The Sacramento Kings have interviewed Calvin Booth for their Head of Basketball Operations, according to a report from ESPN’s Marc Spears.
The Kings interviewed Nuggets general manager Calvin Booth today for their GM opening, a source told @TheUndefeated. Interview was for the top basketball executive position with the Kings. The former Kings center ranks second behind president of bball ops Tim Connelly in Denver.
— Marc J. Spears (@MarcJSpears) September 13, 2020
This news came as a bit of a surprise as there was speculation on Friday that Booth would withdraw from the opportunity, following in the footsteps of Adam Simon and Trajan Langdon.
The Kings will continue interviews in the coming days. ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reports that Sachin Gupta, Monte McNair, and Wes Wilcox are all moving on to the next round of interviews.
ESPN Sources: Minnesota EVP Sachin Gupta, Houston assistant GM Monte McNair and former Atlanta GM Wes Wilcox are among those advancing to a second-round of interviews in Sacramento’s search for new top basketball decision-maker. All three will travel to Sacramento.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) September 13, 2020
It’s also worth noting Woj’s wording of “among those”, indicating those he mentioned were not the only candidates moving forward. This could have been meant to cover Booth, or there might be additional candidates in the process that have not yet been named publicly.
The key to Woj’s tweet, though, is that these candidates are interviewing the be Sacramento’s “top basketball decision-maker”. It’s easy to get hung up on titles. GM, President of Basketball Ops, VP of Basketball Ops, but what really matters is the hierarchy. Whoever the Kings hire is set to answer to nobody but Vivek Ranadive. That’s what matters.
The means that regardless of title, this position would be a step up for Booth, who is currently Denver’s second-in-command under Tim Connelly, or Sachin Gupta, who reports to Gersson Rosas in Minnesota.
As more interviews become known, we’ll continue to keep you updated.
I’d love it if they have someone hired by the end of the week.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they do. Just a gut feeling.
*just a Gupta feeling.
I… Gupta hooked on a feeling.
¬ I’m high on believing…..
That you’re the GM for MEEEEEEEEE¬
Downvoting Greg’s gut!
I’m trying to Downsize mine.
My gut ruined my marriage!
-Rob Gordon, High Fidelity
Should’ve called me
Gupta please.
Seconded
Thirded
Gupted
It’s hilarious how blown in a direction Kings are by about 200 people on Twitter. 2 months ago, there weren’t firing Vlade. Then people wanted that. Because they weren’t sure about the move, they offered to make Dumars Vlade’s boss long term. Now, based upon fan and media feedback, Dumars will no longer interview. That makes sense on its own. But that also puts a lot on Vivek, who thought that hiring Pete D, firing Malone, hiring Vlade, and bragging to people about pressing middle school girls that had never seen a press before were good basketball ideas. He has a horrible record of hiring, firing, and/or retaining the right people. Fortunately the candidates seem strong.
I would guess that Vivek and Dumars were talking casually, then Joe offered to help Vivek clean up this mess. Then after Vlade was let go, temporary titles got thrown around by mistake and complicated things unintentionally.
In the end I think hiring Forde will really help this process. They likely recommended to Vivek to distance himself from Dumars because it complicated the hierarchy.
I would like to know how Dumars got involved initially. I doubt the two share a common circle of friends, so how was it that Dumars was hired as a “special advisor” last year?
Maybe Dumars is a friend of Kelsey Grammer
I’m listening!
I would imagine they met casually sometime in the last year, and got talking about basketball. Then maybe Vivek asked him to come on in an unofficial capacity.
I think Catanella worked for him in Detroit, no?
Ah, that may have been the connection.
Perry is another point of confluence.
In addition to the Pistons connections, Dumars was also an agent at ISE. I did a quick perusal, and Omri and Brewer are/were their clients.
Your high beams are on.
It’s possible to hire Gupta as President of Basketball Ops and McNair (or other) as GM?
I doubt people from this list of candidates would want to work under one another for the Kings. All of these guys would be leaving good, stable situations for a promotion.
But I doubt they would accept the job knowing they would have to be both President of BBall Ops and GM. I’d expect there to be two different people coming in for those roles.
Unlikely that would be the case since it would be a lateral move at best. I wouldn’t be surprised though if they hire someone at the end of the week (Either Gupta, Mcnair or Booth) and hire someone who was not named on the list as their assistant.
Why would the team hire the eventual GM’s assistant, and not let the new hire do it?
It wouldn’t be KANGZ if they didn’t hire someone in behalf of the GM!
