Kings interview Del Negro, Jackson and Mitchell for Head Coach position (Yahoo News)

KingsFanSince85 said:
Thanks for the history lesson, but everyone is well aware of the record and accomplishments of that team. If you weren't busy playing smart-ass and/or payed attention to where the discussion went, the point may not have gone completely over your head.

He didn't make it work. Because he got fired. Because he couldn't get the best player in the league to buy into what he was selling. If you paid attention to latter part of this thread, specifically the parts where Čarolija discussed the differences between coaching in Europe vs. the US --- you might have been able to follow along instead of looking really lame right now.

The truly funny thing is that you give Blatt credit for all those accomplishments when it was pretty well known that LeBron was changing plays during and at the end of games and pretty much running the team himself. But, hey, don't let the fact that the guy got canned early the very next season keep you from missing the point yet again.
Click to expand...

I don't agree with you on this (at all). You make it sound like the Cavs are Bron and nothing else. However, the Cavs success has so many ingredients that Blatt put into place that go unrecognized because of Bron (who collects all the attention). Blatt produced a key player out of Dellavedova, an undrafted player. He reinvented JR Smith as one of the top players in the NBA (Phil Jackson demanded that the Cavs take him together with Shumpert). He made Mozgov play like a real NBA center. Kyrie Irving became a much improved player (Irving and Shumpert came back from injury at the time of Blatt's firing). So, if you look at the Cavs beyond Bron, you see Blatt's fingerprints all over.
 
hrdboild said:
Please. Those people are idiots. Have always been idiots, and will always be idiots. These are mostly the same people who didn't think he should be in the All-Star game, believe everything they read on Yahoo Sports, and generally think anything at all related to Sacramento is the joke that keeps on giving. I couldn't care less whether they think Cousins is All-NBA or not because of some arbitrary rules that they get to make up and then enforce. They call Cousins a team cancer while fantasizing about how they can rob us of him for a few meaningless late first round picks. And you'd better believe they'll be defending his All-NBA credentials if that ever happens.

The coaching search is absolutely about playing style and I suspect all of the talk of appeasing Cousins is a much bigger talking point among the fans than it is in the front office. I think it would be incredibly short-sighted to give up on a franchise level big man because George Karl couldn't make it work but I also don't think DeMarcus is bigger than the team. He's a great player but so were all the other guys we've traded over the years... Richmond, Webber, Peja, Bibby, Doug, Bobby ... they all got traded at some point. And that's why I want a defensive coach. Because I've always wanted a defensive coach. If Cousins refuses to bust his ass on defense for a coach that demands it than he deserves to be traded. That was most certainly not George Karl though. I think George Karl really only lost the locker room when it became obvious that Ben, Seth, and Willie were going to get benched for missing an open shot but Marco was going to get his minutes regardless of how poor his defense was. The commitment to defense from George Karl was non-existant.

And I know I'm not making any friends saying this, but all the talk about how the league is changing and we need a modern basketball mind to make sure we don't fall behind.... bull. poopoo. That's a whole truck full of it. Golden State and San Antonio are defensive powerhouses. That's why they're the two best teams in the league. Look at Golden State's lineup and point to one bad defender. Draymond Green, Steph Curry, and Andrew Bogut are among the best in the league at their positions. Igoudala is getting a little older but he's been known as a stopper for most of his career. Barnes and Thompson are no worse than average. Off the bench, their backup PG is 6'7". Leandro Barbosa plays basketball like a bull in a china shop but he's at least a rangy athlete. That accounts for most of their minutes. If all you see (this is a general you) when you watch Golden State is three-point shooting and ball movement than you're not paying attention. They've been scoring points in the Bay for a decade or more and never won anything until the new ownership committed to bringing in plus defenders. Remember when their own fans booed them for trading Monta Ellis for Andrew Bogut? I'm not even sure Golden State fans get it.

