Kings fire Vance Walberg

funkykingston said:
Baja, I think you're looking at it the wrong way. Boogie isn't the center in the offensive sets, he's the four man. Koufos and Cauley-Stein are the bigs when they are in with Boogie.

I'd say Karl is running the Dribble Drive offense in the same way that Adelman was running the Princeton offense - with the general principles intact but significant modifications.
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You could be right. In a strict dribble drive, there is only one big, and everyone else is considered a perimeter player. Now personally, if I'm setting it up, I have Cuz down on the block. But who knows. Right now, when they put Cuz down on the block, their running a pretty typical post up play with the ball in Cousins hands. That's not the dribble drive offense. But I suppose it could be some modified version of it.
 
Section 101 said:
Well, it helps if you actually have players than can dribble especially wing players. Right now I would rather have Cuz dribble against other bigs than our wing players against wings.
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LOL! Hard to argue with that. Dribble drive is similar to the Princeton offense in that you need players that can shoot, dribble, and pass the ball. No place for a stone hands player in it.
 
bajaden said:
You could be right. In a strict dribble drive, there is only one big, and everyone else is considered a perimeter player. Now personally, if I'm setting it up, I have Cuz down on the block. But who knows. Right now, when they put Cuz down on the block, their running a pretty typical post up play with the ball in Cousins hands. That's not the dribble drive offense. But I suppose it could be some modified version of it.
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I think when they are letting Boogie post up THAT is Karl trying to appease Cousins and a break from the dribble drive offense.

The Kings biggest issues this season have been on defense with turnovers being next in line but I do think the disconnect on offense has been finding out how to integrate DMC into the offense that Karl (and Wahlberg) wanted to implement. If Cuz is a five man in the dribble drive it's a waste of his talents. If he's the four man he's being pushed to the perimeter which also doesn't best utilize him.

Neither Karl nor Calipari run a pure dribble drive system and both guys have limited Cousins to some extent but I'm much more in favor of Calipari restricting him to the post than Karl trying to make him attack from the three point line.
 
Damien Barling is filling in for Ross and goodyear.

He is HAMMERING the kings. It's relentless. He's also playing some of the national media talking about the kings and frankly, it is painful. Ill quote pardon the interruption:

"I have one word for you, Cleveland. And I don't mean the cavaliers or even the Indians. We now have a franchise that is on par with the Cleveland Browns. It's a 3 ring circus".

And as much as we like to say we don't care what the national media thinks, unfortunately the media will continue the narrative that the Kings are inept. Players around the league watch these shows. Potential coaching candidates watch these shows. This kind of brutal attention has got to hurt. It certainly doesn't help.
 
Kingster said:
It's not about Karl. And it's not about Divac. It's about the team, and I don't see any intelligent argument that the undermining of Karl's authority is going to be good for this team going forward. Vlade just added to the cluster.
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You see "undermining authority." I see a GM reminding a coach just who works for whom. Since we rarely agree on anything anyway, I'm not surprised.
 
Kingster said:
If this all about showing who is in charge, then it looks like there's an insecurity problem at the top.
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Or, alternatively, there's been an ongoing problem with a coach who says one thing and does another, a coach who started his tenure here by alienating the franchise player, and a coach who (arguably along with the then GM) manipulated and used social and online media to the point where our front office appeared to be leaking like a sieve with false information.

There's no insecurity on Vlade's part. He's been pretty straightforward about his role and stuck to it, If anybody is insecure, it's George Karl who runs to the media and whines about how he's confused and upset by the termination of Vance Walberg (or whatever words it was he used in that regard. I'm not that interested in finding the exact quote because George Karl plays the media like a fiddle).
 
fansinceday1 said:
Damien Barling is filling in for Ross and goodyear.

He is HAMMERING the kings. It's relentless. He's also playing some of the national media talking about the kings and frankly, it is painful. Ill quote pardon the interruption:

"I have one word for you, Cleveland. And I don't mean the cavaliers or even the Indians. We now have a franchise that is on par with the Cleveland Browns. It's a 3 ring circus".

And as much as we like to say we don't care what the national media thinks, unfortunately the media will continue the narrative that the Kings are inept. Players around the league watch these shows. Potential coaching candidates watch these shows. This kind of brutal attention has got to hurt. It certainly doesn't help.
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Sorry, but I still don't give a rat's patoot what the national media has to say. Players around the league don't base their opinions on what those shows say. They actually talk to players who are much closer to the action. I have a feeling DMC may have answered a lot of questions at the All-Star break.

