SI gives Kings midseason grade of ...

[Glenn]

That's true many times and the utter hypocrisy here is that going off Vivek saying in Sept that this season is clearly, point blank about wins and losses, and that Malone was the only one who took that seriously, is that the real insubordination came from PDA who decided pace/style meant more than winning, then put a whale size hole in the hull of our ship.

If people are going to bring up insubordination, then quit looking at it through tunnel vision and stop acting like it only applies to the Malone vs PDA dynamic. Insubordination applies from the top down and applies to the PDA vs Vivek dynamic. PDA went against Vivek's win/loss stance and it's clear as day.

And, it's Vivek's fault for not holding him to it.

At the least it creates a lot of FO confusion.

 

[hrdboild]

Basically, and correct me if I'm wrong, you're saying they lied to the fans, and really this was intentional tanking. It's not incompetence, cause they meant to do this? For what's likely another 8-10 pick?

They meant to become a national punchline? Vivek meant to have his name smeared by a national publication (ESPN, especially Grantland, has made Vivek their punching bag as well along with SI now, and that started this summer with the "no one has any idea what the Kings are doing" stuff with the Nik pick).

Is this supposed to make anyone feel better or worse?

You give them too much credit I think.

Insecure and petty is a given, given the ridiculous leaks every step of the way (Malone didn't want to extend Boogie and Rudy is just an absurd leak that isn't even believable, yet one poster here at least keeps repeating it as gospel). But I actually believe Vivek thought this would result in more won games NOW. I have to believe that. Cause the alternative is he lied to some good fans who deserve the truth.

Or it's what Spike said, they're incompetent AND liars.

Yeah, basically I do think Vivek lied when he said Corbin was going to make the team better this season and take them to the playoffs.

I think they looked at what their ceiling was with Malone and decided it wasn't high enough, so it was time to go in a different direction -- even if it meant losing more games this season. You probably don't go on record immediately after firing a popular coach and tell people that you're angling for the lottery and Malone was too good of a coach to get you a top 10 pick but not good enough to carry you into the playoffs. Even if that's what you believe, nobody goes on record about actively torpedoing their own season. I've said this before -- everyone knows what Philadelphia is doing yet they've never gone on record and admitted they're trying to lose as many games as possible. Even the commissioner tap dances around the issue when asked about it.

And you can sweep it under the rug if you say you think Corbin is "highly qualified" and "might be our coach long-term" and then you blame the losses on "trying to adjust to a new offensive style" or "improving our talent-base by finding more opportunities for Nik and Ray, Quincy Miller, Derrick Williams, and eventually Eric Moreland." It's misdirection. And it might be Machiavellian, but it's not necessarily incompetent.

Look at the track record of this front-office so far...
1]They considered matching the NO offer to Tyreke and made a substantial offer to Andre Igoudala, a guy who looked like an ideal compliment to an Evans/McLemore/Cousins lineup. Less than 24 hours later they completely reversed course and dropped both.
2]Almost the entire roster that Vivek inherited was moved, piece by piece, over the course of one season. That includes trading for Derrick Williams and making him the starting SF and then trading for Rudy Gay and making him the starter just two weeks later.
3]The decision to fire Coach Malone was made 24 games into the season, or perhaps even earlier. This is after PDA expressed that he was willing to sit back a bit after the great start and see how the team comes together.

Clearly this is not a front office that likes to sit around. They make decisions and act on them immediately. And yet they've decided to wait 58 games before exploring any other coaching options? Yes I think the draft pick is a factor. Especially because the #10 pick this year is probably going to be better than last year's #5.

 

[ParniValjak]

I agree, that stems from a lack of leadership starting at the top, which makes Vivek's silence and trips overseas less acceptable.

How much did we hear about culture when he bought the team? Now we're likely looking at a FO with a strong divide, with multiple rifts going up against each other, a climate btw which makes accountability far less likely. And who hired the GM, brought in Mullin and presides over all this? It's Vivek. Right now, he's nowhere to be seen.

Leadership, accountability, a clear vision and having a plan everyone is working towards starts at the top. Always has. When there's this much discord and dis-function throughout management, that rests on the President or CEO or owner, whether in sports or business.

