More on Petrie:

bajaden

bajaden

Hall of Famer
I had been researching everything I could find on Petrie, and suddenly we have an article by Henry. Then this morning, on another blog site, I found this in depth post by Ziller. I don't normally post items from other sites, and I'm not sure what the rules are in that concern. But not wanting to be redundit, or be accused of stealing others ideas, I decided to just post this.

I think for the most part he's fair, and tries to look at both sides, while admitting that he falls on the side of "Petrie needs to go". Anyway, you can judge for yourself..

http://www.sactownroyalty.com/2012/3/28/2907723/geoff-petrie-theses-sacramento-kings#storyjump
 
GM Conspiracy Theory: Portland waiting for Petrie?

Is it possible, that Portland, who fired their GM with no set replacement, know Petrie is leaving Sacramento at the end of this season and are waiting to sign him up? Seems weird they have dragged their feet so long... and now media hit pieces are showing up about Petrie... maybe one of the brothers told Portland something under wraps? Or maybe Petrie did?

Anyone else see that?
 
bajaden said:
More on Petrie:

I had been researching everything I could find on Petrie, and suddenly we have an article by Henry. Then this morning, on another blog site, I found this in depth post by Ziller. I don't normally post items from other sites, and I'm not sure what the rules are in that concern. But not wanting to be redundit, or be accused of stealing others ideas, I decided to just post this.

I think for the most part he's fair, and tries to look at both sides, while admitting that he falls on the side of "Petrie needs to go". Anyway, you can judge for yourself..

http://www.sactownroyalty.com/2012/3...ings#storyjump
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What a well thought out piece, thanks for posting this.
 
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NoBonus said:
GM Conspiracy Theory: Portland waiting for Petrie?

Is it possible, that Portland, who fired their GM with no set replacement, know Petrie is leaving Sacramento at the end of this season and are waiting to sign him up? Seems weird they have dragged their feet so long... and now media hit pieces are showing up about Petrie... maybe one of the brothers told Portland something under wraps? Or maybe Petrie did?

Anyone else see that?
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Petrie's contract with the Kings extends though next season.
 
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It made me sad to read that piece.. knowing that he is still our GM.. I honestly think a new GM could revitalize the fanbase, the team, and the ownership.. but thats just my opinion.
 
OptimusRhyme said:
It made me sad to read that piece.. knowing that he is still our GM.. I honestly think a new GM could revitalize the fanbase, the team, and the ownership.. but thats just my opinion.
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I always want to believe the best about someone. Sadly, thats getting harder to do. There's no factual proof, that Petrie is one of the two GM's that aren't putting in proper amount of time on the job. But the comments by Ziller, certainly imply that he might be one of the two. Once again, its he said/she said. I do think that at some point, you have to ask yourself if it isn't time for a fresh start with fresh ideas.
 
bajaden said:
I had been researching everything I could find on Petrie, and suddenly we have an article by Henry. Then this morning, on another blog site, I found this in depth post by Ziller. I don't normally post items from other sites, and I'm not sure what the rules are in that concern. But not wanting to be redundit, or be accused of stealing others ideas, I decided to just post this.

I think for the most part he's fair, and tries to look at both sides, while admitting that he falls on the side of "Petrie needs to go". Anyway, you can judge for yourself..

http://www.sactownroyalty.com/2012/3/28/2907723/geoff-petrie-theses-sacramento-kings#storyjump
Click to expand...

In the interest of full disclosure, Henry Abbott and Tom Ziller know each other. These aren't two totally different random articles from unrelated sources. It would be like me and Bricklayer writing articles for different places and not disclosing our ties to KF.
 
A few years ago, my significant other had boxseat tickets to some of the Sacramento Capitals games. It turned out that our seats were directly across from Petrie, who was there with Coachie. I didn't ask him any basketball questions out of respect for his right to enjoy a night away from that. But, I did get the impression that he loved living in the sacramento area. So much so, that I concluded that he'd probably retire before pulling up roots again.