And this extends all the way to the Spurs -- who are continually held up as a model franchise and yet people continue to overlook the obvious reason why. They're on a whole other level defensively from the rest of the league. And that didn't happen by accident. To pick just one example-- they were a 61 win team in 2011 and traded one of their top 5 players to get Kawhi Leonard who is now one of the top 5 individual defenders in the league. That's called knowing what you need and going out and getting it. Their defense was astonishingly good this season and if you look at their roster -- Aldridge, old Ginobili, Parker, Patty Mills, Danny Green, David West, Boris Diaw, Kyle Anderson -- most of these players are not thought of as dominant defenders. As a team though they're the Great Wall of China. I don't even want to read another word about motion offense, three point shooters, floor spacing, or the death of post play from any Kings fan. Ever. It's been 10 years of the same thing. None of that even matters people! Popovich has run more offenses than I can count in his Hall of Fame coaching career. He's had one of the slowest paces in the league and one of the fastest. He's had one of the most prolific three point shooting teams and one of the worst. But two things remain constant: his teams always work their asses off on defense and they're always in the playoffs.

You want a coach with a system that gets wins? That's the system: earn your paycheck one stop at a time. When you put on this uniform, you will take pride in locking down the other team or you'll sit on the bench. You're not going to complain about touches, you're not going to jog through defensive possessions, you're not going to hoist threes outside of the offense, you're not going to watch your man rebound the ball without putting up a fight. Commit to doing all of that and you'll be a better player. Unfortunately the number of coaches out there with the stomach for barking this message at NBA players day in and day out, game after game, practice after practice, who are both willing and able to stand their ground until the players shut up and decide it's easier to just put in the work instead of complaining about it is very small. Calipari can do that on the college level because he's God on that Kentucky campus. But who other than Popovich can demand that from an NBA team? Thibs can but he wants full control of the roster to ensure he doesn't get compromised again. Of the coaches we're looking at, I think Nate McMillan and Mike Woodson are really the only options.

But that's just my opinion.
Click to expand...

Wow, right on the money! I disagree with you only on those names (McMillan and Woodson). I bought into Blatt bandwagon watching last years playoffs. The less players Blatt had available the tougher his defense got. Blatt would have taken the series if Bron had been able to deal with Iguodalas defense. Bron was the only scorer Cleveland had still playing. (and then, surprise, surprise, Blatt paid the price)
 
Chipping in on Blatt:

Besides this forum, I also lurk at realgm to get NBA news.

When Blatt was fired, Cavs fans were universally pissed off. About the only complaint anyone had was that he "misused" Love. And the people who brought that up still loved Blatt. It's very rare that a fanbase has such high opinions on their coach, which more often than not tends to be a scapegoat position.

Heck, we even had a "fire Malone" thread here, before it actually went down.

Everything I've heard about him has been positive. His Cavs team played great defense.

If we can sign him it'll be a coup. Really hope he's our guy.
 
My two cents on the Ettore Messina and David Blatt comparison. No doubt that they are both brilliant basketball coaches. Blatt has an advantage for already being a head coach in the NBA. If Messina was to take over the Spurs today, I don't think the Spurs would miss a beat. Messina's (authoritarian) style is so close to Popovich. However, I'm not sure he would be able to keep it up for years. What I am more worried about is that the Kings are not a team with that kind of discipline and culture. Can Messina cope with this kind of team? Messina has always been a coach (or now assistant coach) of top tier rosters. Blatt, however, has never had good teams in the past. The Cavaliers were not supposed to be one either until Bron returned and brought Kevin Love with him. Blatt's value is in making a weak roster play beyond their abilities. That became clear in Cleveland's last year playoff run. When they lost star players, they just got tougher. Also this year Blatt kept Cleveland on top of the EC despite not having Irving and Shumpert at all and Kevin Love and Mozgov recovering from surgery and long injuries. Those are the main points why I think Blatt has a higher potential (compared to Messina) for success in Sacramento.
 
bajaden said:
I'm just curious. How does a coach that fails to communicate with players win four championships in Europe? How is that possible? If the players aren't buying what he's selling, then the team doesn't win. People keep making blanket statements like this, and I see no proof of it. Not saying your wrong, but it just doesn't make any sense. Now if you were to tell me that the players wern't fond of his form of communication, then I can understand that. but they don't have to be fond of it. Believe me, Cousins wasn't fond of having Calapari screaming in his face at Kentucky, but the team won games, so he didn't care.
Click to expand...

