Still defending Vlade? (split from game thread)

Is it time to fire Vlade?


  • Total voters
    51
  • Poll closed .
#31
So what's your point? Keep Vlade because the next guy might be worse? What kind of logic is that? I don't trust Vivek either but this team is heading back into the lottery and you can't trust Vlade to make the right draft pick when he's shown over and over that he usually gets it wrong (especially on the biggest draft pick of them all)

With the exception of Fox, Vlade's drafts have been poor. It's really not even debatable.

Papagiannis and Malachi Richardson are out of the league. Frank Mason (high second round pick) is essentially out of the league. Skal (who they gave up on and actually was a decent late first round pick) was traded for a guy that will be out of the league soon. Justin Jackson sucks and may be out of the league soon. Harry Giles they gave up on already and apparently they're expecting him to be out of the league soon too. Cauley-Stein's career is plummeting and he may be out of the league soon too.

You then throw in an underwhelming Bagley who can't stay healthy and a bunch of other second round picks that have not amounted to anything (while other teams are finding some absolute gems in the second round.....) and all we're left with is Fox. One good draft selection in five years.
Might want to look at that papa draft again. Everyone sucked. 90% of the GM's missed. There are maybe 7 level starters in the entire draft. 2015 wasn't any better.
 
#32
This probably belongs here. Because we aren’t a free agent destination, draft acumen is probably the most important attribute for a Sac GM. Here is Vlade’s draft record....

2015: 6th Willie Cauley Stein
On board: justice Winslow, Myles Turner, Devin Booker, Kelley Oubre,

2016: 13th. Pappagiannis
On Board: Malik Beasley, Lavert, Siakim, DeJounte Murray, Brogdan

2016: 22nd Richardson
On Board: Siakim, DeJounte Murray, Malcom Brogdan

2016 28th Skal
On Board: DeJounte Murray, Malcom Brogdan

2017. 5th Fox

2017. 10th Pick (Giles and Justin Jackson)
On Board: Zach Collins, Mitchell, Adedayo

even after trade
2017 15th Jackson
On Board: John Collins, Jarrett Allen, OG Anunoby, Kyle Kuzma, Derrick White

2017 20th Harry Giles
On Board: OG Anunoby, Kyle Kuzma, Derrick White

2018: 2nd Marvin Bagley
On Board: Luka Doncic, Jaren Jackson Wendall Carter, Both Bridges

The only pick of Vlade’s you wouldn’t change in hindsight is Fox.
 
#33
Might want to look at that papa draft again. Everyone sucked. 90% of the GM's missed. There are maybe 7 level starters in the entire draft. 2015 wasn't any better.
Hernangomez, Ellenson, Beasley, LaVert, Siakim, Murray, Zubac, and Brogdon were all drafted after PapaGiannis.

Yes it was a weak draft but there are a couple super players listed above and multiple rotation players. Even more troubling is that guys like Siakim, Murray, and Brogdon were passed over by Vlade 2 or 3 times. As mentioned in my last post, Vlade has yet to find a late round or second round gem in any of his drafts.

Generally most GM's if you give them five years worth of drafts will find a super player somewhere in the late first round or second round. Somehow Vlade hasn't while also screwing up most of his early first rounders too.
 
#34
Hernangomez, Ellenson, Beasley, LaVert, Siakim, Murray, Zubac, and Brogdon were all drafted after PapaGiannis.

Yes it was a weak draft but there are a couple super players listed above and multiple rotation players. Even more troubling is that guys like Siakim, Murray, and Brogdon were passed over by Vlade 2 or 3 times. As mentioned in my last post, Vlade has yet to find a late round or second round gem in any of his drafts.

Generally most GM's if you give them five years worth of drafts will find a super player somewhere in the late first round or second round. Somehow Vlade hasn't while also screwing up most of his early first rounders too.
Which means 24 gms missed drafting those players.
 

SLAB

Hall of Famer
#35
If Vlade wasn’t Vlade, was just some front office suit (Maybe like a certain gerbil) he’d have been run out of town with pitchforks and hand grenades long ago.

But no, he’s Vlade Divac so he gets a free pass because of our glory years.

There’s no defending this joke. The team will be inept as long as he’s running the show. I honestly cannot wait for the day he’s relieved of his duties... or steps down. Whichever comes first.
 
#36
If Vlade wasn’t Vlade, was just some front office suit (Maybe like a certain gerbil) he’d have been run out of town with pitchforks and hand grenades long ago.

But no, he’s Vlade Divac so he gets a free pass because of our glory years.

