iowamcnabb
Hall of Famer
To me thats irrelevant. The seal was broken, that’s the pay scale moving forward. If Mike’s agent didn’t ask for that raise he wouldn’t be doing his job.
McNair gone
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To me thats irrelevant. The seal was broken, that’s the pay scale moving forward. If Mike’s agent didn’t ask for that raise he wouldn’t be doing his job.
We could pretty easily list off 10 ownerships worse than Vivek which in a 30 team league would by definition make him middle of the pack.
ShastaKingsFan
All-Star
Really? Who are those that are worse and not just as bad?
ShastaKingsFan
All-Star
Agents can ask. Doesn't mean you should oblige, because of media chatter
Clearly worse: Portland (dead ownership in trust that is refusing to sell), Dallas, Phoenix. Wizards.
My controversial pick here is also OKC. Owner is CHEAP. Has the best GM in the league. Will not pay stars. Let's see what happens with this new team everyone has pencilled in as a dynasty. Moved the team from Seattle, a great market, Major League style, to OKC and a decade later is demanding public financing on a new arena.
I think we can put New York Knicks and Chicago in this category too.
Dan Gilbert was blessed by LeBron twice but has proven to be pretty horrible.
Probably worse: Charlotte, New Orleans, Orlando, Atlanta
I think a more challenging list would be good owners.
ShastaKingsFan
All-Star
You can't be serious that OKC has a worse owner than the Kings?
SacTownKid
Hall of Famer
Mike isn't wrong, and it's been proven out after the fact. Still, it was the only option and he didn't go to it. Keon gambling was still the best he had at the time.
I explained why. Yes.
He crashed out the team in Seattle to move it to OKC. Wouldn't pay his big 3. Is holding up the city for publicly financed arena a decade after bringing the team there.
That is a horrible owner. Oh, he has the best GM in the game by a mile. That doesn't make him not one of the worst owners. Take Presti away. See what happens.
SacTownKid
Hall of Famer
The good news is in the G league with more reps Devin looked really good on his shots. Also in April when the games were pretty critical, in limited all or nothing attempts Carter was shooting 36% from 3. Devin projects as the type of player that isn't scared to shoot and if he gets enough up, he'll produce. Also, just like college he doesn't wilt when the pressures on. He was a crazy + on the floor during that most critical stretch and was like one of only two players in the play in game that actually played when the game was still competitive to again, be a +. The impact was already there and the numbers prove that out. Keon/LaVine were getting destroyed by Klay, I think when Devin got on Klay the only basket that Klay scored was a transition layup and one where Devin had to basically guard two players at once and got over with enough time to challenge Klay when Klays man blew his assignment. Outside of that Devin didn't even really allow Klay to get the ball. This is the benefit of being able to lock onto someone like a barnacle on a boat. Ball denial defense and playing with your chest is playoff defense. Swiping at the ball, playing passing lanes, or challenging from behind kind of disappears in the playoffs. Refs will allow defenders to play physical, but if players rely on playing handsy defense stars are getting the calls more often than not and that defender is flirting with foul trouble in most games.
SacTownKid
Hall of Famer
Ding ding ding! Right on. And at least Vivek did give him the deal, imagine the ****storm if he didn't? lol. Vivek didn't pull the plug too early either. It was legit getting ugly at that point.
This is the thing with Vivek. He can't win with this fanbase.
He trusts the basketball people? They draft MBIII.
He gives into fan demands? He extends Mike Brown coming off a disappointing season.
He is cheap? He allegedly "forces" the team to sign or trade for names that are overpaid.
He has enough and fires everybody? He's meddling.
And then we go right back to one stupid thing he said in 2014 as proof he sucks.
I'll tell you this: everyone who has had a conversation with the man says he wants to win. I know there are owners in this league that don't prioritize winning over the social cachet and long term investment growth team ownership has given them.
SacTownKid
Hall of Famer
And that said, yes, some of the vitriol is warranted. Maybe a lot of it. The Kings fanbase is the most abused in all of basketball, but things have gotten so bipolar lately it's comical. Keegan is a stud after hitting a 3 and a bust after missing the next. And so on. It's better than apathy though. Kings fans that were there in the mid to late 2000's know what that looks like. And that's the reason whoever is leading things better not lead it back into no mans land. Run it back with minor adjustments or rebuild. If something like Domas can go for a package that brings back a win now player and picks like Fox, then that's not terrible either. Sending out rebuild assets though would be catastrophic if things didn't improve. Also, the biggest issue for the Kings in previous years, including Bagley, Davion, etc. was the lack of a decent development system. That finally looks like it's working so if that goes with McNair that would be the saddest thing in all of this because it's taken so many ruined players (Yes, like Bagley) to finally not suck at that.
Being born and raised and attached to Sacramento has cursed me with the Kings as my only major league pro franchise from my hometown.
As fate would have it, I chose to study in Boston over Arizona and became attached to the Patriots during that time (I was already a Sox and Bruins fan which I'm sure influenced the decision to live in New England).
