The State of the Kings
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King Baller
All-Star
rainmaker
Hall of Famer
Fans talk a lot about the Luka decision but running parallel with that was Vlade firing Joerger and replacing him with Walton without doing any kind of a coaching search.
For me that is arguably a worse decision.
And I still have no clue what the hell type of an offensive system this team is supposed to be running. Never mind the defense. This team has about 3 good players and Walton doesn't know how to use two of them, Fox and Buddy.
For me that is arguably a worse decision.
And I still have no clue what the hell type of an offensive system this team is supposed to be running. Never mind the defense. This team has about 3 good players and Walton doesn't know how to use two of them, Fox and Buddy.
lol no it’s not big deal you missed on a coach you’re not seeing another Luka for 10-15 years
Vlade was in competition with himself there. Why he thought Luke was a hot commodity is beyond comprehension for most of us.
Still the Luka snafu is easily the worst decision the franchise has ever made. He is so good that he would still shine with Walton at the helm. It was such an easy decision that it still boggles the minds of most of us and it's why the dead horse continues to be beaten.
King Baller
All-Star
Not a dead horse in this case. It relates directly to the State of the Kings, the title of this thread. This is not Adelman being dissed by the Maloofs. Adelman had some success. Same with Geoff Petrie being treated dismissively by Vivek. Petrie had some success.
Think about that one Vivek decision for a moment. Vivek dismissed Geoff Petrie and replaced him with Pete D. That has not aged well at all.
Vlade and Walton have not had much success running and coaching the Kings. Passing on Luka is exhibit A in the case of why Vlade should step down.
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rainmaker
Hall of Famer
They’re both terrible decisions.
The reason I rank them similarly awful is they cover two entirely different but important aspects of a GM’s job.
One, talent identification.
Two, the process of searching and hiring a coach.
He completely botched both.
They're not remotely comparable, Cleveland could’ve hired Phil Jackson, Pop, than Brad Stevens in the last 20 years. If they took Darko over lebron non of it would’ve mattered all those coaches would’ve been fired and they’d have no championship
King Baller
All-Star
Not that I disagree with you. But Bron went back to Ohio to win the trophy.
This team is not talented enough because this FO tried to skip steps on a rebuild. I've been saying this exact same thing for some years already. We are at a point where we have to extend our "core" guys: Buddy and Barnes for 40mil/year combined, either we extend Bogi or lose him for nothing, Fox is going to demand a huge contract. That means we wont have any cap flexibilty. We also have enough talent to end up drafting outside of the top 5 but not enough to be a serious playoff contender so the odds are its going to be very hard to get an all star level player via draft either.
This is the exact situation I talked about when we were tried to win now by signing guys like Rondo, Koufos, Afflalo, Zbo, GHill, VC and so on. All that huge amount of cap that could've been used to gain future assets but of cource we didnt, we had to sign guys like Zbo because they were supposed to teach guys like WCS and Skal something and that would be more valuable than additional future picks and cap flexibility. That seems funny now since both of them are close to being out of the league but if I remember correctly that was a serious argument at the time.
The lession is that you shouldnt skip steps on your rebuild until you have one or two true franchise player(s). This is exactly the situation you will most likely end up in if you do that: no cap flexibility, too good to draft top 3 but not nearly talented enough to be a serious contender. Thats a very bad place to be and you should never hire a GM that is ready to be so stupid to do that, even if that guy is a former player of a legend status.
So Vivek: Please hire a competent gm. This isnt Bagleys fault, its not Buddys fault and its not Fox's fault. The players are what they are but the GM is the guy that executed this horrible short sighted plan and he should be held accountable.
This is the exact situation I talked about when we were tried to win now by signing guys like Rondo, Koufos, Afflalo, Zbo, GHill, VC and so on. All that huge amount of cap that could've been used to gain future assets but of cource we didnt, we had to sign guys like Zbo because they were supposed to teach guys like WCS and Skal something and that would be more valuable than additional future picks and cap flexibility. That seems funny now since both of them are close to being out of the league but if I remember correctly that was a serious argument at the time.
The lession is that you shouldnt skip steps on your rebuild until you have one or two true franchise player(s). This is exactly the situation you will most likely end up in if you do that: no cap flexibility, too good to draft top 3 but not nearly talented enough to be a serious contender. Thats a very bad place to be and you should never hire a GM that is ready to be so stupid to do that, even if that guy is a former player of a legend status.
So Vivek: Please hire a competent gm. This isnt Bagleys fault, its not Buddys fault and its not Fox's fault. The players are what they are but the GM is the guy that executed this horrible short sighted plan and he should be held accountable.
Livinthedream
All-Star
Been saying this for years. The push has been the 8th seed and nothing else and I have no doubt there has been pressure from Vivek on this. For the past year, the focus should have been on letting Bagley (I know he was hurt the entire year), Fox and Giles get some experience and chemistry, for better or worse. If the team sucked, then you get another good draft choice and you have an accurate evaluation of your young players.