I could be wrong, and if so, the Portland area might be the only other place that would attract him. My gut tells me no on Portland.
 
bajaden said:
I always want to believe the best about someone. Sadly, thats getting harder to do. There's no factual proof, that Petrie is one of the two GM's that aren't putting in proper amount of time on the job. But the comments by Ziller, certainly imply that he might be one of the two. Once again, its he said/she said. I do think that at some point, you have to ask yourself if it isn't time for a fresh start with fresh ideas.
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GP has held position, President of Basketball Operations for the Kings since 1994 - 18 years! Can anyone list any NBA GM's of late who have been in their job that long or longer with the same team?
 
PurpleHaze said:
GP has held position, President of Basketball Operations for the Kings since 1994 - 18 years! Can anyone list any NBA GM's of late who have been in their job that long or longer with the same team?
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I'll ask a related question: Can anyone list other NBA GM's of small market teams who have done significantly better than Petrie in that period of time? Please note the emphasis on small market team, because I do believe it matters. I don't know the answer to this question, but it's something I've thought of often when people start the Fire Petrie stuff.
 
VF21 said:
I'll ask a related question: Can anyone list other NBA GM's of small market teams who have done significantly better than Petrie in that period of time? Please note the emphasis on small market team, because I do believe it matters. I don't know the answer to this question, but it's something I've thought of often when people start the Fire Petrie stuff.
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OKC, Mem, SA, POR, IND to name a few, just in the past five years.
 
VF21 said:
I'll ask a related question: Can anyone list other NBA GM's of small market teams who have done significantly better than Petrie in that period of time? Please note the emphasis on small market team, because I do believe it matters. I don't know the answer to this question, but it's something I've thought of often when people start the Fire Petrie stuff.
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San Antonio in spades with multiple championships! I didn't burt out the word "fire," just hoping the wait for anything close to past glory days is not another decade or more.
 
rainmaker said:
OKC, Mem, SA, POR, IND to name a few, just in the past five years.
Click to expand...

Well that's cyclical. And you take something like SA, and despite a lot of nice supplementary moves, the two great key core moves for that francise were getting loucky in the lottery and drafting two of the TOp 25 or so players of all time with those picks. I think the remain the constant example,but they get even so unlucky as to draft #2 those two years and they are just another also ran small market team for the last 20 years.

I realy liked the job the Portland GMs were doing until the last year or so once the meddling from the owners just messed everything up, but they were also operating with the ultimate open checkbook, same as Petrie during the golden era. Memhis has doen such a wonderful job that they traded Pau for Marc, and Kevin Love for OJ Mayo etc. OKC is a strong strong model. They also got to pick #2, #3 and #4 in consecutive years which helps.
 
PurpleHaze said:
San Antonio in spades with multiple championships! I didn't burt out the word "fire," just hoping the wait for anything close to past glory days is not another decade or more.
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Getting Timmie Duncan to stand next to David Robinson was certainly part of that run. And what's the name of the San Antonio GM? Has it been the same one all along, especially during the time when San Antonio was very close to losing the Spurs?

Again, questions I don't know the answers to and am just too lazy to look up.

So, other than San Antonio, are there others?

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's my humble opinion that Kings fans often forget to look at the big picture. Yes, Petrie has made moves that didn't work out but it sometimes seems as though people are saying he's making mistakes that other GMs don't make. I just find that view to be rather myopic, you know?

I think a return to the glory days is close at hand. There's a feeling I get watching this group of Kings, flaws and all, that reminds me of how it felt to watch the Kings when Webber, Williams and Divac first made it fun again.
 
Bricklayer said:
Well that's cyclical. And you take something like SA, and despite a lot of nice supplementary moves, the two great key core moves for that francise were getting loucky in the lottery and drafting two of the TOp 25 or so players of all time with those picks. I think the remain the constant example,but they get even so unlucky as to draft #2 those two years and they are just another also ran small market team for the last 20 years.

