#FireVlade / #FireWalton

Status
Not open for further replies.
#61
Can they fire the players instead?

Coaches are always the easy, lazy scapegoat answer. While I’m not a Walton fan, I’ve seen enough over the last 26 games of last season and first 5 games of this season to place blame more on the players than anyone else.

I don’t see a lot of fight. I don’t see a lot of competitiveness. I don’t see high basketball IQ. I don‘t see hardly any defense or commitment to rebound misses.

Richaun Holmes has been the teams best player thus far and he’s a bit of a journeyman that wasn’t even on the roster last season.

De’Aaron Fox still has upside, but surely isn’t a guy they can go to for big shots down the stretch of a game. Marvin Bagley’s been injured for extended period of time 3x already in barely over a year. Harry Giles is never available.

IMO, the players are mostly to blame, along with the front office that made the decisions to draft/acquire them over other options.
 
#63
I wonder if the Kings fire Vlade and DMC proves to be healthy by year end, could the new GM possibly bring DMC back to Sacramento?

DMC could be a stretch 5 to spread the floor for Fox and Bagley. As long as DMC is healthy and accepts the supporting role.

DMC would definitely bring some nasty back to the Kings.
 
#64
In case anyone is interested. Here is an article for the least amount of games before a new coach was fired.

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1967879-shortest-nba-head-coaching-stints-ever#slide0

The record belongs to Jerry Tarkanian on the San Antonio Spurs, getting fired after just 20 games his new team.

There is a good chance Luke may beat that record, if this thing doesn't turn around quick!
No chance. Hes on a brand new huge contract. Huge pay off.
 
#65
I wonder if the Kings fire Vlade and DMC proves to be healthy by year end, could the new GM possibly bring DMC back to Sacramento?

DMC could be a stretch 5 to spread the floor for Fox and Bagley. As long as DMC is healthy and accepts the supporting role.

DMC would definitely bring some nasty back to the Kings.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but he's already under contract for another team. A team we don't like to mention around these parts....
 
#68
I wonder if the Kings fire Vlade and DMC proves to be healthy by year end, could the new GM possibly bring DMC back to Sacramento?

DMC could be a stretch 5 to spread the floor for Fox and Bagley. As long as DMC is healthy and accepts the supporting role.

DMC would definitely bring some nasty back to the Kings.
Uhh no thanks.

Vlade has consistently drafted badly, that's why we are where we are. A demarcus who can barely even get off the floor ain't gonna change that.
 
#69
My impressions. This game looked like an easy win in the first quarter. In the third they just gave up. In the 4th you could tell they did not care about the loss.

I dont think the team has recovered from the real GM trade of Shump and bringing in Barnes. Then the wat they dumped WCS. Firing Joerger was I'll advised.

The season looks gone already. Somehow they have to make it right with the players. Find out what the players want and give it to them. IMO
 
#70
The season looks gone already. Somehow they have to make it right with the players. Find out what the players want and give it to them. IMO

Absolutely not (although I do agree with the first parts of your post). There's a good chance the players wanted Joerger gone in favour of the "player's coach" in Walton. I also remember Fox prior to last year's draft strongly implying that he wanted Bagley and wasn't a fan of Luka. I'm almost certain that Vlade took this into account when drafting, you can be certain he discussed certain prospects with Fox. I love De'aaron but his opinion on prospects, especially European prospects, should mean ZERO.

If Vlade had went with the obvious choice we would be in a better position instead of trying to please a young guy who has achieved diddly squat so far.

Young teams need a strong leader at the head. Walton is not that. I don't care if our coach is best buds with the players, his job is to get them to play, nothing else.
 
#71
Is he a players coach? What does that even mean.

Look at the way pop interacts with his players the respect they have for him even after he chews them out on the court.

Does anyone seriously see anyone laying it all on the line for luke? I don't.
 
#73
I personally think roster construction is far more important than any coach, Steve Kerr with 3 All-Stars (prior to Curry injury) has looked like he has never coached a game in his life due to the pieces not fitting and poor depth. Coach Bud got super lucky in Atlanta where every single one of his starting 5 happened to hit there prime the year Atlanta won 60 games and he had a bunch of tough above average unselfish players, once a few of them bailed and regressed he was back to like a 20 win team and now again with a stacked team he's looking amazing.

A well constructed roster imo carried the coach not the coach carrying the team. Not to say coaches don't matter but as Kerr/Bud showed you can't make chicken salad out of you know what.

Luke has made a few nice changes in putting Holmes in and playing Bjelly longer than he probably planned but the fact that our "starting C" is basically unplayable and our two SG's are competing to see who can take a worse shot has sunk this team completely.
 
#76
Where Vlade went wrong was that he managed the rebuild badly. Trading Cousins should've been a signt that for the next two years we should maximize our future assets since we wont be competitive for the next two years. We unfortunately didnt do that and its starting to show now

Brooklyn already managed to get in to the playoffs even though they were robbed of all talent and assets. They made it because they rebuilded correctly. They didnt take shortcuts in their rebuild. They turned their cap space into assets (Dlo for eating Mozgovs contract, 1st and 2nd for Carrol ect). Hawks didnt take shortcuts and now they have a lot of future assets, a lot of flexibility and a lot of promising young players on rookie contracts.

