With Monte McNair now installed as the Kings GM, the focus turns now to his staff. The staff around Golden 1 Center is lacking, to say the least. Many basketball ops staffers were furloughed as the season ended, and Assistant GM Peja Stojakovic resigned along with Vlade Divac. For front office holdovers, that left Ken Catanella.
Sam Amick reported yesterday that Catanella was expected to stay on with the Kings and join McNair’s staff. Today we got confirmation from James Ham.
NBA source confirms that Ken Catanella is expected to stay on and work on Monte McNair's staff in Sacramento.
— James Ham (@James_HamNBA) September 18, 2020
Catanella has been Kings Assistant GM since 2016, and serves as a CBA expert and contract guru. He’s found creative ways to structure contracts for Kings players, including decreasing contracts and non-guaranteed years, which have helped to offset the premium the Kings often pay to convince players to sign in Sacramento.
Catanella also has a prior connection to Joe Dumars, having worked for Dumars with the Detroit Pistons.
Despite Catanella’s ties to the previous front office and to Dumars, this should be viewed as good news. Ken has shown a creativity with contracts that is a valuable skill in the modern NBA, and could become even more important in the coming years as the league faces the financial impacts of COVID-19.
For all intents and purposes, he’s simply been the guy in charge of how to build contracts, not hand them out. In that regard, he’s done pretty well. Seems like a sensible move to keep him. Now let’s just agree stop to giving out the Zach/George/Cory/Harrison types of deals to begin with.
Keeping Catanella is a solid choice for the sake of some continuity in the FO, if for no other reason. As has been mentioned in other recent threads, that will still leave us with a need for someone with top-flight talent evaluation and scouting skills. Does anyone know who on the Mavericks staff was responsible for scouting and evaluating Luka?
Tony Ronzone of the Dallas Mavericks is responsible for scouting, evaluating and drafting Luka. He should be the new GM for the Kings. Was apart of the Detroit FO that won the championship, was apart of USA basketball, etc. Kings should make him apart of the staff as Ast GM!!!
The new Mike Bratz
But we still have the old original Bratz here on TKH!
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Anybody that they don’t let go is a body that they can’t not replace.
That may be the most nonsensical-yet-logical sentence that I have ever written in my life.
I’ve read that three times and each time I’ve grown more disappointed in you.
I wonder if he wrote himself a partial guarantee to stay on…
…or just locked himself in the bathroom.
Coat closet?
Bap Bap Bap
I’m good with this. Ken brings continuity and a bridge to the current roster for McNair. He should have a solid understanding of the current roster, contracts, and relationships that should help McNair hit the ground running.
Now I’m interested to see who the next new hire is. I still want to see more support on McNair’s staff.
More important than Catanella’s decision to stay was that the decision to keep him was made by McNair.
Can we get to a point as an organization where we don’t have to report who’s call it was for every decision made? Thanks.
Happy to see Ken stay. I think it’s a great bridge hire. Ken will be incredibly helpful to McNair over the next 6 months as our new GM gets comfortable with his new position and the roster he is taking over. It’s encouraging that McNair sees the importance in Ken and chose to keep him on as the only bright spot from the previous regime.
Id like to take this moment to address the McNair and Dumars hire in general as well as some of the fan reaction. Joe Dumars is the most qualified member of a Kings front office since Geoff Petrie. McNair is the most qualified GM the Kings have had in 7 years. These are real front office basketball people which is already a gigantic improvement compared to 6 weeks ago. I’m very excited. I know we are all hopeful that this is a turning point towards sustained success. While I fully understand the pessimism over the perceived power structure I think it’s a bit irrational. It’s 100% fair and understandable but it’s also rooted in Kangs PTSD. I think this Kangs PTSD has sadly made logical reasoning an after thought.
Here is my logical reasoning. It didn’t come easy but I was able to arrive at a logically rooted perspective after a long battle with my Kangs PTSD.
1.) considering McNair’s resume it would seem a bit insulting to think he would knowingly take a job that is beneath him. That is essentially what King’s fans are insinuating when questioning his ultimate power to make decisions.
2.) McNair had a job, a good job. Why leave for a new job with no decision making power when the roster decisions are what defines you and your future employment in Sacramento or any other sports franchise in the world?
3.) why didn’t Dumars take the job of GM? Because he didn’t want it. It was his if he wanted it. He didn’t. Him potentially conspiring to now get that job doesn’t make logical sense. It does however make Kangs sense. We have to fight that urge.
4.) Dumars title changed yesterday but his role is what it was. He wasn’t hired to be the new GM. He was hired to help as an adviser to the GM- Vlade. So many shit decisions, bad reputation, billboards and the lack of winning forced Vivek to try to improve the GM situation. he has now done exactly that. With the help of Dumars.
5.) reporting directly to ownership isn’t a red flag in reality. Our Kangs brain makes it a red flag. Fighting off my Kangs brain I think I see the logic and reality to this misguided concern from king’s fans. Dumars wasn’t making draft selections or picking what players to sign or trade for. He gave his opinion on players and transactions, Vlade had final say. He’ll do the exact same with McNair. Lobbying for McNair’s job or throwing him under the bus in an attempt to get it isn’t a good career move for Dumars. An advisor to the owner with a bunch of business and money making opportunity perks is a great career move for Dumars. I think logic points to Dumars and McNair working as partners when applicable. Things like a disgruntled coach, a disgruntled star player, 2 more losing seasons, bad contracts, etcetera might force Dumars to call Vivek and say unfortunately McNair hasn’t worked out, we might want to consider making another move with our GM. He just did this exact thing with Vlade. Which he should be praised for.
5.) Giving decision making control to Dumars over Vlade made sense. It was out of necessity because of a pretty terrible track record. Hiring McNair and still giving Dumars final say while increasing his role on the business side of things doesn’t make logical sense. In Kangs brain however… it makes complete sense.
all that said, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if a week before the draft McNair resigns as the Kings GM stating a lack of trust from ownership for the job he was hired to do.
heres to hoping McNair can begin the process of slowly chipping away at our Kangs Brains until maybe one day it’s a word we only use when talking about the past.
I KNEW IT!
billboards and the lack of winning forced Vivek to try to improve the GM situation.
Why did McNair take this job, I wonder with another playoff flameout and an owner who is well potentially short on cash and a bit mercurial maybe the writing in on the wall with D’Antoni leaving and maybe Morey is next? Jus a thought
I think every franchise is short on cash due to the pandemic so this is not something that is unique to the Kings. It seems many are implying that this is a specifically a Kings which I don’t believe is true.
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