There’s no defending this joke. The team will be inept as long as he’s running the show. I honestly cannot wait for the day he’s relieved of his duties... or steps down. Whichever comes first.
Very true. The double-standard is interesting.

Most likely this thread will end up being closed because too many mean things are being said about Vlade. Meanwhile when D'Allesandro was around it was a feeding frenzy with a couple of the mods leading the name calling (Gerbil, dork, weasel, etc).
 
#38
Last night was tough and this season is looking like a disaster. I’m not defending anyone associated with the Kings’ today.

BUT - if Fox doesn’t get hurt last night - and the Bagley/Holmes duo kept clicking - and Hield returned to average Buddy - this would have been a Yay Vlade thread.
 
#39
This probably belongs here. Because we aren’t a free agent destination, draft acumen is probably the most important attribute for a Sac GM. Here is Vlade’s draft record....

2015: 6th Willie Cauley Stein
On board: justice Winslow, Myles Turner, Devin Booker, Kelley Oubre,

2016: 13th. Pappagiannis
On Board: Malik Beasley, Lavert, Siakim, DeJounte Murray, Brogdan

2016: 22nd Richardson
On Board: Siakim, DeJounte Murray, Malcom Brogdan

2016 28th Skal
On Board: DeJounte Murray, Malcom Brogdan

2017. 5th Fox

2017. 10th Pick (Giles and Justin Jackson)
On Board: Zach Collins, Mitchell, Adedayo

even after trade
2017 15th Jackson
On Board: John Collins, Jarrett Allen, OG Anunoby, Kyle Kuzma, Derrick White

2017 20th Harry Giles
On Board: OG Anunoby, Kyle Kuzma, Derrick White

2018: 2nd Marvin Bagley
On Board: Luka Doncic, Jaren Jackson Wendall Carter, Both Bridges

The only pick of Vlade’s you wouldn’t change in hindsight is Fox.
2 of the picks annoy the heck out of me.

Luka obviously is one.

But the year we traded the 10th pick for the 15th & 20th there were many Kings fans who wanted OG even possibly at 10. If I recall correctly over at realgm the Kings fans poll voted for OG and it used to be more active over there.
 
#42
This probably belongs here. Because we aren’t a free agent destination, draft acumen is probably the most important attribute for a Sac GM. Here is Vlade’s draft record....

2015: 6th Willie Cauley Stein
On board: justice Winslow, Myles Turner, Devin Booker, Kelley Oubre,

2016: 13th. Pappagiannis
On Board: Malik Beasley, Lavert, Siakim, DeJounte Murray, Brogdan

2016: 22nd Richardson
On Board: Siakim, DeJounte Murray, Malcom Brogdan

2016 28th Skal
On Board: DeJounte Murray, Malcom Brogdan

2017. 5th Fox

2017. 10th Pick (Giles and Justin Jackson)
On Board: Zach Collins, Mitchell, Adedayo

even after trade
2017 15th Jackson
On Board: John Collins, Jarrett Allen, OG Anunoby, Kyle Kuzma, Derrick White

2017 20th Harry Giles
On Board: OG Anunoby, Kyle Kuzma, Derrick White

2018: 2nd Marvin Bagley
On Board: Luka Doncic, Jaren Jackson Wendall Carter, Both Bridges

The only pick of Vlade’s you wouldn’t change in hindsight is Fox.
It's not really about changing the picks in hindsight. It's more about making what is perceived by most people to be the correct pick at the time. I've said it all along, if the Kings would just allow us fans to vote on the draft picks, we would probably be the 5th seed right now.

I can't blame him for Cauley Stein because he was an obvious defensive unicorn pairing to play next to Cousins. Many of us were perfectly ok with the pick at the time and we were very happy with his rookie season showing. I have no problem with this pick despite it not turning out.

PapaG and Malachi were wtf picks. Most of us were sitting here scratching our heads. A lot of people wanted to take Baldwin with the PapaG pick so that would have been a whiff. There was a lot of talk about getting Dejounte Murray with the Malachi pick. That would have been a good one. I feel like most of us were more than ok with taking Skal at the end of the first round just based on his potential alone.

Fox was a no brainer pick. I'm sure the vote would have been over 90% on taking Fox if he fell to us.

If they had listened to the fans, we would have wound up with Anunoby at 15 and more than likely still Giles at 20.

2018, 60% of the fans wanted Doncic from the polls I saw.

So if we're counting real NBA players, the "core" on draft picks alone would have been:

WCS
Murray
Fox
Doncic
Anunoby
Skal

All they have to do is listen to the fans. We aren't always right but we're correct more often than not than the people making millions of dollars to make the decisions are.
 