You know who Pats fans think is the worst owner in sports? Bob Kraft. Same can be said for the Bruins and Sox. All of whom have won championships since the Kings were relevant.
I have a bad owner here in Portland with my soccer team. He let a coach sexually coerce his female players and had the men's team cover up the domestic abuse by a player, re-signed that player while it was covered up, and tried to sell or trade the player before the abuse and coverup became public. He said the fans were being unreasonable and whiners for complaining or boycotting the clubs in the wake of these allegations. Refused to fire his managers who participated in this until outside investigations came out damning everyone including the owner before relenting. Covered up the medical malpractice that destroyed at least one player's career (Jake Gleeson).
Vivek isn't that. He's just a guy who wants to win and sometimes makes bad decisions. Criticism of him is fair and warranted. But he's not unique in any of that.
ShastaKingsFan
All-Star
We can go to April of 2025 as more proof. Unless you agree with how things have been handled? Maybe you're happy and satisfied with him as an "average" owner,... the vast majority of the rest of the fan base and those that follow the team closely are not
My issue is that people think a new owner is going to change things. It's not. Lottery luck (1 #1 overall pick in all the years of being bad), suffering from small market bias, having two LA teams plus GSW at their prime in our division, and facing one of the toughest schedules year after year - travel and competition wise - are why we're where we're at. Like yes, we screwed up on Luka but how many opportunities have we even had to draft a player like that vs. a San Antonio, Cleveland or New Orleans who seem to win the lottery after every drastic season or even a Charlotte or Orlando? We tanked one year and wound up picking 4th (when it was still a 3 pick lottery). We're either cursed, the NBA deliberately sabotages us or we're flat out the unluckiest team in the world. Having San Antonio's relatively hands off or Mark Cuban (probably the best of the hands on owners) ownership wouldn't have changed that for us.
Jdbraver137
Bench
Vivek is the owner the whole league laughs at
I realize you're not just speaking to me so there's a wide range of fan opinions to account for. For my part though, I think you're making this sound more complicated than it is. My one big complaint with Vivek is that he can't make up his mind what he wants. Part of running a team is making mistakes -- I have no problem with that. But long story short, we haven't had a head coach last more than 3 seasons here since Rick Adelman's tenure ended 19 years ago and that's an ownership problem.
Just to briefly summarize Vivek's Winter and Springs of discontent...
Malone's squad didn't play with Pace.
George Karl's team got baited into defensive mismatches every game (plus he was a jerk and probably shouldn't have been hired in the first place).
Dave Joerger was handed a rebuilding job and just when he started to win he was out because, why exactly? People didn't like him?
Luke Walton was another terrible hire who did nothing well so mulligan on that one.
And then Mike Brown kicked ass as a coach until he didn't for 6 weeks and the rug got pulled on him.
I suppose we could go season by season with all of them and find reasons why they should be fired but at some point instability starts to become the team's defining characteristic and that's a worst-case scenario. The players who don't get traded in the endless search to find "what works" have to readjust to a new philosophy and playbook every few years. The GM and Coach are rarely on the same page because they have different bosses. The Coach probably has to do what the GM wants if the GM hired them but Vivek is going to fire the GM sooner or later as the team continues to tread water so they also have to listen to what Vivek wants. I can't think of any franchise with this much instability which has performed well.
I just want Vivek to pick a GM and a Coach and stick with them for 6 years just to see what happens. Let them make some mistakes and learn from them. Let the players get used to some consistent voices in the front office and locker room. I thought when Brown and McNair each won the yearly awards for their positions that meant we were done -- the search for the right people had ended and now we were going to give them enough runway to build a real team identity. Obviously Vivek felt otherwise so we're starting all over again. Is Scott Perry still going to be here in 3 years? If the team doesn't win more than 40 games in that time span are we looking for a head coach yet again? The pattern has been set at this point and I don't think it's unfair of me to say: "Scott Perry and whoever the next Head Coach winds up being have 3 years to keep their jobs and the clock is already ticking. Prove me wrong Vivek."
He got the raise before he fell back to Earth though. Not to mention, 48 wins is the 6th best season in the 40 year history of the Sacramento Kings (and the other 5 were all coached by Rick Adelman). If that's not good enough for us to lock up a head coach long-term than I'm almost certainly going to be dead before this team makes it back to another Western Conference Finals.
Again I say, he chose to demand the raise halfway through the contract before the options came up. That's dirty pool my dude.
I think EVERYONE agrees that what happened to Malone was a travesty. That's also part of a brand new owner's learning curve. It's a big part of why I question this "new owner quick fix" belief so many have. Almost every new owner fumbles in his first year or two. Some a lot worse than this. (Phoenix, Dallas are present examples).
He made some bad hires in the aftermath. Joerger was OK - the reason he got sent out was pretty simple to me - he entered a public spat with the FO where Brandon Williams and he were leaking stories to the media about why he was/wasn't playing their prized #2 overall pick. It was a bad pick, we can all admit that. Vivek listened to his FO on that one. But you still have to play him. And you can't trash the guy you just invested the franchise in to the media who were all mad about Luka. That's why he's gone. On top of just throwing away the second half of the Portland game on purpose at the end of the season when Vivek and company made a huge deal about how getting to 40 wins meant something to them.