Instead, the team has been giving massive minutes to mediocre role players in the hopes that the franchise can claim victory for making the playoffs and getting swept in the 1st round. Now we're about to have a bunch of money tied up in players that haven't proven anything in their careers and the only way out of this is the blow it up and start over again. Short sighted..
I agree mostly other than the plan would have been executed pretty well if he had drafted Luka. Which IMO was the easiest decision of his tenure. You plug him into this lineup and the Kings are in the playoffs for quite some time. Maybe not championship contenders but good enough to keep the majority of us fans happy with the situation.
Keeping him as the GM is only going to waste years for us now. If it's draft time and he has a chance to choose between the player that is ready now and the player who has a higher upside but won't be ready for a couple years, he'll choose the ready now player because he wants to keep his job. Then we will go through the same cycle where our player is merely average and the player that the better team behind us in the draft picked will wind up being superior.
rainmaker
Hall of Famer
I can tell you don't work in business.
I'm not talking about the long term impact of either but the decision itself.
See, in business if reviewing the performance of an executive, you break down the major job responsibilities. You then grade the success/failure of each responsibility individually even though it is a part of the evaluation as a whole.
So one of Vlade's major responsibilities is talent evaluation. For the draft, he gets an F. Likewise, the firing of a coach, the follow up coaching search and hiring of the replacement also get an F.
Two F's. Two major but independent job responsibilities.
You blabbering about Darko doesn't apply here. That's a different convo. You won't see me arguing missing on Luka won't have longer term ramifications. Of course it will.
I sort of agree with that but I have to say that we had some huge lottery luck just to be in a position to draft Luka. Our plan to sign and play vets would've got us the 7th(?) pick. That lottery luck was supposed to be a jackpot for Vlade. His incompetent track record as a GM woud've been forgiven if he just picked the player every other even remotely competent talent evaluator would've picked. He made a horrbile and very costly mistake but since there are so many other huge mistakes, I cant see how it can be ever explained to the fanbase if he gets to continue doing his job.
Other than coaching we have a deficit in talent evaluation. Justin James is nice but look at Bol Bol. I think Kings fans sometimes overvalue their own players as most fans of other teams do. Whats wrong? Lets look at whats wrong:
Fox is borderline all star to he hasnt reached his ceiling. But when hes off the floor the offense stagnates. We need a PG where that doesnt happen. Theres a lot of talent in this draft that is "hit or miss," and may be scattered throughout both round 1 and round 2. We need a change of pace PG that pushes the pace. Since no one is a home run we should trade down from 12 and take as many shots at it as we can. PG that could boom or bust are Kira Lewis, Leandro Bolmaro, Tyrell Terry, Ashton Hagans. Chances are one of these hits and Im not sure which one but I like all of their potential for different reasons. This is where competent talent evaluators find the right player.
Harrison Barnes is overpaid bc hes a role player. Buddy Hield is misused and has a huge contract.
The defense is inconsistent. It looks like we are great one moment and then we look like we couldn't guard a high school team the next.
We need someone with defensive potential. Okoro is probably out of our range especially if we trade down but Patrick Williams, Tyler Bey, and a few others might be the right fits to help fix problem.
The more I think of whats wrong the more it becomes obvious we have the wrong talent evaluators in the front office and scouting, the wrong coach coaching the team etc.
We need those areas fixed first so we can find the right players in the draft to help this team coupled with finding FA too.
Fox is borderline all star to he hasnt reached his ceiling. But when hes off the floor the offense stagnates. We need a PG where that doesnt happen. Theres a lot of talent in this draft that is "hit or miss," and may be scattered throughout both round 1 and round 2. We need a change of pace PG that pushes the pace. Since no one is a home run we should trade down from 12 and take as many shots at it as we can. PG that could boom or bust are Kira Lewis, Leandro Bolmaro, Tyrell Terry, Ashton Hagans. Chances are one of these hits and Im not sure which one but I like all of their potential for different reasons. This is where competent talent evaluators find the right player.
Harrison Barnes is overpaid bc hes a role player. Buddy Hield is misused and has a huge contract.
The defense is inconsistent. It looks like we are great one moment and then we look like we couldn't guard a high school team the next.
We need someone with defensive potential. Okoro is probably out of our range especially if we trade down but Patrick Williams, Tyler Bey, and a few others might be the right fits to help fix problem.
The more I think of whats wrong the more it becomes obvious we have the wrong talent evaluators in the front office and scouting, the wrong coach coaching the team etc.
We need those areas fixed first so we can find the right players in the draft to help this team coupled with finding FA too.
steelevt
All-Star
Wonder if we would have picked up Michael Porter jr with that 7th pick. Then vlade could have said he wanted him with the #1 pick all along and he would have lucked out on fox and porter jr falling into his lap.
The Effort Police
Starter
People have been saying to do basic rebuilding stuff but you got ridiculed if you posted about it here.
