The Give and Go: What Are the Kings Doing?

Photo Credit: Max Whittaker

The Give and Go is a quick back and forth between Paul Mitchell and Chris St. Jean about a relevant subject in the NBA at that moment.

Chris:  

The Kings recently fired Mike Malone amid all kinds of controversy that Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports has been all over.  

First, Adrian reported the firing, noting Malone was ‘hired before D'Alessandro on June 3, 2013’ and that Malone disagreed with D’Alessandro about playing style and the potential Josh Smith trade.  He also linked George Karl and Vinny Del Negro to the opening, essentially declaring interim head coach Ty Corbin a lame duck candidate.

Second, Adrian profiled the Malone-Kings relationship in more depth leading off with a specific disagreement about Royce White.  This also had more details about the Josh Smith disagreement and painted Malone as someone with a reputation for being volatile, but ‘had grown in the Kings job, worked to curb those shortcomings and built a strong bond and trust within his locker room.’  It also again linked George Karl to the job and added his motivation for doing so (Karl didn’t squash the rumors).

Lastly, Adrian reported Tuesday, that Chris Mullin (an ‘ownership adviser’ for the Kings) is basically the front runner for the job.

So, Mitchell, what in the world is going on in Sacramento?  Was it a mistake to fire Mike Malone or just a mistake that it wasn’t done last off-season?  And who should the Kings hire as their next coach?  Ty Corbin?  George Karl? Chris Mullin?  Someone else?

Mitchell: Are you really expecting me (and then you, after) to make sense of the Sacramento Kings and their wacky owners? I’m pretty sure we could have played this game five years ago, and then probably 20 years ago, and basically for the entirety of the franchise’s 29-year history in Sacramento, outside of the Rick Adelman/Chris Webber/Vlade Divac stretch in the late ‘90’s and early 2000’s. As far as #WojBombs go, it was a shocking revelation, and it seems to have altered the perception of the new ownership regime of Vivek Ranadive around the league.

Suddenly, Vivek’s quirks look a bit different after the firing of Mike Malone just 24 games into this season. The crowd-sourcing of their first-round pick in this past draft seemed goofy at the time but also a cool, new-age fan outreach strategy, and his hands-on approach during the draft deliberation process was chalked up to the “he’s a character!” category, even if I still think he should’ve taken Elfrid Payton over Nik Stauskas with the eighth pick. Even this preseason the rumors were that Kings management expected a big season in the team’s development, with another year under Mike Malone and a full season with Rudy Gay in the lineup, and wanted to run a bit more in 2014-15 and move the ball to “be like the Spurs, but exciting.” Vivek, general manager Pete D’Alessandro, and team advisor Chris Mullin reportedly didn’t believe Malone could adapt to those philosophies, along with a few other disagreements that have leaked in the subsequent days. I don’t think that was exactly a fair standard to hold their head coach to, this early in the season and given the roster he’s had to work with.

We know how good DeMarcus “BOOGIE!” Cousins has been in his 15 games before being stricken with viral meningitis, but Rudy Gay could set career highs this season in points per game, rebounds, assists (4.7!), PER, true shooting percentage, and free-throw rate if he maintains his current production. Point guard Darren Collison has bounced around between five teams in his six seasons in the league but is also averaging career bests in minutes, points, rebounds, assists, PER, and free throw rate in his 21 games under Mike Malone, and young Ben McLemore looks to have improved over the summer. The rest of the roster basically consists of failed former-lottery picks and unspectacular veterans who don’t exactly possess the traits needed to play like even a less-exciting version of the Spurs (would that be the Hawks?).

I’m not sure if interim head coach Tyrone Corbin will be able to extract an uptempo and spacing offense either from this roster. Collison and McLemore are both young and quick enough to adapt to, and excel in, a more-open offense, and Derrick Williams is a combo-forward (on an expiring contract) who may only be effective while playing quick. Ray McCallum and Stauskas are also young and have the potential to be effective shooters in any offense. Rudy Gay and Boogie are both versatile players who can either play in big or small lineups, and I’d really like to see them both share a front-court with another shooter at the small forward, although it would depend on Rudy Gay willing to absorb the punishment at the PF full-time.

