Kings hire Luke Walton
- Thread starter SLAB
- Start date
And he couldn’t hold it together
Yup completely agreed. With Joerger and a good summer, this team should have been expected to be a 44-45 win team. Luke has to exceed that now because he's a "better" coach for this team according to Vlade.
We'll see. It's a hell of a risk firing the best coach we've had by a large margin after a 12+win improvement season. Walton has to come in year 1 and get us in the playoffs or it's another complete failure of a decision from the FO.
SLAB
Hall of Famer
And Joerger did such a fantastic job holding it together when Bagley (and Giles?) went down and Shump got traded, yeah? Some of those players aren’t like the other.
Furthermore, the Lakers were expected to make the playoffs and to make a deep run in the playoffs. The Kings were expected to win 25 games or so.
See my other post.....you want to compare a team that was expected to make a deep playoff run with a team that was expected to win 25. I get it, you don’t like Joerger but your laying the groundwork for us just getting better next year already so that if we don’t make the playoffs, you can say “Hey, we are growing”. Loser mentality.
That is a fact. This was damn near an all in move. The only thing I can think of that would be more all in is trading one of your young star core pieces for a vet all-star on the down side. But this coaching move? Needs to be playoffs.
Folsomkingsfan
Starter
Since when have laker fans ever been able to properly evaluate talent though? According to them their average lottery picks are superstars and their crappy role players have more value than most nba starters. Same goes for coaches that they hire. A laker fan trying to properly evaluate talent is like me explaining how the image of that black hole was captured when I got a c+ in astronomy in college.
kingsfan1984
Starter
im not saying Walton is the next Pop.
Im saying its not too difficult to make an argument that Walton is at least on the same level as Joeger and the kings going forward dont look to be a rudderless ship.
when you look close at the hand he was dealt i dont see the failures on their season steaming from the coach. They did better than i expected.
Joeger also had some lockerrrom disruption and imo its fairly obviously a much smaller problem than what went down in Laker land. Yet joeger, imo, did worse than i expected under the kings circumstances.
Again, this isnt to say Joeger is a horrible coach. Thibodeau is an excellent coach yet similarly weak in inter relationships and was sunk on that reef.
My point is that in the tiers of coaches, Walton is at least same level as Joeger. So as a kings fan, i dont see the big step back some ppl fear
SLAB
Hall of Famer
If getting better with an increasingly bright future is a loser mentality, then sure. I’m a loser.
Can’t control other teams already being better than us. 45 wins is a success, playoffs or not.
disagree. Guarantee in an alternate universe if Joerger lead us to 45 wins next season and we missed the playoffs, a good chunk of this board the fanbase would be calling the season a failure and be ready to let him walk. Walton should have a great expectation on him, not a lesser than Joerger.
TaxMan
Starter
Debating ApolloDaGod is pointless. He’s just looking for a reaction at this point. His response to your post will be something about how Walton is the trashiest of trash coaches who lucked into every win he had and was responsible for ending LBJ’s playoff streak.
Kingster
Hall of Famer
As far as I know, you're the first one to bring this up, and I think it has some merit. In his first game as a King with basically no "Kings' coaching" whatsoever, Burks was the most efficient offensive player on the floor against Miami, scoring on 4 out 5 from the field. Afterwards, when presumably he did get coaching, it was if he got neutered and didn't have any offensive oohmph to his game whatsoever.
ockingsfan
Starter
Here is the thing about the 12 more wins this season for the Kings.
Had Joeger implemented the "fast paced" offense in the 2017-18 season, I have no doubt the Kings would have had a better record that year. They largely had the same roster, yet in 2017-18 Joeger stuck with his grit and grind offense centered around ZBo. And I am sure Vlade signed ZBo as a favor for Joeger.
Vlade clearly had a vision of run and gun for this team and if Joeger would had implemented the fast paced offense back in the 2017-18 season, the Kings would have had a better record that year, probably by at least 4-5 games. This year's 12 game jump in wins would had been smaller, because the Kings would had won more in the previous season.