I realy liked the job the Portland GMs were doing until the last year or so once the meddling from the owners just messed everything up, but they were also operating with the ultimate open checkbook, same as Petrie during the golden era. Memhis has doen such a wonderful job that they traded Pau for Marc, and Kevin Love for OJ Mayo etc. OKC is a strong strong model. They also got to pick #2, #3 and #4 in consecutive years which helps.
Click to expand...

Yes they did get lucky. But what has happened since 2002? Point is the Spurs have continued to draft/trade/sign well and keep it going while the Kings have been in a freefall.
 
VF21 said:
I'll ask a related question: Can anyone list other NBA GM's of small market teams who have done significantly better than Petrie in that period of time? Please note the emphasis on small market team, because I do believe it matters. I don't know the answer to this question, but it's something I've thought of often when people start the Fire Petrie stuff.
Click to expand...

Other small market teams have had success to be sure, even still, I think that point is irrelevant in the Petrie discussion.

I simply want to ask the question, "How has he done making basketball operation decisions?" I believe the answer to that question does not bode well for Petrie. I could site reasons, but they have been stated over and over again.
 
VF21 said:
I think a return to the glory days is close at hand. There's a feeling I get watching this group of Kings, flaws and all, that reminds me of how it felt to watch the Kings when Webber, Williams and Divac first made it fun again.
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Here in lies the chasm between where you stand and I stand on Petrie. I want to see the glory days again. I really do! BUT, I have been hoping it is just around the corner long enough to realize that the corner is not a corner anymore. I just dont see them coming anytime soon.

The way this particular team is constructed shows a complete lack of competence. This is unfortunate when you consider how great Petrie once was.
 
Heuge said:
Other small market teams have had success to be sure, even still, I think that point is irrelevant in the Petrie discussion.

I simply want to ask the question, "How has he done making basketball operation decisions?" I believe the answer to that question does not bode well for Petrie. I could site reasons, but they have been stated over and over again.
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We'll have to agree to disagree. I don't think the small market factor can be totally disregarded. It's pretty well known that small market teams, especially those not in the playoffs, have a very hard time attracting free agents. Petrie could be making thousands of calls each season trying to get the talent to come here, but when a player has a choice between Sacramento and LA, for example, I think it's a tough sell to get him to seriously consider our Kings.

And if your question is asked for each of the other GMs in the league, how would they fare?
 
Heuge said:
Here in lies the chasm between where you stand and I stand on Petrie. I want to see the glory days again. I really do! BUT, I have been hoping it is just around the corner long enough to realize that the corner is not a corner anymore. I just dont see them coming anytime soon.

The way this particular team is constructed shows a complete lack of competence. This is unfortunate when you consider how great Petrie once was.
Click to expand...

Depends on what you expected from a team whose salary had been decimated, whose owners were all but backing moving vans up to the arena, etc.

But you're right. There is an incredible chasm between how you and I view Geoff Petrie. So, as I mentioned above, I'll respectfully agree to disagree here, too. We do have one thing in common, however. We love the Kings. The rest is just details. :)
 
Bricklayer said:
Well that's cyclical. And you take something like SA, and despite a lot of nice supplementary moves, the two great key core moves for that francise were getting loucky in the lottery and drafting two of the TOp 25 or so players of all time with those picks. I think the remain the constant example,but they get even so unlucky as to draft #2 those two years and they are just another also ran small market team for the last 20 years.

I realy liked the job the Portland GMs were doing until the last year or so once the meddling from the owners just messed everything up, but they were also operating with the ultimate open checkbook, same as Petrie during the golden era. Memhis has doen such a wonderful job that they traded Pau for Marc, and Kevin Love for OJ Mayo etc. OKC is a strong strong model. They also got to pick #2, #3 and #4 in consecutive years which helps.
Click to expand...