#43
If Vlade wasn’t Vlade, was just some front office suit (Maybe like a certain gerbil) he’d have been run out of town with pitchforks and hand grenades long ago.

But no, he’s Vlade Divac so he gets a free pass because of our glory years.

There’s no defending this joke. The team will be inept as long as he’s running the show. I honestly cannot wait for the day he’s relieved of his duties... or steps down. Whichever comes first.
Didn't he say he was supposed to step down if we didn't make the playoffs? I hope he keeps his promise.
 
#44
Vlade missed them more than once. We're not just talking about one draft though. He's had 5 drafts total and has basically only gotten it right one pick (Fox) and has failed to find any steals either.
Yeah, you need to have some sympathy for Vlade. He's trying really hard and being a GM is really hard. Cut him some slack will ya?
 

SLAB

Hall of Famer
#45
Didn't he say he was supposed to step down if we didn't make the playoffs? I hope he keeps his promise.
Yup, he did. Does he have any intentions of following through? Probably not.

I said it when the pick happened, Bagley being more a “developmental” upside pick over the more pro-ready Doncic added time, probably years, onto his step-down clock.
 
#46
So what's your point? Keep Vlade because the next guy might be worse? What kind of logic is that? I don't trust Vivek either but this team is heading back into the lottery and you can't trust Vlade to make the right draft pick when he's shown over and over that he usually gets it wrong (especially on the biggest draft pick of them all)

With the exception of Fox, Vlade's drafts have been poor. It's really not even debatable.

Papagiannis and Malachi Richardson are out of the league. Frank Mason (high second round pick) is essentially out of the league. Skal (who they gave up on and actually was a decent late first round pick) was traded for a guy that will be out of the league soon. Justin Jackson sucks and may be out of the league soon. Harry Giles they gave up on already and apparently they're expecting him to be out of the league soon too. Cauley-Stein's career is plummeting and he may be out of the league soon too.

You then throw in an underwhelming Bagley who can't stay healthy and a bunch of other second round picks that have not amounted to anything (while other teams are finding some absolute gems in the second round.....) and all we're left with is Fox. One good draft selection in five years.
OK. What's the roadmap to a better GM? If one were to say that Vivek will throw a blank check at Masai Ujiri, and refuse to take no for an answer, then that would be amazing. Ujiri is a former scout, and has deep connections to probably the most under-scouted and developed region of basketball talent in the world. He has hit on a number of late firsts due to his scouting acumen. Ujiri would also take the time to fully evaluate the roster, as well as Luke, before making any drastic changes.

But, I don't think Vivek would do that if he had to eat Vlade's four year deal. I think he would go cheap, and go with a heavy analytics approach--meaning another complete rebuild. I assume he would grab someone off of Morey's staff, or a Celtics go-fer. Those guys will fire Luke immediately, and start shipping out players for picks. I don't think this fanbase will make it through another complete tear down.

RE: In regards to the Anunoby talk, he was projected to miss the following season due to a knee injury. They already liked Giles--no team is going to spend two first round picks on two guys that will miss their rookie years, with the exception of full-process Hinkie. Obviously, Annoy ended up coming back sooner. And for those who like Hinkie, please check out his draft record. Outside of Embiid and a nice trade for Saric, it's not very good. A lot of misses there, too.
 
#47
T
It's not really about changing the picks in hindsight. It's more about making what is perceived by most people to be the correct pick at the time. I've said it all along, if the Kings would just allow us fans to vote on the draft picks, we would probably be the 5th seed right now.

I can't blame him for Cauley Stein because he was an obvious defensive unicorn pairing to play next to Cousins. Many of us were perfectly ok with the pick at the time and we were very happy with his rookie season showing. I have no problem with this pick despite it not turning out.

PapaG and Malachi were wtf picks. Most of us were sitting here scratching our heads. A lot of people wanted to take Baldwin with the PapaG pick so that would have been a whiff. There was a lot of talk about getting Dejounte Murray with the Malachi pick. That would have been a good one. I feel like most of us were more than ok with taking Skal at the end of the first round just based on his potential alone.

Fox was a no brainer pick. I'm sure the vote would have been over 90% on taking Fox if he fell to us.

If they had listened to the fans, we would have wound up with Anunoby at 15 and more than likely still Giles at 20.

2018, 60% of the fans wanted Doncic from the polls I saw.

