Former Sacramento Kings head coach George Karl has a new podcast, and in the latest episode he went into great detail discussing his time with the Sacramento Kings. Vance Walberg, who served as an assistant under Karl in Sacramento, was a guest on the show as well. I’ll be discussing some key moments, but the whole thing was a really fascinating listen (outside the podcast host, who is useful in guiding the conversation but way too effusive with his praise of Karl and Walberg every step of the way).
It is also worth noting that all stories are from the perspective of Karl and Walberg. Karl certainly doesn’t paint himself as perfect — he says it was a mistake to say no player is untradeable — but he tends to put the blame on everyone but himself — he says it was a mistake to say no player is untradeable because his team wasn’t mature enough to handle that.
Carmichael Dave shared some snippets of the podcast on Twitter, and I’ll share those hear so you can hear some of the more relevant parts of the show.
On Vlade’s hiring:
In this clip, Karl talks about the first sign of trouble in Sacramento.
According to him, he had no clue Vlade was hired, and neither did Pete D’Allesandro.
In fact he says he yelled at Pete when he found out. pic.twitter.com/WhzWojmi6F
— Carmichael Dave (@CarmichaelDave) May 28, 2020
This is perhaps the most believable anecdote, where Karl and Pete D’Alessandro were blindsided by the hiring of Vlade Divac to oversee them.
On why he wasn’t fired at the All-Star break:
In this clip, Karl talks about being a lame duck coach, the financial reason he thought he was kept around for, and the firing of his assistant coach. pic.twitter.com/KrB0s82fAr
— Carmichael Dave (@CarmichaelDave) May 28, 2020
This was rather surprising to hear. Karl says that he’d always heard that the other owners basically said that Vivek would need to pay Karl’s salary if Karl was fired early.
In this clip Vance Walberg discusses his firing:
Vance Wahlberg was the assistant coach fired under George Karl.
Here he talks about that meeting, and asks why it wasn’t Nancy Lieberman. pic.twitter.com/aiSC6BeySO
— Carmichael Dave (@CarmichaelDave) May 28, 2020
It seems clear that Nancy Lieberman was a hiring that had been directed by Vivek, and that the other coaches didn’t view her as part of core group of coaches. Vivek’s meddling is a running theme throughout the show.
Walberg shared his version of the confrontation between George Karl and DeMarcus Cousins:
Former Kings assistant Vance Wahlberg relays what he saw during the infamous Cousins-Karl locker room confrontation after a loss in San Antonio, and the front office’s reaction (or lack thereof): pic.twitter.com/S4y19VD2EV
— Carmichael Dave (@CarmichaelDave) May 28, 2020
Karl shares his version of events on the podcast as well. After this segment Karl and Walberg discuss how they felt the organization did not back them up in holding Cousins accountable for the outburst.
Finally, Karl and Walberg were asked if Vivek is the biggest problem for the Kings:
Final shot from the George Karl podcast. When asked if owner Vivek Ranadive is the problem in Sacramento, both he and former assistant Vance Wahlberg say…..yes: pic.twitter.com/VUhMMDBeKP
— Carmichael Dave (@CarmichaelDave) May 28, 2020
One other aspect of the podcast I found interesting that Dave didn’t capture was a section where Karl talked about roster building. He talked about how outside of Cousins and Rudy Gay there wasn’t much talent to work with. He says that’s where the idea of trading Cousins came from in the first place, was the idea of getting multiple players back similar to how Denver did when they traded Carmelo Anthony. He also talked about how he felt they needed a top 15-20 point guard. No mention of how his buddy Pete D’Alessandro had let Isaiah Thomas go the summer before.
It’s a fascinating listen, but again you absolutely need to take Karl with a grain of salt. I have no idea how accurate his statements are, but there are certainly parts of it that ring true from what I recall of the team at that time.
One nice theme throughout the podcast was that poth Karl and Walberg spoke glowingly about the city of Sacramento and about Sacramento Kings fans. Both had nothing but positive things to say, and said they hope the Kings organization can be successful because the fans deserve it.
Apologize if it’s already been posted.
Straight to playoffs got twice as many votes as any other option.
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/29241787/majority-nba-gms-vote-restart-season-going-straight-playoffs
Likely that the 16 votes for straight to playoffs came from the 16 GMs whose teams would automatically qualify under that scenario.
There’s likely some self-serving going on, but I tend to agree with the idea of limiting the number of people involved in this whole thing.
I mean, it’s still a pandemic until we’ve got a vaccine or herd immunity.
There is also some self-serving going on from teams and fans (cough
There are a couple playoff GMs, that are on record as being pro-play-in. We can also assume that bottom tier teams would prefer straight to playoffs over scenarios where they play meaningless regular season games.
Coming up on part 2 of the podcast: Breakfast!
Room service breakfast call is on Vivek
“They threw in free biscuits!”
LOL, not for George!
“You really should give them breakfast.”
“Up yours, Rockefeller – I’ll fight you for it!”
Cousins .. this is as good as it gets ..