As an aside, something I'm quite curious about is who are the "experts" Vivek consulted when he hired Malone, which he was ecstatic about. Seems both PDA and Mullin were against Malone for awhile, which tells me there's two groups of "experts" Vivek is getting advice from who come from opposite ends of the spectrum. Wonder what the former group thinks now. But a prime example of Vivek not really knowing what he's doing and is in over his head is that these two groups he's getting advice from strongly clash against one another. Someone he leaned on told him Malone would be a great hire. Then another group he leans on pushed for Malone's firing during our successful start. That's strong evidence that from our FO through Vivek and his "advisers" that multiple parts of this are working against each other, which of course creates the type of mess where we're once again a laugh stock with no clear path forward.

And it's atrocious leadership by the head honcho.

Weren't there rumors at the time that Jerry West helping Vivek out with identifying and putting together his basketball staff.

 

[Tetsujin]

Weren't there rumors at the time that Jerry West helping Vivek out with identifying and putting together his basketball staff.

Bah. What does one of the greatest basketball minds of all time know? I bet he doesn't even care about pushing the pace.

 

[LPKingsFan]

Bah. What does one of the greatest basketball minds of all time know? I bet he doesn't even care about pushing the pace.

Weren't there rumors at the time that Jerry West helping Vivek out with identifying and putting together his basketball staff.

Ihttp://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/2013/06/03/jerry-west-says-hes-not-helping-sacramento-kings/2383533/

 

[KingMilz]

Look at the track record of this front-office so far...
1]They considered matching the NO offer to Tyreke and made a substantial offer to Andre Igoudala, a guy who looked like an ideal compliment to an Evans/McLemore/Cousins lineup. Less than 24 hours later they completely reversed course and dropped both.
2]Almost the entire roster that Vivek inherited was moved, piece by piece, over the course of one season. That includes trading for Derrick Williams and making him the starting SF and then trading for Rudy Gay and making him the starter just two weeks later.
3]The decision to fire Coach Malone was made 24 games into the season, or perhaps even earlier. This is after PDA expressed that he was willing to sit back a bit after the great start and see how the team comes together.

They also did try sign Monta Ellis (which I was strongly against since we had IT at the point)who has proved to be a much better #2 option/player (well he's actually #1 on Dallas atm) on respective teams than both Rudy Gay and Tyreke, aside from trying to sign Monta pretty much every other move has been or turned into a disaster.

 

[Prince_XY]

I can't believe they got that upset over a statement that "defense wins basketball games". If the coach is getting results, he could say that the "grape Gatorade wins basketball games" as long as he keeps putting up a better record than the year before. Maybe there are other reasons, but just come out and say so, even if you don't address specifics. Saying that the team pace was too slow was the reason for firing a coach is nuts when your best players are post players. Makes you look like a laughingstock.

I agree with you that it was petty, but that is not the only thing that was said by Malone.

Malone said "analytics doesn't win basketball games. Defense wins games." And I think any FO/owner or even casual fans like us know that defense wins basketball. And as far as I can recall, there was no mention from the FO/owner that Malone was doing bad in terms of defense.

 

[Prince_XY]

I agree, the grade is somewhat subjective and not just based on 'datapoints'. You can't quantify all the damage resulting from the 180 degree turn in direction and subsequent downward slide.

A number of fans thought we should have done better under Malone (with or without Cousins) We thought we could have won more games with this roster. Apparently, the FO/ownership believed that too and they replaced Malone.

I think the bitter part of Malone's firing was we got a seemingly worse coach as a replacement for Malone which the FO/ownership did not expect going forward with coach Corbin.

The whole story is as simple as that.

 

[IfAt1st]

The whole story is as simple as that.

No, you are missing almost all of the story.

 

[funkykingston]

A number of fans thought we should have done better under Malone (with or without Cousins) We thought we could have won more games with this roster. Apparently, the FO/ownership believed that too and they replaced Malone.

I think the bitter part of Malone's firing was we got a seemingly worse coach as a replacement for Malone which the FO/ownership did not expect going forward with coach Corbin.

The whole story is as simple as that.

Really? Because with Cousins Malone was on pace for 49 wins. Even without Cousins for 10 games Malone was on pace for 38 wins.

According to this poll: http://kingsfans.com/threads/predict-win-total-2014-15.57904/#post-1098345
85% of Kings fans thought the team would finish with somewhere between 31 and 45 wins. 4% thought they'd have more than 45 wins and 11% thought they'd win less than 26.

Unless by "number" you mean 5 out of 125 then I'm not sure who was horribly disappointed with the job Malone was doing.