So if we're counting real NBA players, the "core" on draft picks alone would have been:

WCS
Murray
Fox
Doncic
Anunoby
Skal

All they have to do is listen to the fans. We aren't always right but we're correct more often than not than the people making millions of dollars to make the decisions are.
They have maximum 3 scouts in europe looking for prospect while I’m sure there’s thousand basketball fans watching Euroleague, when 500 fans from Europe tell you that you should pick luka you do it because 1000 eyes count more than 6 even if you think those 3 scouts are professional. They don’t know much more than any of us. I mean Doncics talent was so obvious. You just needed to do the easiest thing. Take the best guy with ur 2nd pick.
 
#48
Fox and Bagley go out with injury and now it's Vlade's fault?:rolleyes::D
No, it's Vlade's fault for the following:

Spending:
12mil/season on ZBO
20mil/season on George Hill
8mil/season on Vince Carter
13mil/season on Dewayne Dedmon
12.5mil/season on Trevor Ariza
13mil/season on Cory Joseph
21mil/season on Harrison Barnes for purely average production and impact

-Trading a 1st round pick and losing 2 spots of draft capital for cap space
-Missing on 7 first round picks, with only 1 1st rounder actually contributing to the team right now in 4 years.
-Investing absolutely nothing in the 2nd round during his tenure, basically punting on the 2nd round during his tenure (not buying/trading for 2nd rounders, etc)
-Using absolutely none of his cap space to invest in future picks when the opportunity has arisen almost every year for us to take on a bad contract in return for picks or young talent.
-Firing by far the most successful coach we've had since Adelman only to see us drastically regress this year
 
#49
OK. What's the roadmap to a better GM? If one were to say that Vivek will throw a blank check at Masai Ujiri, and refuse to take no for an answer, then that would be amazing. Ujiri is a former scout, and has deep connections to probably the most under-scouted and developed region of basketball talent in the world. He has hit on a number of late firsts due to his scouting acumen. Ujiri would also take the time to fully evaluate the roster, as well as Luke, before making any drastic changes.

But, I don't think Vivek would do that if he had to eat Vlade's four year deal. I think he would go cheap, and go with a heavy analytics approach--meaning another complete rebuild. I assume he would grab someone off of Morey's staff, or a Celtics go-fer. Those guys will fire Luke immediately, and start shipping out players for picks. I don't think this fanbase will make it through another complete tear down.

RE: In regards to the Anunoby talk, he was projected to miss the following season due to a knee injury. They already liked Giles--no team is going to spend two first round picks on two guys that will miss their rookie years, with the exception of full-process Hinkie. Obviously, Annoy ended up coming back sooner. And for those who like Hinkie, please check out his draft record. Outside of Embiid and a nice trade for Saric, it's not very good. A lot of misses there, too.
This is exactly what needs to happen and if fans can't see how flawed this current team is with absolutely 0% chance of winning a championship and even a slim chance at making the playoffs, then there's no helping them. The goal should be for us to get to see a championship winning club. That takes a proper leader at the helm that actually knows what they are doing. Fans should want to be patient to see this team built correctly and eventually turn into a playoff powerhouse that has a chance to win a title every year. Not hope we can squeak into the 8th seed to get demolished by the real teams.
 
#50
Fox and Bagley go out with injury and now it's Vlade's fault?:rolleyes::D
It's always that way, though. If you draft Pervis, and he's out of service, you stink. It's not fair, but it's what fans are going to do, we're not going to fondly reminisce about how great he could have been.

I try to keep my own biases out of this sort of thing by looking at performance and nothing else. An average team will squeak into the last playoff slot, since 8 make it and only 7 don't, or more realistically make it into the playoffs slightly over half the time. If that's not happening, one should expect improvement. The current team record is exactly what it was on this day in 2015. Those numbers don't tell me who or what is to blame, but there's obviously something very wrong. The 15 year, all-time NBA playoff drought record is owned by the Donald Sterling Clippers, but we're almost there.
 
#51
No, it's Vlade's fault for the following:

Spending:
12mil/season on ZBO
20mil/season on George Hill
8mil/season on Vince Carter
13mil/season on Dewayne Dedmon
12.5mil/season on Trevor Ariza
13mil/season on Cory Joseph
21mil/season on Harrison Barnes for purely average production and impact

-Trading a 1st round pick and losing 2 spots of draft capital for cap space
-Missing on 7 first round picks, with only 1 1st rounder actually contributing to the team right now in 4 years.
-Investing absolutely nothing in the 2nd round during his tenure, basically punting on the 2nd round during his tenure (not buying/trading for 2nd rounders, etc)
-Using absolutely none of his cap space to invest in future picks when the opportunity has arisen almost every year for us to take on a bad contract in return for picks or young talent.
-Firing by far the most successful coach we've had since Adelman only to see us drastically regress this year
He has acquired many second round picks + cash considerations.