So maybe next season, after D’Alessandro makes a couple of trades to clear up the power forward platoon between Jason Thompson, Reggie Evans, and Carl Landry and adds some more players who can play uptempo, the Sacramento Kings’ head coach (probably not Ty Corbin) can implement the type of offense that ownership envisions. Mike Malone was a long-time assistant in the league and has a reputation as a defensive-oriented coach, and was hired before D’Alessandro and Mullins entered the organization. I think politics played a bigger part in the firing than philosophies, and the recent leaks of disagreements over trade proposals and roster construction further that belief. If Vivek really expected this team to make the playoffs and/or play quicker on offense then D’Alessandro deserves a lot of that blame, for not giving Malone enough pieces (i.e. shooters) to fulfill that mandate.

I’m not sure if Mike Malone is a great head coach at the NBA level, or just a great assistant coach, but I think he could be an upgrade for a few teams, notably the Pelicans, Magic, and of course the Knicks and Lakers. Offensive flexibility might not be a strength of his, but he’s had success teaching defense (in Golden State, most recently) and his players have played hard for him in his year-and-change with the Kings, with players like Boogie, Gay, Collison, and McLemore all improving and playing well under him. As to if that’s just young players getting better naturally or Malone’s tutelage, I’m not sure of that either.

George Karl has tried to get himself involved with the job opening in Sacramento, along with Mark Jackson, Vinny Del Negro, and Chris Mullin, but it’s unsure if that process will begin this season or afterwards. Malone should be in the running for any non-Kings job openings that come about, either as an assistant or head coach, and the stink of Sacramento might not stick with him going forward. Unfortunately for Kings fans, it seems like more of the same ownership dramas, after finally freeing themselves from a decade of Maloof incompetence, and a Mark Jackson or Del Negro hiring and a trade for free-agent signing of Josh Smith wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest after hearing more about Vivek’s vision in Sacramento.

How do you view this mess? Should Kings fans have confidence in Ranadive and his front office going forward? I’m pretty sure I just described the worst case scenario in Sacramento, but what’s the best case? Boogie’s returning to the court for the first time in a month and Rudy Gay is balling, but should fans be optimistic? Finally, has the firing of Mike Malone changed your perception of Vivek?

Chris:

What is the best case in Sacramento?  That’s a loaded question.  Best case for who?  Where teams like the Celtics and Sixers are so talent-bereft that a high lottery pick is invaluable and teams like Orlando and Utah are lacking that Superstar talent and leader to establish a pecking order on their roster, Sacramento has both talent and a Superstar to build around.  Sacramento has talented pieces.  Maybe not enough to consider them an up-and-coming contender, but enough that what they should be focused on at this point is building a team.  Shrewd moves that fill specific roles and needs on this roster would be ideal.  Josh Smith is not a shrewd move and that leads me to the issue.  

Vivek’s perception has completely swung at this point, but it wasn’t just the Malone firing. For me, it started with the great Grantland Feature, Draft 3.0, about the Kings innovatively crowdsourcing to retrieve more data about their draft pick.  Vivek comes from a tech background and GM Pete D’Alessandro continues to talk about gathering information from multiple inputs.  It seems to be a core belief, but the troubling part was when Vivek made it very clear to everyone in the draft room that he prefered Nik Stauskas and nobody in the room seemed to put up a fight.  Again, this is perception.  Maybe there was no argument to be made.  Maybe the entire room agreed that Stauskas was the right pick.  Or maybe they didn’t feel comfortable challenging their boss.  Which would be kind of ironic considering the message Vivek and D’Alessandro keep spewing about being open to new ideas and always looking for ways to learn more.  

It does seem like the Malone firing was grounded in philosophical differences.  I applaud the Kings for putting their beliefs over the threat of negative public opinion.  But it does seem like this difference had been apparent well prior to the firing.  If you don’t believe Malone is going to coach the team the way you envision your organization having success, then why is he holding training camp?  And then don’t wait for a short losing streak to attempt to justify it.  I wasn’t a fan of that strategy and I don’t often find myself sympathetic to Rudy Gay, but if keeping Malone for a few extra months was a calculated move to improve their chances to sign Gay long term, that’s downright rotten.

Where Vivek and the front office he’s assembled had the benefit of the doubt as newcomers, they’ve now crossed over.  If they were a young player, this would be the stage of their NBA development where the League starts to figure them out a bit, begins to expose their flaws, and they need to learn/develop counters to that.  They don’t have the benefit of the doubt anymore and without a long-term leader on the bench, the Kings will continue to be fascinating in the coming months.