I'd say trading Love is the big stain. Personally, I'd rather have Marc than Pau. Pau's a weenie, softer and older than Marc. Different players though. Mem has also shown they have the right frame of mind in terms of getting supporting talent, not just gunners or soft non defensive players.

SA you're right, is a bit of a stretch, and players want to play with Duncan/TP/Manu, but they also do a better job in filling out their roster the right way imo. George Hill, since traded. Blair. Green has been pretty impressive. Splitter was a quality pick. Leonard. Neal. Bonner, one of the better spot up shooters 3pt shooters in the league. This is just the past couple years to, where I see them doing a pretty good job of filling out their roster correctly, with the type of role players to give them a chance.
 
VF21 said:
In the interest of full disclosure, Henry Abbott and Tom Ziller know each other. These aren't two totally different random articles from unrelated sources. It would be like me and Bricklayer writing articles for different places and not disclosing our ties to KF.
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Well Zeller does refer to the Henry article at the beginning as what prompted him to write this particular piece. He doesn't mention knowing Henry personally, but does comment on his respect for him as a writer. So I don't see any under the table conspiricy going on. Zeller admits that he's somewhat biased in regards to Petrie. Not sure what else he could have done to be accepted as someone giving his honest opinion. I don't know him personally, and maybe you do, but all I can do is go on what I do know.
 
Something Ziller commented on, which I wish more had come out about, is what happened with Levin. I believe letting him go was a huge mistake by our FO, and by all accounts it was Petrie who wanted him gone. He offered a different line of thinking, an outside opinion and probably rubbed Petrie and others the wrong way with having a different philosophy on building the team.

Actually, Ziller hinted at whatever happened between Petrie and Levin being worse than what is public knowledge. Has Petrie surrounded himself with "yes" men? It's been hinted at a number of times now. How does he handle viewpoints which he doesn't agree with? Not much evidence he does handle them well as he fired Levin, and there hasn't been any outside influences I'm aware of moving up the ranks in our FO aside from Petrie's own son.

Change can be good. So can alternate viewpoints and a different voice. It's definitely plausible that we've had the same small group of guys with the same philosophies and viewpoints for too long. Can get stale, just as it does in a business environment. I actually got the impression from this articel that there's even more to it which Ziller doesn't want to say. Sounds like he's heard some things he doesn't want to comment on at this point. Petrie not working hard is worrying.
 
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VF21 said:
Depends on what you expected from a team whose salary had been decimated, whose owners were all but backing moving vans up to the arena, etc.

But you're right. There is an incredible chasm between how you and I view Geoff Petrie. So, as I mentioned above, I'll respectfully agree to disagree here, too. We do have one thing in common, however. We love the Kings. The rest is just details. :)
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Just to answer your question about who is the GM of the Spurs? Its R C Buford, and he's been the GM since 2004. Before him, the GM was Popovich, who became GM in 1994. Buford also joined the team in 1994 as the teams head scout, and was appointed director of player personell and later vice president of team operations in 1997. It was Popovich that picked Buford to replace him as GM when he took over the coaching job.

Obviously Popovich has considerable influence over player decisions. But anyway you want to look at it, getting lucky with Robinson and then Duncan aside, the majority of their player decisions have been good one's.

Let me be clear. I'm not calling for Petrie's head. At least not now. But if I don't see some results after the next offseason, I'll certainly join that club. I like him personally, but that has nothing to do with how I look at his performance. Now using the financial situation and the Maloofs medling is a nice excuse for what he didn't do, but its not an excuse for what he did do. If money is the issue, then why did we trade Beno for Salmons when Salmons is making more money then Beno, and is on a longer contract.

