ESPN the Magazine article on Vivek: The Fast and the Curious
- Thread starter Tetsujin
- Start date
It's just arrogance. He excelled in one area so he assumes the approach will work any where. Also the way he talks about it, with weirdly off putting modesty, just makes my skin crawl. So thrilled the team is staying but would be only slightly less thrilled if he moved on.
upinsmoke
All-Star
To me at least it's more of a case of him trying to over think the issue. Basketball at his core is a very simple sport.
Owning a sports team is like having super expensive cars. Mostly for show and you rarely take it out for a spin. Vivek is trying to rebuild the engine out of cheese.
How dare he?!? Try to use data in order to win basketball games?!? Doesn't he know that basketball games are won purely by the number of guttural grunts emitted in the paint and nothing else? There is no room for your so-called data here, sir. Simply fund our mandatory player lobotomies and we will do just fine, thank you very much.
Tetsujin
The Game Thread Dude
I don't really have much of a problem with that but the need to run an NBA basketball team like a Silicon Valley company is disconcerting to say the least.
You don't run an In-n-out Burger like the French Laundry.
King Baller
All-Star
During the presser yesterday Coach Karl said the same thing. Basketball is a simple game. Karl also says he uses Analytics and I suspect he knows how to communicate with the Geeks that supply the data points
Hey he was doing something right all these years to keep winning!randymoss1881
Starter
The more that comes out the more I'm suprised Malone didn't go Sprewell on someone in the FO and choke the hell out of them.
Yes. Because that was the only issue with his approach. Please.
PurpleHaze
All-Star
Scary to the point it's now giving me splitting headache reading such horrific tale. Hopefully, after couple pain relief pill I can sleep counting BigHorn sheep for zzzzzzzz.
ArcoKings
Starter
In the interview Ranadive says:
"There are a lot of stories out there that I was telling players what to do and telling the coach what to do," Ranadive says. "None of it was true. They were saying I was advocating playing five-on-four defense with a cherry picker, and I never suggested that. One time we were lamenting the fact that our starters were really good, we'd go up 15 and then our bench would come in and we'd go down five points. And I just said, 'Has anyone ever thought about having four guys on defense and one guy cherry-picking, and if we get a stop we can get our two points back?'
Doesn't this contradict what's going on in Reno?
He also said: "In Silicon Valley, you have a lab. In basketball, I wanted a lab."
Reno is the lab where the Ranadive experiments are taking place. Are these experiments going to move to the NBA Kings at some point in time? Perhaps after Karl retires? Is this the plan?
"There are a lot of stories out there that I was telling players what to do and telling the coach what to do," Ranadive says. "None of it was true. They were saying I was advocating playing five-on-four defense with a cherry picker, and I never suggested that. One time we were lamenting the fact that our starters were really good, we'd go up 15 and then our bench would come in and we'd go down five points. And I just said, 'Has anyone ever thought about having four guys on defense and one guy cherry-picking, and if we get a stop we can get our two points back?'
Doesn't this contradict what's going on in Reno?
He also said: "In Silicon Valley, you have a lab. In basketball, I wanted a lab."
Reno is the lab where the Ranadive experiments are taking place. Are these experiments going to move to the NBA Kings at some point in time? Perhaps after Karl retires? Is this the plan?
rhythmless
Starter
Ranadive depresses me to no end.
As to the punching bag comment, I believe his face lends itself fairly well to a punching bag. It always looks pissed off. Which gets you pissed, because why should he be the pissed off one? He's the one causing all this crap. We're the pissed off ones!
And then you punch.
As to the punching bag comment, I believe his face lends itself fairly well to a punching bag. It always looks pissed off. Which gets you pissed, because why should he be the pissed off one? He's the one causing all this crap. We're the pissed off ones!
And then you punch.
randymoss1881
Starter
Why couldn't we have Memphis owner atleast he plays basketball so he won't do stupid crap. When he played in the celebrity game I was smiling for Memphis fans how cool was that.