I discovered that bleacher Reports images are 3096 x2048, it breaks the site 🙁
Not sure it was the team that wasn’t mature enough to handle that, but one specific player.
I’m sure George laughed his ass off when Vlade traded DMC – ten months after his departure.
And George was still getting paid by the Kings that season too.
This is why the Kings will never run out of coaching options. Free money and a 2 year paid vacation out of 4 contract years.
Sign me up!
“Honey, I just signed a four year guaranteed deal with the Kings. I’ll be home in two years.”
Also, homemade breakfast for the foreseeable future!
Mmmmm. Breakfast.
Many of the fans weren’t mature enough to handle that.
Good point
I certainly was not.
I’m eagerly awaiting the photo of
Also, we need strikethrough text!
I think we already have strikethrough text!This is what happens when a guy who cuts grass gets a computer.
You’re the only person I know that owns a John Deere computer.
Does it come with the hat?
Did you keep confusing the power cord for the pull cord to start the computer?
Nice highlights thanks for sharing those, fun to hear even if it is half true it’s pretty good. How cool would an interview with George, Malone, and Joeger be? Maybe we could get Chris Harrison to host. Bring Vivek or Luke on after they finish for the confrontation…… Somebody get me a number for ABC programming.
I’ll just focus on two main things; once again confirmation of how deep Vivek was involved in basketball operations, forcing an assistant coach upon the coaching staff and then didn’t even let his coach and GM know that he had hired Vlade.
I know that we are trying to cling to something positive, and people can change,
I find it hard to believe that Vivek has really stopped his incessant meddling. The fact that his son has a relatively high position within the organization speaks volumes, IMO.
Too bad that #HereWe Billboard was overshadowed by the corona news and the NBA putting the season on hold.
Also, the statement that other owners were onwilling to pick up the tab for firing Karl is yet another confirmation of some serious divide within the ownership group. Hard to build up a contender when there is no unity at the top.
(N.B. It’s too bad that our first female coach was put in a position where the cards where stacked against her. Although her wisdom quotes rubbed me the wrong way. She also remained on teh staff – and payroll – for quite some time after she effectively left the team).
The main thing that comes out of this story to me, is how important it is to have everyone on the same page and lines of communication being completely open. That goes from the ownership group all the way to the last bench player in Stockton. Without those things it is an ongoing disfunctional organization.
I could be mistaken, but I recall hearing that DMC really liked Nancy Lieberman. Could that have been part of Karl’s dislike for her or was she, for lack of a better term, a Vivek stooge.
I think she was first and foremost a Vivek stooge and forced by him onto the coaching staff, which is a big no-no. A coach is normally allowed to put together his own staff on the NBA, so that already would be cause for resentment/lack of trust/an awkward situation.
Also, this was probably known to the players and DMC was Vivek’s favorite pet at the time, so i suppose he knew that Lieberman was in his “camp”, so to speak.
Either way you look at it, it was a giant clusterf@ck waiting to explode in everyone’s faces. And anyone with a bit of intelligence would be able to tell Vivek that. So I assume his lackey’s didn’t tell him and/or he didn’t listen to those who did tell him.
And here we are, with Vlade still at the helm and Vivek again paying another coach who was let go…
It was my impression that Karl was the one who introduced the idea of hiring Lieberman early in his tenure:
I know Nancy and I think she’s a quality basketball person, Karl said after his first practice with the Kings Wednesday. I’ve known her for years. Again I don’t think those decisions are going to be made until summer time. At that moment, how my staff filters out, she’ll be someone I have interest in.
Theres a lot of context missing from the Bee article. In his podcast Karl definitely alludes to not being the one who made the decision on Lieberman.
But as with all stories there’s 3 sides.
It’s continually frustrating to hear that there are in essence two Viveks: there’s the socially-conscious, civic-minded business-driven version that is relatively rare in sports, and then there’s the continually-meddling, basketball-clueless version that is…less rare.
Ideally Vivek would be in charge of everything except basketball operations. Everything basketball related should be independent and run by Geoff Petrie or Sam Hinkie.
Obviously the bar is low, and obviously Petrie deserves credit for the glory years, but he has been quite underwhelming since.
Yes, and credit where credit is due.
On the other hand, as far as my research on the internet shows, Sacramento and Utah are so far the only two NBA franchises to furlough part of their full-time workers beginning tomorrow. Other teams have furloughed part-time employees, but we are one of two teams to furlough full-time employees, it seems.
How socially conscious and civic-minded is that?
I could give 2 shits less about this, honestly. All of this is par for the course with how this group operates.
At my age, two shits is a lot.
Ace Ventura believes you need more fiber in your diet. Perhaps you should eat more pet food?
OT: Don’t know where else I can post this…
Has Anyone seen Will’s tweet?
https://twitter.com/WillofThaPeople/status/1267560986761822208?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1267560986761822208&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.redditmedia.com%2Fmediaembed%2Fgusy8h%3Fresponsive%3Dtrue%26is_nightmode%3Dfalse
Badge Legend