Otherwise looks good.
 
#53
Today I was looking at the top 8 seeds in western conference and I saw OKC and Portland sitting in 7 and 8 spot with 15-15 and 14-18 respectively. It surprises me that 8 seed in western is under .500 until I remembered GSW is on vacation this year....

So basically what I’m saying is if you want to reach PO the following years we must be over 0.500 wins.... the thing is, all those teams above us looks legit for many years....
 

gunks

Hall of Famer
#54
I have forgiven him for everything except for the Luka pick, I’m over the boogie trade which I thought was bad
The Boogie trade was awful! How are you going to trade a player that is arguably (at the time) the best big in the NBA without even opening up a bidding war. Dude did it last minute and took the first offer.

Naturally, Vlade ****'d up the Pel's pick, but at least Buddy was looking legit (until recently, now Buddy is looking like a brick laying *******).

If it wasn't for Cuz's run of bad injuries, that trade would be another huge L on Vlade's resume, along with the Philly trade and the Luka draft disaster.
 
#55
Its time to clean house and fire sale everyone whose in their mid 20's+. Vlade/Walton need to be gone and I can only dream of the minority owners going full Coup d'état.
 

SLAB

Hall of Famer
#56
He has acquired many second round picks + cash considerations.

Otherwise looks good.
And the coach thing. The Kings have fired one good coach since Adelman and it wasn’t Joerger.

The Boogie trade was awful! How are you going to trade a player that is arguably (at the time) the best big in the NBA without even opening up a bidding war. Dude did it last minute and took the first offer.

Naturally, Vlade ****'d up the Pel's pick, but at least Buddy was looking legit (until recently, now Buddy is looking like a brick laying *******).

If it wasn't for Cuz's run of bad injuries, that trade would be another huge L on Vlade's resume, along with the Philly trade and the Luka draft disaster.
*SECOND (worse) offer

Freakin’ Vlade. :rolleyes:
 
#57
And the coach thing. The Kings have fired one good coach since Adelman and it wasn’t Joerger.



*SECOND (worse) offer

Freakin’ Vlade. :rolleyes:
I never wanted Joerger fired. The team was at least playing decent basketball, and at the correct pace (fast). He wasn't a fantastic coach by any means and sure the season went to poo at the end, but Luke Walton never made sense. I'm not going to pretend like his stint with the Warriors was anything other than the fact that the entire GSW team was HOF caliber players. Any credit he gets for that is absurd.
 
#58
Its time to clean house and fire sale everyone whose in their mid 20's+. Vlade/Walton need to be gone and I can only dream of the minority owners going full Coup d'état.
I'll say. Buddy and Bogi aren't old, but they'll basically be 28 with this team at square one.

Of course Vlade won't do anything about getting younger and won't address the actual concerns with BBIQ, chemistry, etc and ride out his failed experiment for as long as possible.

That's not even saying what's going to happen when we get to the draft....
 

SLAB

Hall of Famer
#59
I never wanted Joerger fired. The team was at least playing decent basketball, and at the correct pace (fast). He wasn't a fantastic coach by any means and sure the season went to poo at the end, but Luke Walton never made sense. I'm not going to pretend like his stint with the Warriors was anything other than the fact that the entire GSW team was HOF caliber players. Any credit he gets for that is absurd.
Luke remains a total unknown to me. I agree the Warriors doesn’t count, he was fine with the Lakers until LeBron got hurt, and while I haven’t been watching I do know the team he inherited here is a just a Vlade dumpster fire.

Joerger is a clown. He could probably be an extremely good coach if he wasn’t so insubordinate, abrasive, and headstrong. He’s done the exact same thing in two different places, why would anything change?
 
#60
Luke remains a total unknown to me. I agree the Warriors doesn’t count, he was fine with the Lakers until LeBron got hurt, and while I haven’t been watching I do know the team he inherited here is a just a Vlade dumpster fire.

Joerger is a clown. He could probably be an extremely good coach if he wasn’t so insubordinate, abrasive, and headstrong. He’s done the exact same thing in two different places, why would anything change?
Yea it's hard to gauge Luke's stint with the Lakers because LeBron led teams are just that; run by LeBron. Not much coaching involved. Walton will inevitably be dumpstered regardless when this team fails to improve this year or next, so talking about him is probably a moot discussion anyway.