Did I think the meltdown losses in Memphis and Dallas were awful and nearly inexcusable? Yep. But just like with a young player you have to ride out the rough patches with a young head coach and let him grow into the role.

Under Corbin with Cousins back in the lineup and during a much softer stretch of the schedule the Kings have gone 6-16. At that rate they'll win 27 games.

I like Corbin but who actually thought he'd be such a massive improvement from Malone that the Kings would actually play better after firing a coach who got his players to trust him and buy into his system?

The narrative isn't that Corbin is a terrible coach. The narrative is that Malone was doing a good job. Hence the deserved F from SI.com.

 

[Glenn]

Really? Because with Cousins Malone was on pace for 49 wins. Even without Cousins for 10 games Malone was on pace for 38 wins.

According to this poll: http://kingsfans.com/threads/predict-win-total-2014-15.57904/#post-1098345
85% of Kings fans thought the team would finish with somewhere between 31 and 45 wins. 4% thought they'd have more than 45 wins and 11% thought they'd win less than 26.

Unless by "number" you mean 5 out of 125 then I'm not sure who was horribly disappointed with the job Malone was doing.

Did I think the meltdown losses in Memphis and Dallas were awful and nearly inexcusable? Yep. But just like with a young player you have to ride out the rough patches with a young head coach and let him grow into the role.

Under Corbin with Cousins back in the lineup and during a much softer stretch of the schedule the Kings have gone 6-16. At that rate they'll win 27 games.

I like Corbin but who actually thought he'd be such a massive improvement from Malone that the Kings would actually play better after firing a coach who got his players to trust him and buy into his system?

The narrative isn't that Corbin is a terrible coach. The narrative is that Malone was doing a good job. Hence the deserved F from SI.com.

I'm glad you have the energy. The facts are there. A person just has to have the capacity and willingness to understand them.

 

[funkykingston]

What is a tad bit concerning is that one time he did say "trade me" under Paul Westphal and things have gotten as bad as it was under Westphal. He seems to have changed since then as a person and seems to really enjoy being Sacramento over the years.

Not that I'd defend Cousins yelling at his coach or that I know for sure what happened in that practice, but from what I read it sure sounded like he was getting into it with Westphal and was using "Trade me then" as his angry response. More of a pseudo dare than actually wanting out of Sacramento. What I never did hear was what Westphal said to him. Maybe DeMarcus completely blew up without good reason or maybe he was goaded into it. I don't know. Definitely not a good situation regardless.

 

[Prince_XY]

Really? Because with Cousins Malone was on pace for 49 wins. Even without Cousins for 10 games Malone was on pace for 38 wins.

I agree with you and again let me be clear.

What I was saying is the FO did not believe Malone was doing a good enough job and thought we could do better with Corbin. And a number of fans believed we could have done better with this roster as was discussed in the thread "The Fallacy of Hope". The FO/Vivek thought Corbin would be an upgrade, but apparently they are about to be proven wrong because we seem to be heading towards the worst.

A number of fans thought we should have done better under Malone (with or without Cousins) We thought we could have won more games with this roster. Apparently, the FO/ownership believed that too and they replaced Malone.

I think the bitter part of Malone's firing was we got a seemingly worse coach as a replacement for Malone which the FO/ownership did not expect going forward with coach Corbin.

The whole story is as simple as that.

 

[funkykingston]

I agree with you.

What I was saying is the FO did not believe Malone was doing good (and a number of fans believed the same as was discussed in the thread "The Fallacy of Hope"). The FO/Vivek thought Corbin would be an upgrade, but apparently they are about to be proven wrong because we seem to be heading towards the worst.

I wasn't necessarily calling you out in particular. I'm wondering how many fans thought the team was more talented than 9-5. For that matter how many thought the Kings would be 11-13 after that brutal early stretch even if Cousins DIDN'T miss 10 games? Even after the 2-8 stretch without Boogie I felt the Kings were still ahead of schedule in terms of team development. Collison looked like a great fit. Ben's growth was surprising, Boogie's attitude was improved, Gay was still efficient, Thompson was doing the dirty work with no signs of grumbling and most of all the team defense had made significant strides.

Fans had every right to be crushed when the Kings lost the Memphis and Dallas games but how many fans actually thought we had the kind of roster that was capable of opening up 20+ point leads on the road against the Grizzlies and Mavericks.