National media desperately want us all to believe they're relevant and have weight in regards to players and coaches. I seriously doubt it's true. I cannot recall EVER hearing of a player who didn't come to a team because Stephen A. Smith dumped on them. :p
 
VF21 said:
Or, alternatively, there's been an ongoing problem with a coach who says one thing and does another, a coach who started his tenure here by alienating the franchise player, and a coach who (arguably along with the then GM) manipulated and used social and online media to the point where our front office appeared to be leaking like a sieve with false information.

There's no insecurity on Vlade's part. He's been pretty straightforward about his role and stuck to it, If anybody is insecure, it's George Karl who runs to the media and whines about how he's confused and upset by the termination of Vance Walberg (or whatever words it was he used in that regard. I'm not that interested in finding the exact quote because George Karl plays the media like a fiddle).
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With regards to Karl's response on Walberg - I don't know if he said it beforehand but if it was from the practice interview then I wouldn't call it him "running to the media". They asked him about how he felt about the firing and his response was that he was disappointed and confused, and that the blame should be on him. I wouldn't call that whining.

Keep in mind this isn't just basketball. The coaches have real relationships with one another as well. If your close colleague was fired wouldn't you also be upset? What do you think Pop would have said if Bud was fired without his consent? Obviously the circumstances are different, but my point is that I don't see how you can fault Karl for his reaction to Wahlberg's firing.

 
Karl's very first words make it clear he thinks these players should be able to perform and do whatever he thinks they should be able to do!

He is obviously incapable of the self-realization required to understand how the players are not the problem with his systems.

Either that, or he is fundamentally unwilling to change his systems in the face of a team that has decided that they WON'T play his systems.
 
I think the Kings owners, Vlade and the rest of the Front Office and all of us Fans have discovered why the Denver Nuggets fired a Coach with 57 wins and a COY trophy. It has been a hard expensive lesson for the owners. IMO Karl has been in it for the money from day one and had no real intention of doing any Coaching.

For goodness sake the Kings defense is the worst in the Association allowing 109 points a game. How does Karl respond? He leaves the best defenders ON THE FREAKING BENCH!!!!!



My wife has despised Karl since his Seattle days and here I was giving him the benefit of the doubt. No more:mad:
 
King Baller said:
I think the Kings owners, Vlade and the rest of the Front Office and all of us Fans have discovered why the Denver Nuggets fired a Coach with 57 wins and a COY trophy. It has been a hard expensive lesson for the owners. IMO Karl has been in it for the money from day one and had no real intention of doing any Coaching.

For goodness sake the Kings defense is the worst in the Association allowing 109 points a game. How does Karl respond? He leaves the best defenders ON THE FREAKING BENCH!!!!!



My wife has despised Karl since his Seattle days and here I was giving him the benefit of the doubt. No more:mad:
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So let me get this right. The Nuggets fired a coach with 57 wins and COY trophy because he had no intention of doing any coaching and was only in it for the money? Say what you will about Karl's stubbornness to adapt, about his insistence on his system and his disregard of defense, how he may not be a good coach for our roster. Heck, you can even throw in his "feud" with Cousins (for saying no player is untradeable on a sub-30 win team... not exactly unreasonable though rather unadvisable). But how on earth do you get to the conclusion of "Karl has been in it for the money and had no real intention of doing any coaching" based on the fact that he won COY and got 57 wins with an overachieving Denver squad and in a thread about his assistant getting fired?

I just don't see how fans here can on one hand praise Vlade and have full confidence in him, yet on the other blame everything on Karl when at the end of the day Vlade chose to keep Karl around.
 
mac said:
So let me get this right. The Nuggets fired a coach with 57 wins and COY trophy because he had no intention of doing any coaching and was only in it for the money? Say what you will about Karl's stubbornness to adapt, about his insistence on his system and his disregard of defense, how he may not be a good coach for our roster. Heck, you can even throw in his "feud" with Cousins (for saying no player is untradeable on a sub-30 win team... not exactly unreasonable though rather unadvisable). But how on earth do you get to the conclusion of "Karl has been in it for the money and had no real intention of doing any coaching" based on the fact that he won COY and got 57 wins with an overachieving Denver squad and in a thread about his assistant getting fired?