J
jdbraver
Guest
Yes punch the guy that kept the team here. This is ridiculous. The guy made mistakes and has admitted it. However it's clear he wants to win and spends money to win. For now that's enough for me.
He was winning. The only thing clear this season is that he wants to do stuff his way.
People need to take a deep cleansing breath, exhale and relax.
By hiring George Karl, the front office admitted they did not know what they were doing and had to call in the cavalry to save the troops.
Vivek is gonna do what Vivek is gonna do. As Confucius said (and Petrie quoted), "When the wise man points at the moon, the idiot looks at the finger."
I'm going to wait and see what happens on the court before I spend too much more time worrying about any more of these articles.
By hiring George Karl, the front office admitted they did not know what they were doing and had to call in the cavalry to save the troops.
Vivek is gonna do what Vivek is gonna do. As Confucius said (and Petrie quoted), "When the wise man points at the moon, the idiot looks at the finger."
I'm going to wait and see what happens on the court before I spend too much more time worrying about any more of these articles.
J
jdbraver
Guest
Yes punch the guy that kept the team here. This is ridiculous. The guy made mistakes and has adm
Well he paid for the team....If you buy 2k15 it's your prerogative to make any team decision you want.
rhythmless
Starter
You want to try and paint him as someone who did this out of love for Sacramento? Come on. He kept the team here because those were the terms. The valuation of the Kings is at 800M. He bought at 535M. If I was offered a piece of the Kings back then I'd take it too, even if I didn't care about Sacramento. The arena is partially publicly funded and is a ridiculous deal for him. You think a billionaire with no Sacramento affiliation is going to swoop in and save the Kings out of the goodness of his own heart? Please. It's a savvy financial move and a plaything for him. Everything he's said and done in Kings basketball has shown that he does not care about you or me.
He didn't have to spend any additional money to win. In fact, he spent more money to lose AFTER he started winning.
Yep. And he also earns the mockery for those decisions. Can't have it both ways.
Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
That's about the extent of what I will defend with Vivek. He wants a lab? He wants to abuse Reno fans by getting his geek on up there...well if I lived in Reno I'd be showing up at his mansion with a brick. But as a Kings fan, better them than us. Have at it. Trash the franchise and the game you bought into. Screw around. Treat real life like a video game. Be as big of a shallow techie idiot as you want to be. Just keep that crap the **** away from the Kings and I'll leave you alone with your toy even as you pull the arms off of it.
Larry David
Starter
Holly hell, the Kings are screwed. Karl will help and Vivek touched the stove long enough maybe he slows down for a while, but we have an eccentric owner that's going to be in the way. You can twist the facts staring us in the face all you want and hope that players, coaches and front office staff will become so good it won't matter ... But bad ownership can't be overcome for long.
This story paints a chilling portrait that matches both the string of bizarre behavior we've tried to figure out and the steady whispers for over 18 months that Vivek is an eccentric.
This story paints a chilling portrait that matches both the string of bizarre behavior we've tried to figure out and the steady whispers for over 18 months that Vivek is an eccentric.
rainmaker
Hall of Famer
RANADIVE'S RELATIONSHIP TO basketball has never been conventional. Raised in India, educated at MIT and Harvard, he says he never touched a basketball until he began coaching his daughter's middle school basketball team roughly 10 years ago. The game nagged at his analytical mind. A shot would go up, someone would either rebound it or inbound it, and both teams would rush back to either defend or attack the basket. Two-thirds of the court went uncontested. With his daughter's team, a
minimally talented group of wealthy Silicon Valley girls, Ranadive employed a frenzied press that engulfed every inch of the court, and his team marched to the national championships. His coaching career was lionized by author Malcolm Gladwell inThe New Yorker and in the book David and Goliath.
That's an a-hole thing to do at the girl's middle school level.
That's an a-hole thing to do at the girl's middle school level.
Glenn
Hall of Famer
Poor sportsmanship, to be sure. This could be done with any group of middle schoolers. Perhaps he saw the middle school as his personal lab.
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