I'm not going to start nit picking now. His record is well known, and he certainly has his share of trophys including two GM of the year awards. But I'm not going to take the position that he's GM for life because its not possible for anyone else to do a better job. Thats simply an untenable position. Everything runs its course. Even my hero Stan the Man had to retire. I'm still hoping, as you are, that Petrie has some magic left in his bag of tricks. But if not, then I think his time may be over. For me to think otherwise, is to be in denial.
 
rainmaker said:
Something Ziller commented on, which I wish more had come out about, is what happened with Levin.
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As I recall, Levin was Kevin Martin's agent before joining the front office here in Sacramento, and there may have been some bad-blood over the way Kevin Martin was traded (perception being that the FO was going with Tyreke over Martin). On a side note about Ziller - I believe he had predicted that the FO would NOT trade Martin, and part of his Petrie criticisms may stem from that.

All that said, I'm not sold that Petrie is the future of our FO. I haven't agreed with too many of his moves lately outside of drafting Cousins and Tyreke. I'm not sure Petrie has a knack for evaluating defensive talent.
 
My two cents is Petrie is human and mistakes have been made. But length of time the team has been losing isn't that long really. I agree the Salmons trade was a disaster and everyone knew it at the time except Petrie. But the team is on the right track. We have a good young nucleus of players. we should be winning more right now but the youngest team in the league does not know how to close out games. I hope we get a good pick this offseason. I predict this team makes the playoffs in the next two years barring some kind of really stupid screw ups.
 
bajaden said:
I always want to believe the best about someone. Sadly, thats getting harder to do. There's no factual proof, that Petrie is one of the two GM's that aren't putting in proper amount of time on the job. But the comments by Ziller, certainly imply that he might be one of the two. Once again, its he said/she said. I do think that at some point, you have to ask yourself if it isn't time for a fresh start with fresh ideas.
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Well, when you are getting part-time pay..... ;)
 
I'd love a GM that actually cared about Defense. I think it would be a refreshing way to go. Maybe unpopular with the fans though...
 
Actually, this article was more depressing than Henry's. For one, it comes from someone who is likely much more aware of the King's situation. Plus, unlike Henry, who gives a negative twist to every move (e.g., not mentioning that Hickson was also on a rookie contract, or that the difference in performance of the two guys was pretty considerable when the trade happened), this article is more balanced.

The main reason I found this more depressing was that it showed a light on non-basketball related issues. Some were discussed in some ways (like PW's handling of Boogie), while I at least, was unaware of some others (e.g., him not putting adequate amount of time on the job).

I was a huge Petrie supporter, but have cooled down quite a lot recently (no surprise there). I do believe that in some cases, his hands were tied or controlled by the owners. Even if it's not an excuse, it's at least an explanation to some extent. I won't mind if he is extended, but I would hope to see some of the following
  1. Focus on defense. Either get personnel, or necessary coaching staff, or a combination of the two. But please, no layup drills or wide open 3 pointers
  2. Fix Reke's status. I think if you believe he should play at 3, please trade him. We are taking the ball out of his hands, and taking away his physical dominance at the PG spot.
  3. On the same note, if the coaching staff continues to treat him as a 4th or 5th option, and even leave him off the floor for long stretchs, he's going to ask for a trade. If so, please trade him before killing his value.

On another note, I do agree with people saying SA and OKC got very lucky, and are not really good models. I do think though, that we are discounting some of the excellent moves they made, that allowed them to go to the top (SA in particular), and stay there for such long periods.

Yes, SA got DR and TD as first picks. Not only great players, but great teammates and leaders, who played in a small market city their entire career. However, they also picked Manu with a second round pick, Parker with 27th or so, Splitter with a late pick, Blair with a second round, got Leonard on draft day. In fact, they gave away Scola to save some dough; else, they would have been even better now.

As for OKC, they too got very very lucky, that Portland took Oden. Had they picked Durant, OKC would be way back now. Plus, they also had #5 in the same draft, #4 next year, and #3 after that. They fall a couple of spots each time, and they look much worse.

But they also picked Ibaka with a late pick, got Perkins for a player they weren't using that much, got Collison and Maynor virtually for free.

It's easy to focus on their luck. But their genius in keeping the team competitive despite continuously picking low in the draft and playing in small markets has to be acknowledged.
 
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