I just don't see how fans here can on one hand praise Vlade and have full confidence in him, yet on the other blame everything on Karl when at the end of the day Vlade chose to keep Karl around.
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We have gone over this several times already. It would seem than in Vlade's calculus that team instability is a bigger problem than coaching incompetence. I can disagree with his assessment and still respect the decision to keep the "Weekend at Karl's" show in town for the remainder of the season. Of course I suppose it helps that I recognize that BOTH instability and coaching incompetence are huge problems and that in the short term the solution to one requires postponing the solution of the other.
 
VF21 said:
Or, alternatively, there's been an ongoing problem with a coach who says one thing and does another, a coach who started his tenure here by alienating the franchise player, and a coach who (arguably along with the then GM) manipulated and used social and online media to the point where our front office appeared to be leaking like a sieve with false information.

There's no insecurity on Vlade's part. He's been pretty straightforward about his role and stuck to it, If anybody is insecure, it's George Karl who runs to the media and whines about how he's confused and upset by the termination of Vance Walberg (or whatever words it was he used in that regard. I'm not that interested in finding the exact quote because George Karl plays the media like a fiddle).
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You're the one that said that Vlade is doing this to show he's in charge. If he's making the move for that reason, it sounds pretty insecure to me.

Regardless of the motivations behind this, if a GM reaches down to unilaterally fire an assistant and then hire another, it's never a good portent for the team. It sends the signal to the team that the GM and the coach are in conflict. (When Vlade reaffirmed Karl as HC it did just the opposite). The team understands that the GM has undermined the coach by this move . It provides the final excuse for many on this team to quit. The management of this team reeks of incompetence. The laughingstock continues for the Kings.
 
HndsmCelt said:
We have gone over this several times already. It would seem than in Vlade's calculus that team instability is a bigger problem than coaching incompetence. I can disagree with his assessment and still respect the decision to keep the "Weekend at Karl's" show in town for the remainder of the season. Of course I suppose it helps that I recognize that BOTH instability and coaching incompetence are huge problems and that in the short term the solution to one requires postponing the solution of the other.
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Might go beyond Vlade too, although who knows.

The image of the franchise as unstable actively hurts us in all free agent and coaching searches. So maybe you postpone the pleasure of firing Karl until after the season because

1) Vlade's sense of stable
2) Vlade wanting to show respect tot he old 1000 win ball coach rather than tossing him out on his ass
3) Franchise (Vlade/Vivek/Minority owners) wanting to not look unstable, for both pride, but also to help in a coaching search this summer

then there's still also possible players weighing in or belief you have a better playoff shot with Karl than just with some interim.
 
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mac said:
So let me get this right. The Nuggets fired a coach with 57 wins and COY trophy because he had no intention of doing any coaching and was only in it for the money? Say what you will about Karl's stubbornness to adapt, about his insistence on his system and his disregard of defense, how he may not be a good coach for our roster. Heck, you can even throw in his "feud" with Cousins (for saying no player is untradeable on a sub-30 win team... not exactly unreasonable though rather unadvisable). But how on earth do you get to the conclusion of "Karl has been in it for the money and had no real intention of doing any coaching" based on the fact that he won COY and got 57 wins with an overachieving Denver squad and in a thread about his assistant getting fired?

I just don't see how fans here can on one hand praise Vlade and have full confidence in him, yet on the other blame everything on Karl when at the end of the day Vlade chose to keep Karl around.
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My context was since he came to Sacramento He has been in it for the money and has no intention of doing any Coaching.

I don't freaking care what he did in Denver. The fact is his team had 57 wins and he won COY and still got his azz fired!
 
King Baller said:
Interesting article:) I disagree with this part: "But the takeaway, one that was true then and remains true now, is that the coach is clearly not the problem."

Now if he was referring to Malone I can see his point. Karl on the other hand IMO has failed to match a system to best suit his players.
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Yeah I dont agree with a lot in this article. We are only a competent coach, constant defensive effort and one wing defender like Courtney Lee away from having a nice foundation and being relevant. I trust Vlade to make the right decisions in the summer and Vivek to stay out of the way for the rest of the way.
I only quoted the article because of the news about Walberg.
 
biltalent said:
Can you elaborate on this? I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say.
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I think he means we don't know exactly how much friction there was between Wahlberg and the players/Lieberman (did they dislike each other the whole season? did a rift develop throughout the year? how much did they actually dislike/hate each other? were the issues about basketball philosophy or personal? Etc...).

Also, the source could be a factor in whether there is truth to this or not, making it important to know the base of these details.
 
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