of player he was likely has the coaching gene coursing through his veins already.
 

Warhawk

The cake is a lie.
Staff member
#25
The question with Luke is whether he can coach talent. We know his personal preference is playing a defensive oriented style and clearly his best options there this year meant surviving with role players who can perform in that way and bought in.
Not that I'm a Luke fan or anything, but then how did he coach the Warriors to such an impressive record? I'd say they had some "talent" on that team.
 
#27
I don't understand why this keeps being brought up when the best stretch of the season was without Fox and Bagley.
Well for one thing, winning with a bunch of JAG role players indicates he might actually be able to coach.

And if you don't think constantly trying to shuffle in and out the best players (or at least the ones consistently identified as keys to the success) would drain anyone, I don't know what to say. There really is a ton to be frustrated about right now but firing the coach in this situation is an absolutely idiotic forever loser team thing to do. Even if Walton later proves to deserve it. This is what we all rage on the Malone firing about. A lot of folks are just pre-disposed to hate Walton because he was a Laker. Same with folks evaluating Kuzma trades right now.
 
#28
Well for one thing, winning with a bunch of JAG role players indicates he might actually be able to coach.

And if you don't think constantly trying to shuffle in and out the best players (or at least the ones consistently identified as keys to the success) would drain anyone, I don't know what to say. There really is a ton to be frustrated about right now but firing the coach in this situation is an absolutely idiotic forever loser team thing to do. Even if Walton later proves to deserve it. This is what we all rage on the Malone firing about. A lot of folks are just pre-disposed to hate Walton because he was a Laker. Same with folks evaluating Kuzma trades right now.
Walton was running the second slowest offense in the league until Vivek had to get in his ear to pick up the pace. Players shuffling in and out has nothing to do with it. Running the second slowest offense with Fox as your QB makes zero sense. Running the second slowest offense with CoJo as your PG makes good sense. Gearing your offense away from your star player and toward a backup PG is insanely stupid IMO.

I don't think the Lakers have anything to do with it. What did Walton accomplish to earn himself such a long term deal here? His resume was as weak as it gets and Vlade acted as if he had found a gold mine when he hired him.

I thought Joerger playing ZBo ball during Fox's rookie year was a fireable offense as well. An entire year was wasted on that. Fox could have came out of the gate more like Ja Morant, but instead he wasn't able to use nearly any of the tools that got him to the NBA and a lot of development time was wasted there. Second year, Joerger played to his strengths and all the sudden the wins started piling up. Maybe the same will happen with Walton but my question is, why are we throwing away entire seasons on what amounts to nothing other than coaches being stubborn with their philosophies?