We never really fully commited in rebuilding. We didnt use cap space for assets and now we are in a situation where we dont have enough talent, we are capped out and we need to start extending our core. We made short sighted veteran signings (Rondo, Zbo, Ghill, Ariza, Dedmond ect) and short sighted trades like 1st to philly. Short sighted moves usually dont lead to term success.
 
#77
I’ve been staying out of all these discussions after the way the last season ended to give this season some time and letting things work out and see how things look after the first few games. Sad to say, very disappointing. But now I am going to put my tin foil hat on and provide my rambling rant/opinion on what has happened to the Kings. It’s just my tin foil hat opinion based on my observations and limited knowledge.

Something happened to the Kings around the All-Star break and I think it was more than just the trade for Barnes and the loss of Shump, although I think the loss of Shump had a more profound effect on the Kings than the FO anticipated. But that should have resolved itself with a little time, over just a very few games. The trade itself for Barnes filled a glaring need for the Kings, although the later contract extension may have been a bit much, but that is the reality the Kings find themselves in, having to overpay to find/keep free agents.

No, I think there was more going on behind the scenes and it boiled over at that time. I think Williams was the issue. I think he was constantly meddling behind the scenes and interfering, irritating Joerger (already a prickly personality). I don’t how much influence Bagley’s camp (his father) may have had with Williams, but I suspect they were egging him on.

Vlade should have stepped in and put a stop to Williams meddling immediately, firing him then. He should have shown Joerger that he had confidence in him, his coaching, and the plan they had jointly developed. He was more than willing to let Williams go later, why didn’t he let him go then? One of them needed to go, Joerger had led the team to its most successful season in over a decade. Firing the head coach, a successful head coach, would have had a traumatic effect on the team. Firing an assistant general manager, or whatever Williams was should have had minimum effect and hopefully provided behind the scenes stability.

Up until the All-Star break, the Kings were having a special season, exceeding all expectations, playing with passion and enthusiasm, a really fun team to watch. Vlade and Joerger seemed to have a long-term plan (they said they did) and they were sticking to it and it was starting to show the results, again exceeding all expectations. They seemed to be on the same page for the most part.

The trade for Barnes should have made the team better. The loss of Shump should have only had a limited short term effect on team morale. But for some reason, after the All-Star break, all the positive energy was just sucked right out of the team.

Again, I suspect that it was behind the scenes drama going on and I suspect Williams was the initiator. I think his meddling exasperated any areas of discontent between Vlade and Joerger. He may have even manipulated things to drive a wedge between Vlade and Joerger. I think Joerger saw the writing on the wall and knew that at the very least his contract was not going to be extended and his time was coming to an end and he was not going to be able to see the plan to completion. Even though he said the firing caught him completely by surprise, I suspect he may have known he was probably going to be let go at the end of the season. Sometimes you know something is going to happen, but you just can’t believe it really will. But knowing that, it colors everything you do until it actually happens. Just waiting for that hammer to drop.

I think all this drama came to a head around the All-Star break and spilled over into the team and led to the season ending collapse (or whatever you want to call those last 25 games). Rather than backing his successful coach, Vlade chose to back neither Joerger or Williams and let them both go after the season was over. Rumor has been that Joerger was not Vlade’s choice in the first place. Maybe he always wanted Walton. Maybe he found out around the All-Star break that Walton was going to become available after the season and it became obvious to Joerger that Vlade would use the Williams/Joerger conflict as an opportunity to get “his guy”. He certainly took no time to vet Walton or to look at anybody else.

I have had issues with some of Vlade’s decisions during his tenure but for the most part I have been giving him the benefit of the doubt and have defended him on this forum a few times. However, IMHO, Vlade has made several crucial mistakes which have really set the Kings way back after so much promise.

Ultimately, I blame him for the collapse of the team at the end of the season, he presided over that whole mess with Williams and should have gotten a handle on it before it got out of hand, firing Williams if necessary. Letting that mess fester to the point that firing Joerger seemed to be his only recourse was a big mistake.

Passing on Doncic was a really big faux pas, too (There I said it!) I know we aren’t supposed to mention Doncic anywhere but the dedicated Doncic thread, but this thread is about firing Vlade (and Walton) for his bad decisions and IMHO drafting Bagley over Doncic was a mistake. This is not a knock on Bagley, he is probably going to be a good player and is probably a good guy, although I question the influence his camp (his father) thinks they have over the Kings. But Doncic was the best player available and by all appearances is a franchise player. He was generally the consensus obvious choice for the Kings by most experts, but not Vlade. He went against the grain, had to show he knew more than the experts.