Ego in European players plays differently than in America. (I'd almost say the same thing for America in general)
 
Ron said:
I don't think I missed the point (and hold your horses with the confronting tone. I wasn't making fun of anyone).

My point (in this post and in the Spoelstra story) was that Bron is simply uncoachable. More and more so with every passing season (You mentioned some stuff yourself, like dictating plays).

Being able to make Bron "buy in" is close to impossible for any coach not named Pop. Certainly for any coach WE have a shot at landing here.
It was NOT a matter of culture or attitude from the coach's side. Just an impossible situation for any coach.

The points about the different basketball culture and the place of the coach in Europe vs NBA are very valid (thank's, @Čarolija) but:

1. I am a European bball follower myself, and I can tell you that @Čarolija went a bit too far in portraying the almighty role of coaches there. Star franchise players may get coaches fired in Europe too.

2. The style of coaching in Europe varies widely, just like everywhere, and while 3 of the 4 great coaches mentioned ARE indeed notorious :) (yet successfull) for their dictator-like nature, I think Blatt is the odd man out in that list.
He was pretty far from being a tyrant in his European gigs, perhaps because he started up in Israel, where bball culture is much less strict and coach-focused than in the former Yugoslav countries (Israel also lacks the abundant local talent found there, so Maccabbi was always very "American" in nature and culture, with half the roster coming from the US)

In his jobs in Israel and Europe Blatt was known for creating a closer relationship with players, relying more on a sense of respect and loyalty that made them bust their *** for him/ for the team. (BTW, that reminds me of how JR Smith spoke about him earlier this year)

To summarize my point:

Blatt may have done a lot of rookie mistakes in his work with players in CLE, but they were not culture-driven errors.
Moreover, his rookie mistakes were neither hurting the team nor were they the reason for his firing.
Besides, by now both Blatt and Messina are not rookies in this league any more.
Click to expand...
Oh there is absolutely no doubt that Blatt is the one that is different from the other 3. IMHO, Blatt's style is more transferrable to the NBA that the other 3. I love the two Serbian coaches and have enormous respect for them, especially since both come from my club Partizan (and Vlade's for that matter) but there is no way in hell either make good coaches in the NBA. Not because of their knowledge and basketball IQ but because of their approach and dictatorial ways. it works wonders in Europe but not NBA.

Blatt could work. It's a bit of an unknown because his time in CLE was under weird circumstances.
 
Kingston Jamaica said:
My two cents on the Ettore Messina and David Blatt comparison. No doubt that they are both brilliant basketball coaches. Blatt has an advantage for already being a head coach in the NBA. If Messina was to take over the Spurs today, I don't think the Spurs would miss a beat. Messina's (authoritarian) style is so close to Popovich. However, I'm not sure he would be able to keep it up for years. What I am more worried about is that the Kings are not a team with that kind of discipline and culture. Can Messina cope with this kind of team? Messina has always been a coach (or now assistant coach) of top tier rosters. Blatt, however, has never had good teams in the past. The Cavaliers were not supposed to be one either until Bron returned and brought Kevin Love with him. Blatt's value is in making a weak roster play beyond their abilities. That became clear in Cleveland's last year playoff run. When they lost star players, they just got tougher. Also this year Blatt kept Cleveland on top of the EC despite not having Irving and Shumpert at all and Kevin Love and Mozgov recovering from surgery and long injuries. Those are the main points why I think Blatt has a higher potential (compared to Messina) for success in Sacramento.
Click to expand...
There are all valid points. Messina has always had teams in Europe that have been stacked with talent. Blatt's Maccabi teams have always been good but never quite had the same talent level as the other power teams in Europe. They did however, enjoy, just like Partizan, real home court advantage because the fans in both Nokia Arena and Pionir go nuts for the duration of the game.
 