Luke was a bad hire, I think Vlade made that happen. Who knows how much Vivek was involved, I think many owners would have signed off on it.
Brown was a good hire at the time. He as I have said many times, broke his word demanding a raise mid contract. But forget that for a moment. Let's say the team rebounds and plays .500 ball for the next 6 weeks after he is fired. Do you think Fox (who is building a house that very moment in Texas) doesn't ask out? I do.
And we wind up exactly where we are today.
The difference if Mike Brown does not get fired would be that the current and future players would know that ownership is backing the coach so they can't just tune him out if they don't like what he says and get him fired. I think that's a huge difference from where we are today and is worth more than keeping Fox or any other player is worth. When we talk about teams who have good culture and positive results developing players we are only talking about teams (Miami, San Antonio) who have had the same head coach for a decade. Personally I lean more in the direction of swapping out GMs before coaches. Your voice on the sideline and in the lock room needs to be the voice of the organization not just a short-term rental.
As for the Bagley situation, it was obvious from day one that the guy didn't have it. He might have maybe grown into having it with the right guidance but this is related to my first point. If you have a coach that you trust and that coach tells you "this guy ain't it" than you dump him at the first opportunity. Trying to make something happen for three years just wastes everyone's time. The damage was already done at that point as soon as the pick was made.
SacTownKid
Hall of Famer
I agree with the idea of patience, but no you don't, you really don't. That's totally arbitrary. Success dictates path more often than not and sorry, Brown started to lose his locker room whether anyone likes it or not and his pressers started to get more and more pointed with very little directive towards solution. That might have been because there was no solution, especially on the defensive side of the ball but it just happens sometimes. Monte had 5 years, really 6 isn't the trick at all. The trick is to not sit in the middle unless you're doing it with a growing team full of growing players. The Kings sat right there for 16 years because they tried to cut corners and that goes back to before Vivek. And the average lifespan of any NBA head coach is around 3.7 years on a quick search with google AI. Is that a lie like every other google AI answer? Probably but it's got to be close to that, haha. Coaches that last almost always have one thing in common, THEY are usually the defacto GM. Mostly because they've earned it. It's a very short list with coaches like Don Nelson, Pat Riley, Pop, and a few more on it but they are so few and far between it's almost just wishing to end up with that.
I call it "knowing your worth". And he still got less than players drafted in the first round who are one year out of High School get. A good head coach is worth twice that in my book (see also: the last 40 years of Sacramento Kings history for why).
That might be the average now but it didn't use to be. And the average NBA team is just as bad at creating stability as we are. It's a pretty crap product all in all in its current iteration but the NBA's business model is almost fail-proof (Dallas is currently testing the limits) because they have a virtual monopoly.
EDIT: And not to mention, the goal is to be better than the other 29 franchises. If average were the goal well we're doing a bang-up job at that.
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SacTownKid
Hall of Famer
If only it worked that way. The NBA is full of coddled people. From a very young age they got their way, and now they think they know it all. They know exactly what their team needs. What trades are good or bad and what their demands need to be to make sure they make it out the best personally via trade. Ask Fox.
As for Bagley they mischaracterized what they saw. Vlade saw Giannis, he should have seen Amare Jr. He's not the first player during those years that the Kings completely bungled. Whiteside, Papa G looks pretty good overseas, Davion. The good news (for now) is that the Kings development system seems to be the only thing really humming. If that goes bye bye that will be probably reason 1B this franchise will be stuck yet again. You can pick good talent 9 out of 10 times but if you don't know how to evaluate and develop it, it's pointless.
SacTownKid
Hall of Famer
Yeah, no the league is screwed right now. The players have every single bit of power. The Kings learned it first hand with Fox. It's been that way for awhile now too. This is why the apron thing was likely put in, but in the end watch, it's probably just going to end up punishing teams like the Sacramento because they usually have to resort to overpaying lesser players and then yield lesser results in trade when need be.
ShastaKingsFan
All-Star
I couldn't disagree more with this. A competent owner would have never hired unqualified GM's like Pete D and Vlade Divac. When he finally pulled his head out of his rear end and found a qualified guy through a proper search, he couldn't even let him do his job without getting in the way. Now after moving on from the one GM he went through a process to find, he's back to a quick hire. The one guy that he and Divac had a connection with in Perry. I'm sure that's a coincidence and they did their due diligence to make sure there wasn't someone who might be better?
It isn't bad luck. It's moronic incompetence. An article on the other site summed it up with this.... "it's like this franchise is run by the most gullible guy in your fantasy sports league"
True enough. Even Miami (Jimmy Butler) and San Antonio (Kawhi Leonard) are not immune to Entitled Player Syndrome. They also booted those guys out at the first opportunity and never looked back. "Take the Power Back" as Zach de le Rocha
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