To me we were seeing a turnaround season. One with lots of bumps in the road for sure, but the one in which the national narrative around Boogie changed dramatically. One in which the team established it's identity as a gritty, tough defending team that was a tough fight every night and most importantly one in which the Kings either barely missed the playoffs or barely squeaked into that 8th spot giving tons of reasons for hope of even better things to come.

Now? The only identity this team has is as the same perennial doormats they've been for a decade without the confidence that things will actually improve. Same roster. Drastically different outlook.

 

[randymoss1881]

Only a fool would think this team without cousins should win only a fool. We lost to orlando/Toronto/ LaL/Houston/Detriot. All those teams have more talent than us besides LaL and we would have beat them if Collison doesn't shoot 30% from FT hell we had Houston beat until Harden went Jordan on us. We saw how good of an option Gay as in Toronto as a #1 and our #2 Collison wouldn't even start on on 80% of other teams.

A number of fans thought we should have done better under Malone (with or without Cousins) We thought we could have won more games with this roster. Apparently, the FO/ownership believed that too and they replaced Malone.

I think the bitter part of Malone's firing was we got a seemingly worse coach as a replacement for Malone which the FO/ownership did not expect going forward with coach Corbin.

The whole story is as simple as that.

 

[rainmaker]

I agree with you and again let me be clear.

What I was saying is the FO did not believe Malone was doing a good enough job and thought we could do better with Corbin.

Well that's one of the main issues here, that both locally and nationally, immediately upon the firing just about every last person fully expected us to do worse under Corbin, which in essence is throwing away the season due to a belief which goes against the entire basketball landscape and what it thought, which was only a fool would believe Corbin would do better than Malone after firing him midseason. And as was said after the firing, if Malone was replaced with George Karl, there'd be far fewer complaints as replacing Malone with a proven coach like Karl shows far more competence as there'd be reasonable expectation he could improve the team based on his track record.

We basically had three fools convince themselves replacing Malone with Corbin would improve this team, while the entire basketball world responded with "WTF are they doing?". And what we're left with is the basketball world at large being right, while those three fools remain and the best response they can muster is throwing up their "hang ten" sign.

Of course, there's a whole lot more to it, whether directly and indirectly and the greater ramifications such stupidity can have, and we'll just have to wait and see just what the bottom is under this regime.

 

[LPKingsFan]

Only a fool would think this team without cousins should win only a fool. We lost to orlando/Toronto/ LaL/Houston/Detriot. All those teams have more talent than us besides LaL and we would have beat them if Collison doesn't shoot 30% from FT hell we had Houston beat until Harden went Jordan on us. We saw how good of an option Gay as in Toronto as a #1 and our #2 Collison wouldn't even start on on 80% of other teams.

Yeah, some folks here weren't very happy with Malone after that Lakers loss: http://kingsfans.com/threads/game-22-sacramento-kings-la-kobes-12-09-14-7-30-pst-10-30-est.58559

But I don't think anyone would have been happy to know that Malone would be fired and we'd be left only with Corbin for the remainder.

 

[IfAt1st]

As one of the posters who openly questioned Malone's offensive competence (in fact, I predicted the Kings could not win a first round playoff game with the offense the way it was), I also was clear that MAlone needed HELP with the offense - the organization had to get more assistance to creating a less iso offense and that Malone needed to not be the only coach making play-call decisions on the sidelines, etc.

I (and I don't remember anyone else) was not calling for Malone to be fired, no way no how.
I am not going to let this ret-con of history go by or some fan try to massage what happened for some narrative:

The front office did not fire Malone because of fan outcry. Not even close to reality.

A couple other corrections to what people are saying recently:
* The Kings started effectively 10-4, not 9-5. We all know the Grizzlies game was a win, just not allowed by the league's incompetent review process missing the blatant (in replay) Hollins' tip.
* The early losses were more on the front office (i.e. primarily PDA) for not providing Malone a competitive bench. Pete has been on record as saying he was going to stand pat with this pathetic bench and "see how it plays out". Shockingly, this is still his approach, despite over a half-season of the worst bench in the NBA, losing leads constantly whenever they've been fought for.

Malone was not solely (or even primarily) to blame for many of those losses which led up to 11-13 record.
So don't anyone try to ret-con the Kings' early record. Every reasonable fan was very happy to be watching a competitive team surpass expectations, and were looking forward to improvement of the roster and the rotations and the playcalls - they were not looking for a wholesale blowing up of the season - that was solely a management call, for their own selfish agenda.