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hrdboild said:
And I know I'm not making any friends saying this, but all the talk about how the league is changing and we need a modern basketball mind to make sure we don't fall behind.... bull. poopoo. That's a whole truck full of it. Golden State and San Antonio are defensive powerhouses. That's why they're the two best teams in the league. Look at Golden State's lineup and point to one bad defender. Draymond Green, Steph Curry, and Andrew Bogut are among the best in the league at their positions. Igoudala is getting a little older but he's been known as a stopper for most of his career. Barnes and Thompson are no worse than average. Off the bench, their backup PG is 6'7". Leandro Barbosa plays basketball like a bull in a china shop but he's at least a rangy athlete. That accounts for most of their minutes. If all you see (this is a general you) when you watch Golden State is three-point shooting and ball movement than you're not paying attention. They've been scoring points in the Bay for a decade or more and never won anything until the new ownership committed to bringing in plus defenders. Remember when their own fans booed them for trading Monta Ellis for Andrew Bogut? I'm not even sure Golden State fans get it.

And this extends all the way to the Spurs -- who are continually held up as a model franchise and yet people continue to overlook the obvious reason why. They're on a whole other level defensively from the rest of the league. And that didn't happen by accident. To pick just one example-- they were a 61 win team in 2011 and traded one of their top 5 players to get Kawhi Leonard who is now one of the top 5 individual defenders in the league. That's called knowing what you need and going out and getting it. Their defense was astonishingly good this season and if you look at their roster -- Aldridge, old Ginobili, Parker, Patty Mills, Danny Green, David West, Boris Diaw, Kyle Anderson -- most of these players are not thought of as dominant defenders. As a team though they're the Great Wall of China. I don't even want to read another word about motion offense, three point shooters, floor spacing, or the death of post play from any Kings fan. Ever. It's been 10 years of the same thing. None of that even matters people! Popovich has run more offenses than I can count in his Hall of Fame coaching career. He's had one of the slowest paces in the league and one of the fastest. He's had one of the most prolific three point shooting teams and one of the worst. But two things remain constant: his teams always work their asses off on defense and they're always in the playoffs.

You want a coach with a system that gets wins? That's the system: earn your paycheck one stop at a time. When you put on this uniform, you will take pride in locking down the other team or you'll sit on the bench. You're not going to complain about touches, you're not going to jog through defensive possessions, you're not going to hoist threes outside of the offense, you're not going to watch your man rebound the ball without putting up a fight. Commit to doing all of that and you'll be a better player. Unfortunately the number of coaches out there with the stomach for barking this message at NBA players day in and day out, game after game, practice after practice, who are both willing and able to stand their ground until the players shut up and decide it's easier to just put in the work instead of complaining about it is very small. Calipari can do that on the college level because he's God on that Kentucky campus. But who other than Popovich can demand that from an NBA team? Thibs can but he wants full control of the roster to ensure he doesn't get compromised again. Of the coaches we're looking at, I think Nate McMillan and Mike Woodson are really the only options.

But that's just my opinion.
Click to expand...

Well I'm the one on this board advocating for the adaption to the league and for a modern basketball mind as the Kings headcoach, so even though you didn't quote me, I somehow feel the need to respond, despite knowing better....

Basketball is not a game played only on one side of the court. So why nobody would deny, that all successful teams are good defensive teams, focusing just on this side of the court is way too simple.
And I'm curious, how you come to the impression, that anybody on this site is focusing only on 3 point shooting and ball movement when talking about Golden State or the Spurs.
The Kings need to adapt on offense AND defense to build a successful future in Sacramento. Yes just by improving the defense we could maybe snap a playoff spot, but to really lead this franchise as a whole into the future, we need someone, who is able to implement a successful system, which makes the best use out of the players on the roster, which is not a ideological, wishful product of a general idea of how basketball should be played, but a well thought out way how basketball can be played in the environment of the current league and last but not least a system, which is not overly dependent on one particular player. Demarcus Cousins should be the guy, who really sends the system over the edge and enables us to content for a title. He shouldn't be the guy, who makes the system work on a very basic level, leading to ultimate failure in the case of an injury of our star or a bad shooting night.
 
hrdboild said:
Please. Those people are idiots. Have always been idiots, and will always be idiots. These are mostly the same people who didn't think he should be in the All-Star game, believe everything they read on Yahoo Sports, and generally think anything at all related to Sacramento is the joke that keeps on giving. I couldn't care less whether they think Cousins is All-NBA or not because of some arbitrary rules that they get to make up and then enforce. They call Cousins a team cancer while fantasizing about how they can rob us of him for a few meaningless late first round picks. And you'd better believe they'll be defending his All-NBA credentials if that ever happens.