I'm not sure if the grit and grind offense was a teaching year, tank method, or a refusal for Joeger to change his offense from what worked for him in Memphis. I give Joeger credit for changing the offense to fit the player and improving the Kings this year. I'm just not sure if Joeger's 2017-18 season's grit and grind was by design (tanking) or the coach not wanting to change what worked for him in the past.
Joeger was a good coach and probably would had improved the team record next year. I think a lot of the drama and the interpersonal relationships with the key player played a big part in his dismissal.
I'm looking at the broader picture here. If we just looked at who has spanked the Kings then we would have Tony Delk, Montrezl Harrell, the city of Dallas and DeAngelo Russell all in the hall of fame.
Walton was given a raw deal in LA. There's no doubt about that. I'm just trying to figure out how he is going to handle this team. There isn't much of a track record with the guy. Throw out his stint in GS. While he did as good a job as any for them, that team can basically run itself. Walton's real "success" year was last year with the Lakers when they put up a 35 win season with the youngsters. I thought he did a pretty solid job there.
It's just the one thing I notice is that he doesn't like to play his centers much. He prefers to run with power forwards at the 5. As far as minutes played per game goes, his centers are normally 8th-10th on the team. With the way our roster is constructed, I'm not a big fan of that. Unless Bagley miraculously turns into a plus defender at the 5, it doesn't matter if he puts up 23 and 10 every night. The Kings will still be below .500 because of the defense. Playing these guys where they are their strongest is the key to getting the most out of the roster.
Giles has been a much better defender than Bagley at the 5 and he's also shown the ability to take advantage of smaller players or slow players on the offensive end. With some added strength he could be a real positive at the position. I'd hate to see him playing 18mpg so the Kings can run out Bogie/Barnes/Bagley at the 3/4/5 because that'll be a disaster as far as defense and rebounding goes. One of the biggest problems with the Kings all year is they'll go half a quarter letting teams seemingly score every single time down the court. It's how many of those 15 point leads evaporated in the blink of an eye. Going small doesn't help us much with that.
I just want to talk about this one thing, I have for a few days now but since you highlighted it:
We did a nice solid move to Shump to ship him to a contender after everything he did for us. He was not going to get big minutes any longer with our newly acquired SF. This is the kind of move that lets future role players know it is safe to sign here.
Which is why I think Joerger's insistence on playing a slumping Bogs extended minutes at the 3 and Barnes, who we had cleared space for as a small 4 much of the way certainly contributed to the job loss, along with everything else.
LoungeLizard
Starter
If Luke Walton doesn’t lead this team to the best record in NBA history and win the Title then this is all a failure. Vlade needs to go! Loud noises! Gnashing of teeth!
I have posted nothing but admiration for Walton for years here. He got a completely raw deal this year and I felt bad for him. None of that meant that I necessarily wanted him as Kings coach, but I have advocated that he return to Arizona if Miller can't get out of his mess there (here and on other forums). So whatever hesitation I had in the NBA was probably related to his Lakers ties, the fact that Vlade lasered in on him and the deal was done immediately reassures me everyone is all in on this.
Walton is no dummy and he knows if he can't improve on what Vlade and Joerger have already built he'll be in Musselman territory.
The Effort Police
Starter
Ew, small-ball again? That's gonna rain on my parade. Then again the Lakers' bigs were notable meme Javale McGee, the rotting corpse of Tyson Chandler, and Ivica Zubac who hadn't done anything in his career up to that point and once he showed he could play he worked his way into the rotation, and it's not like Joerger wasn't shoehorning in small-ball as well.
Not to mention that with Joerger's firing not utilizing the talents of Bagley and Giles clearly isn't going to fly, but then again we can also debate the merits of the FO making a power play like that.
Ugh, I don't know.
Kingster
Hall of Famer
You don't even know how many games will be required to get to the playoffs. You don't know what the off-season moves are going to be from the Kings or from the competing teams in the western conference. You also don't what's going to happen with injuries. The Kings could get 46 wins next year and still be out of the playoffs.