I think this was some of the conflict with Joerger, I think he wanted Doncic. But I don’t think he was being vindictive by not starting Bagley. I think he honestly thought he was doing the best thing to develop Bagley, similar to the way he brought Fox along. He gave Bagley plenty of minutes and gave him the opportunity to develop against other teams second units. I do not know that he was wrong despite what Williams and Bagley’s father seemed to think. I am not particularly pleased with what I have seen out of Bagley so far this season as far regarding his off-season improvement, but he was injured early so it is too soon to tell. But you have to wonder if he might have been more diligent in the off-season improving his upper body strength, working on the off-hand, working on his defense if he felt he needed to earn the starting role under Joerger as opposed to being handed the starting role under Walton and being vindicated about starting all along by Joerger being fired.
 

dude12

Hall of Famer
#78
If you listen to the post game pressers by Walton, either he can’t articulate what he is trying to convey (not good for a head coach) or he is in over his head. I believe the latter.
 
#79
I'm just hoping they will go 0-10 at this point so all these guys can get fired and we can start over. No sense in wasting an entire season on this BS. It's not all the coaches fault because the players have sucked as well but setting one screen and if that doesn't work "read and react" is not NBA level coaching.
 
#82
I'm just hoping they will go 0-10 at this point so all these guys can get fired and we can start over. No sense in wasting an entire season on this BS. It's not all the coaches fault because the players have sucked as well but setting one screen and if that doesn't work "read and react" is not NBA level coaching.
I’m hoping they end up 5-5 through the next 5 games cuz a 5 game win streak, no matter how unlikely it is, is what this team and it’s fan needs.
 
#83
Seriously though did a single person feel excited about Walton?

A supposedly exciting young core coming off a season where they over achieved would have been attractive to a number of coaches.

Walton continues to seem like a very strange choice.
 
#85
I’m hoping they end up 5-5 through the next 5 games cuz a 5 game win streak, no matter how unlikely it is, is what this team and it’s fan needs.
It'll just wind up delaying the inevitable. The entire season is more than likely already wasted just based on the Luke Walton hiring alone. If they stuck with Joerger they'd probably be at worst, 2-3 right now, and we would still have some sort of hope. As it stands right now, we're looking at a full year wasted. Delaying the Walton firing will just push that out to two years wasted. As Kings fans, we have little patience for this sort of thing and rightly so. No one knows what bad coaching and bad basketball looks like more than Kings fans.
 
#86
This kind of reminds me of the Jim Harbaugh thing with the 49ers when he left. Harbaugh was a prick and hard for upper management to deal with but he was a very effective coach. Dave Joerger is also a prick and clashes with upper management, but the one difference is Joerger didn't have the support of the players.

As bad as Walton has been though, much of this has to fall on the players. These same players wanted Joerger gone, well they got what they wanted and they're worse for it.

Where is the leadership and consistency from De'Aaron Fox? Almost everyone here thinks he's a future superstar yet he's not offering two key qualities that winning superstars have.......leadership and consistency. This team starts and ends with Fox. He should be better this year and so far he's worse. As such the team is worse.

Buddy got paid and now he's suddenly just an average player. I do think Buddy will be fine and regain form here pretty quickly but not a good look when you go to the media for more money and publicly negotiate your contract, only to get paid and then suck two weeks later.

Harrison Barnes is not a winner and does not help a team win. I've been saying this on this board since before the Kings traded for him (when he was still on Dallas). Barnes is a solid all-around player. However he's just one of those guys that puts up some pretty good numbers that are hollow and don't actually equate to winning. He doesn't create for other players, doesn't create good shots for himself, etc. He's a great person and easy guy to root for but he doesn't help you win. It should be obvious by now. The Kings record has been poor since they traded for Barnes last year. Of course that's not all his fault or even mostly his fault, but he was supposed to make this team better. He has not.

Bagley and Giles spend more time on the injured list than they do playing. Part of being a good NBA player is availability and it's also hard to get better (through experience) when you are constantly injured. As good as Bagley is he's got that look of a big that only plays 50-55 games each season. I also don't see superstar with him, I don't see anything about his game that screams unstoppable. With Giles who knows, he's the big mystery. At this point he'll be one of those guys that may blossom for another team in 3 years after he's off his rookie contract and the Kings let him go (not knowing what they truly have) because they never had the guts to just throw him out there and see what he can do. Giles is in year 3 now, time to take the damn training wheels off. If you are Vlade what are you waiting for? At some point you have to see if this kid can handle the rigors of the NBA. If he can't so be it.

Bogi is a joke. This guy went from being a guy that played team ball and seemingly did everything right in his rookie year.......to a guy now that just overdribbles and can't wait to take his next bad shot. It's really odd. It's almost like he looks for bad shots at this point. "Gee I think I'll dribble for 8-10 seconds and make no attempt to go forward only to take a contested step-back off balance 3........that looks really cool when it goes in". Problem is it only goes in 10% of the time and he takes about 5 of those a game now.
 
#88
As stupid as I think the firing of Jaeger and the subsequent hiring of Walton was, I do not think change is the right move now. Bank on stability and hope they turn it around. Removing coach and GM only guarantees another 5 years of getting punched in the nuts.
Firing the guy that passed on Luka Doncic isn't a hard sell to the fan base.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.