The coaching search is absolutely about playing style and I suspect all of the talk of appeasing Cousins is a much bigger talking point among the fans than it is in the front office. I think it would be incredibly short-sighted to give up on a franchise level big man because George Karl couldn't make it work but I also don't think DeMarcus is bigger than the team. He's a great player but so were all the other guys we've traded over the years... Richmond, Webber, Peja, Bibby, Doug, Bobby ... they all got traded at some point. And that's why I want a defensive coach. Because I've always wanted a defensive coach. If Cousins refuses to bust his ass on defense for a coach that demands it than he deserves to be traded. That was most certainly not George Karl though. I think George Karl really only lost the locker room when it became obvious that Ben, Seth, and Willie were going to get benched for missing an open shot but Marco was going to get his minutes regardless of how poor his defense was. The commitment to defense from George Karl was non-existant.

And I know I'm not making any friends saying this, but all the talk about how the league is changing and we need a modern basketball mind to make sure we don't fall behind.... bull. poopoo. That's a whole truck full of it. Golden State and San Antonio are defensive powerhouses. That's why they're the two best teams in the league. Look at Golden State's lineup and point to one bad defender. Draymond Green, Steph Curry, and Andrew Bogut are among the best in the league at their positions. Igoudala is getting a little older but he's been known as a stopper for most of his career. Barnes and Thompson are no worse than average. Off the bench, their backup PG is 6'7". Leandro Barbosa plays basketball like a bull in a china shop but he's at least a rangy athlete. That accounts for most of their minutes. If all you see (this is a general you) when you watch Golden State is three-point shooting and ball movement than you're not paying attention. They've been scoring points in the Bay for a decade or more and never won anything until the new ownership committed to bringing in plus defenders. Remember when their own fans booed them for trading Monta Ellis for Andrew Bogut? I'm not even sure Golden State fans get it.

And this extends all the way to the Spurs -- who are continually held up as a model franchise and yet people continue to overlook the obvious reason why. They're on a whole other level defensively from the rest of the league. And that didn't happen by accident. To pick just one example-- they were a 61 win team in 2011 and traded one of their top 5 players to get Kawhi Leonard who is now one of the top 5 individual defenders in the league. That's called knowing what you need and going out and getting it. Their defense was astonishingly good this season and if you look at their roster -- Aldridge, old Ginobili, Parker, Patty Mills, Danny Green, David West, Boris Diaw, Kyle Anderson -- most of these players are not thought of as dominant defenders. As a team though they're the Great Wall of China. I don't even want to read another word about motion offense, three point shooters, floor spacing, or the death of post play from any Kings fan. Ever. It's been 10 years of the same thing. None of that even matters people! Popovich has run more offenses than I can count in his Hall of Fame coaching career. He's had one of the slowest paces in the league and one of the fastest. He's had one of the most prolific three point shooting teams and one of the worst. But two things remain constant: his teams always work their asses off on defense and they're always in the playoffs.

You want a coach with a system that gets wins? That's the system: earn your paycheck one stop at a time. When you put on this uniform, you will take pride in locking down the other team or you'll sit on the bench. You're not going to complain about touches, you're not going to jog through defensive possessions, you're not going to hoist threes outside of the offense, you're not going to watch your man rebound the ball without putting up a fight. Commit to doing all of that and you'll be a better player. Unfortunately the number of coaches out there with the stomach for barking this message at NBA players day in and day out, game after game, practice after practice, who are both willing and able to stand their ground until the players shut up and decide it's easier to just put in the work instead of complaining about it is very small. Calipari can do that on the college level because he's God on that Kentucky campus. But who other than Popovich can demand that from an NBA team? Thibs can but he wants full control of the roster to ensure he doesn't get compromised again. Of the coaches we're looking at, I think Nate McMillan and Mike Woodson are really the only options.