Oh these veteran contracts are worthless? The whole gamut of excuses about how players need to earn minutes, learn from the veterans, and we're trying to win games.
Want to take on a bad contract for picks? Some smug quip about how they're glad you're not the GM.
tyguy
Bench
The ole win now without actually winning strategy. We would undoubtedly win faster with a brighter future to boot if we weren’t in such a desperate hurry to make the playoffs that we sign these over hill bum veterans trying to collect a last paycheck and overpaying veteran mediocre players in their prime (Barnes) big time dollars to expedite the process.
I know you’re clowning vlade here but clown game say this all the time. The Colts old GM said he had a 1st round grade on Tom Brady but somehow Brady went in the 6th round and he could’ve took him in any round before that.
I asked De’Aaron Fox if he felt the team had a clearly defined identity this season.
He said that when playing a team like the Rockets, you have to know what you’re going to do. He doesn’t think the team knew that tonight. He said that happened throughout the season.
This is from Twitter with Richard Ivanowski asking Fox. Basically Fox just threw the coaches under the bus and just being honest. They are not prepared.
He said that when playing a team like the Rockets, you have to know what you’re going to do. He doesn’t think the team knew that tonight. He said that happened throughout the season.
This is from Twitter with Richard Ivanowski asking Fox. Basically Fox just threw the coaches under the bus and just being honest. They are not prepared.
Fox answered honestly. The coaches assumed the position under the bus voluntarily when they did not provide a clearly defined plan.
SacTownKid
Hall of Famer
Even the darned advanced stats tell us the story. Like I said, Vivek seems to be a very logical person and he will have to go out of his way not to see what these results tell him. This is the part where your coach loses his team and then the hirings you've made behind your coach and/or GM's back that seemed a little off become clear as the knives come out. haha. Walton might have saved himself for the time being by waiting out Igor but they know what's what.
SacTownKid
Hall of Famer
The biggest punch to the gut is Walton himself has repeated the steps they should and supposedly would be taking, he just didn't do it. Like playing small. He goes right back to the exact opposite to start almost every game. When he does go small he apparently photocopied pages from Joergers playbook and figured Fox next another PG was the answer. Dude, Joerger torched that idea and kept torching after it was crispy. The truth is we've seen this same pattern time and time again. Over and over. You can just feel steam rising when players are starting to have it with their coaches. Buddy was only the start of that. Bagley soon followed. Now even Fox is wising up.
itzcoatl
Bench
The Kings are pretty bad and need major talent upgrade. Vlade obviously made one of the biggest draft mistakes in history by taking Bagley over Luka. But I am still a Kings fan and look forward to seeing Bagley play and develop. Honestly the thing that brings me the most down about the team is the toxic fan base. There's all this Internet machismo about being laughing-stocks or whatever. I'm just glad we have a team and can watch basketball and cheer for the home team. I can't even read message boards anymore because the Internet fans are just so negative.
sactowndog
All-Star
you left out taking and selling Gary Trent to the Blazers.
Name another franchise player besides the King of excuses in LA who’d throw there coach under the bus
ockingsfan
Starter
I think Vlade really wanted MPJ. All the rumors pointed at the Kings liking MPJ. The Kings would had been better off not winning the #2 and taking MPJ at #7.
Either way, if Vlade really liked MPJ, he should had traded down to #5 with Dallas and gotten MPJ and Dallas's next year lottery pick and additional assets. Instead he reached for Bagley at #2, instead of taking Luka at 2 or trading down for the player he probably really wanted MPJ.
That shows Vlade's lack of vision and GM maneuvering to improve the Kings talent base. He probably got scared that the teams picking 3 & 4 would take Bagley and MPJ and he would be stuck with a player he didn't covet at #5. The Kings could had set the team up for the next 10 years with last years draft and now we are stuck.
KingsFans4Change!
Prospect
The fans anger is totally justified btw. Who’s paying these outrageous ticket prices? Vivek is finding out right now just how important the fans are for a team to be profitable. Hopefully he’s learned from all, and I mean all of his mistakes. This crap has to stop. Gtfo of the way and hire some actually experienced basketball minds to run things. Then stay out of the way. We have had horrible owners now for a long time. Vivek has brought all this hate into himself.
I think Vlade really wanted MPJ. All the rumors pointed at the Kings liking MPJ. The Kings would had been better off not winning the #2 and taking MPJ at #7.
Either way, if Vlade really liked MPJ, he should had traded down to #5 with Dallas and gotten MPJ and Dallas's next year lottery pick and additional assets. Instead he reached for Bagley at #2, instead of taking Luka at 2 or trading down for the player he probably really wanted MPJ.
That shows Vlade's lack of vision and GM maneuvering to improve the Kings talent base. He probably got scared that the teams picking 3 & 4 would take Bagley and MPJ and he would be stuck with a player he didn't covet at #5. The Kings could had set the team up for the next 10 years with last years draft and now we are stuck.
You can’t trade down like that for someone who couldn’t get out of bed a week before the draft that’s malpractice
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