If "the best coach we've had by a large margin" (Adelman & Malone fans might disagree) doesn't see eye to eye with the GM, you get rid of the "best coach." It doesn't matter whether he's good or not. It's bye bye, it's been great, you've improved our win total, and by the way, you're fired. The relationship between the GM and the coach is essential to the future of your team. If Joerger is good and Walton is good you dump Joerger, pronto, because you as the GM can't work with him because you have different ideas on the team, it's future, how to improve going forward, how to work together, etc. Again, it doesn't matter if Joerger was a good coach if Divac and he couldn't work together in a sympatico relationship. It's irrelevant.
Kangztillidie
Bench
After the Buddy fiasco with Joeger I wouldn't be surprised if the FO saw that as a deterrent to acquiring players in FA. If that was the case then bringing in Walton was absolutely the right play in that regard. Culture matters.
The front office probably made us even that much more of an attractive destination by that one move alone. I can see that as being a very smart move by Vlade. If the idea of playing for Walton itself attracts more interest around the league, especially from higher profile players, then I'm sorry but all the bitching and hand wringing is going to make those doing it look pretty dumb.
The front office probably made us even that much more of an attractive destination by that one move alone. I can see that as being a very smart move by Vlade. If the idea of playing for Walton itself attracts more interest around the league, especially from higher profile players, then I'm sorry but all the bitching and hand wringing is going to make those doing it look pretty dumb.
NME
Starter
*NINE GAMES out of the playoffs.
Bosnian Diehard
Starter
Should Playoffs be our goal for next season? Absolutely. Is it Playoffs or bust though? Of course not.
If we win around 45 games next year but still miss the Playoffs, that’s still a good improvement.
Let’s not forget, it took 48 wins to make the Playoffs this year and the West will likely become even more difficult next year. Kawhi going to the Clippers will put them in 50+ win territory. Dallas led by Porzingis and Dončić will be a Playoff contender. The Twolves may be on the bubble. The Lakers may sign a FA or two, and LeBron may not miss as many games.
If we win around 45 games next year but still miss the Playoffs, that’s still a good improvement.
Let’s not forget, it took 48 wins to make the Playoffs this year and the West will likely become even more difficult next year. Kawhi going to the Clippers will put them in 50+ win territory. Dallas led by Porzingis and Dončić will be a Playoff contender. The Twolves may be on the bubble. The Lakers may sign a FA or two, and LeBron may not miss as many games.
Everybody can't win 48 games (though it does recall a fun meme from r.s.p-b in the 90s), so I'd be stunned if that doesn't get us in. Still if we fall a game short but improve to over 45 wins? I'm not going to be too critical. Although I think it's fair to say that we absolutely should have won at least 43 games this year (Lakers, NO x2, Portland in the final 10) so my expectations are 50+.
Heuge
Starter
I disagree. The coaching change, and the explanation therein, leave no room for another non playoff season.
ApolloDaGod
G-League
The firing and signing was too soon. Like why salivate over "Luke walton" makes ZERO sense.
ApolloDaGod
G-League
Where.is everyone pulling justification for.the firing of a very good coach in Dave(who needed one more.year, despite front office disputes, people disagree it's a business) and the hiring of Steve Kerr's "yes man" I dont get it.
Kangztillidie
Bench
Steve Kerr's "yes man" won 24 straight games to open the season, coached more games than Kerr that year (43-39) and had a better record. Stop being asinine.
Yeah, who knows how many wins it will take to make the playoffs next year. I dont see much in the way of some western teams falling off, perhaps SA, and a couple teams like Dallas getting better.
I do like what Vlade has done. He's cleaning house and eliminating excess brass. He is not replacing Brandon Williams but instead letting Peja and Ken Cantanelli absorb those responsibilities.
As a hands on hard nosed worker my entire life, dogged by a bunch of useless management running around creating more problems then they solve, I can only appreciate getting the right people that dont cause problems to do the job.
Luke should be a great fit with a hella nice deameanor for our young crew. Nail free agency and life will be sweet.
I do like what Vlade has done. He's cleaning house and eliminating excess brass. He is not replacing Brandon Williams but instead letting Peja and Ken Cantanelli absorb those responsibilities.
As a hands on hard nosed worker my entire life, dogged by a bunch of useless management running around creating more problems then they solve, I can only appreciate getting the right people that dont cause problems to do the job.
Luke should be a great fit with a hella nice deameanor for our young crew. Nail free agency and life will be sweet.
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