But that's just my opinion.
Click to expand...

Don't disagree with much that you said, but I do have a few comments. I think the fact that players themselves all recognise that the game is changing is something that we have to pay attention to. I know many posters here don't like jumpshooting and wanna be all bullyball and what not but that's not the reality of the players themselves today. Young players are working on their 3 point shooting, not on being great post players, and so equivalently that's going to impact your ability to construct a team that plays a certain way. You also hit it right on the nail in bringing up defense - while you may not feel that you have to have lots of space and be a great jumpshooting team on offense to win, you certainly need to be able to defend the 3 and defend against small ball lineups and so on, which is the other side of the game changing that is less often talked about. The best defensive teams in GS and the Spurs aren't playing big lumbering guys out there anymore. Bogut hardly gets any burn and once Duncan goes out the tallest guy is an "undersized" PF in West or Diaw. Versatility seems to be key, but let's also not diminish the impact that guys like Leonard, Danny Green, Draymond Green and Iggy have as individual defenders.

Your description of an ideal coach is one that I can agree with. No outside agendas, not about pacifying Cousins or Vivek - just getting players to play hard and defend hard and to hold them accountable when they don't.
 
gunks said:
Chipping in on Blatt:

Besides this forum, I also lurk at realgm to get NBA news.

When Blatt was fired, Cavs fans were universally pissed off. About the only complaint anyone had was that he "misused" Love. And the people who brought that up still loved Blatt. It's very rare that a fanbase has such high opinions on their coach, which more often than not tends to be a scapegoat position.

Heck, we even had a "fire Malone" thread here, before it actually went down.

Everything I've heard about him has been positive. His Cavs team played great defense.

If we can sign him it'll be a coup. Really hope he's our guy.
Click to expand...

That's some good info.....interesting.
 
Čarolija said:
Well this sucks!

https://twitter.com/espnsteinline/status/728217610605633537
Click to expand...
The Silver Lining might be that McHale has heard that there is another job for him, which means that this one last job for the other candidates. For example if his old buddy Larry Bird is considering putting him on that would make Vogel available. McHale was probably my first choice but there's some other really good candidates out there who may have had one more door closed.
 
Last edited:
ockingsfan said:
Mchale is waiting for his buddy Larry bird to fire Vogel so he can coach the pacers.

It's okay. I will gladly take Vogel instead! :D
Click to expand...

Its far from impossible, and the overall sequence could up the possibilities of us getting Blatt or Vogel.

McHale replace Vogel
Vogel and Blatt rumored to be in Knicks hunt
leaving one of them without a home. No indication Houston would be interested in either.
 
God, Larry. Why? Why would you even? McHale is a good coach but Vogel took half a roster and made the playoffs with it.


Kayte Christensen‏@kayte_c
Kayte Christensen Retweeted Sports Radio Roundup

McHale withdraws from Kings head coaching consideration…oh and Larry Bird giving press conference at 8 a.m. Hmmm
 
Bummer to see McHale remove himself from consideration. He was in my top three. I didn't consider him the best overall coaching candidate or the best long term hire but I did think he was definitely the best fit for the roster as currently constructed. The most "plug and play" option.

With Vogel out in Indiana, I'm guessing either McHale or McMillan will end up with the Pacers job. That immediately makes Vogel my favorite option and probably would have been even over McHale. My fear is that Houston nabs Vogel, New York nabs Blatt and now three of the guys I liked are gone.
 
Somebody already tweeted that Houston is going to interview Vogel: that was before the announcement, but the author was sure, if Vogel was to be fired.

Hopefully Vogel watched enough shaqtin-a-fool clips with Harden to have reservations.
 
Thinking about it more I'm not sure Nate McMillan is a candidate in Indiana either. If Bird wants more offense, he wouldn't be the first place I'd look. I'm guessing Blatt and Hornacek will get consideration in Indy.
 
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