It’s possible. Though I hope they don’t. From an outsider’s perspective their skillsets overlap too much for my taste. I’d much rather is, say, they hire Gupta, they bring in someone with a scouting/player development background as one of his primary deputies. With the remaining candidates we know about, that would lean towards more of a Gupta or McNair at one position and Booth or Wilcox at the other.
I’m hoping they give Anthony McClish an opportunity to interview for the #2 job if they do decide to hire someone with an analytics background for the GM position. Everyone speaks very glowing when they talk about him. They all basically say he will be a GM in this league at some point. Also it would be good to show they are capable of promoting one of their own. I think it’s important to establish a culture that rewards success by hiring from within. Plus there would be some continuity with Stockton. The new regime needs to make sure they treat Stockton as a true farm system. They can’t keep developing these players and letting other teams sign them away.
Promoting their own…..Hiring from within…..continuity……..Stockton………
BREAKING! Kings make decision on new GM hire:
But would promoting McClish make the Sacramento Kings a farm team?
McClish should be promoted to to lieutenant tank farm commander
Unfortunately, the player rights/control rules currently in place don’t really let them use it as a true farm team. If they want to do that, team need to be able of have greater rights over more G-League players. Which, of course, would limit opportunities for many of those players.
I think this will happen once all NBA teams have their own G-League affiliate. There’s still a few teams that don’t.
I hope it does. And the G-league becomes more and more of the primary path for elite High Schoolers. Then we could stop pretending high level NCAA sports have anything to do with college.
It would certainly give more control to the player. But I’d like to see some success going a non-NCAA route before they make it the norm. It really hasn’t been good so far. Maybe the G League Select Team will make a difference.
Players haven’t really been encouraged or enabled to go the G-league route before now. The only non-NCAA routes available have been to sit out a year or move across the world. Now, the dam has burst. This season will be a turning point IMO. I think within a couple seasons we will see very few Cade Cunningham’s and Emoni Bate’s playing in the NCAA. Which, IMO, is a good thing.
Of course. And there are also the AAU leagues and endorsement contracts pushing players to high level D1 NCAA programs. That’s the big reason why high level players haven’t gone overseas or to the G League select team yet. But if every G League team has X amount of roster spots available to straight from high school players, that won’t be a problem since they will get paid, and will have agent reps dealing with endorsement opportunities.
There won’t be any more issues like with James Wiseman in Memphis either.
Portland and Denver were the last two teams without G-League affiliates, and each was close to adding one last I heard.
I just think they’ve put themselves in a position to not capitalize on the opportunities. They always seem to lock up their roster spots in the preseason. Their 10-day contracts are typically filled by vets. They traded Wenyen once he got called up to get out of the Ariza deal. I understand there are limits on what they can do with their G League team, but they still manage to underutilize it at the same time.
a lot of this is Vlade too, thinking vet role players are the answer. I mean he was pretty lucky Baze came over and decided to give a shit.
But then we also have to credit Vlade for signing Wenyen Gabriel to a two-way contract last year and Daquon Jeffries to one this year, then giving both of them opportunities to play in Sacramento.
I’m ok with giving Vlade credit for that.
I think they’ve done a good job of identifying players who have NBA talent, but need some seasoning in the G League. They just don’t do a good job of capitalizing on it. Giles is kind of a similar example. They drafted him, rehabbed him for a year, sent him down to the G League occasionally, and then declined their team option before he could ever provide any sort of ROI. I think things might’ve turned out differently had they kept him in the G League for a while. Part of the issue is that Giles seemed to be a bit of a premadonna. Maybe that doesn’t happen if they incorporate the G League experience more into their developmental plan.
…incorporate the G League experience more into their developmental plan.
This could be another reason to give McClish a role with the Sacramento FO. He would certainly advocate for the value of developing young talent through time spent with Stockton team.
yeah the interview Tim and Sanjesh did with Ty Ellis was pretty eye opening. Stockton seems like they totally have their shit together even though they’ve been screwed over royally (pun intended) recently. Ellis is like inventing his own defensive schemes, and always holding players accountable. It just seems like they have that “rise and grind” vibe. DJ is the perfect example. He played meaningful minutes in the bubble because he earned them. All too often it feels like the players in Sacramento have a “big hat, no cattle” vibe to use a farm (team) expression.
When you read about how McClish got to where he is, then you see why the part of the organization under his control has the right mindset. His LinkedIn page goes from like Ohio State volunteer camp counselor, to Spurs intern, to GM of the Stockton Kings. That’s a very different path to get where you are than guys like Luke, Vlade and Peja.
Also shout out to former Cal Poly great Drake U’u. He’s been grinding as well, and should be retained under the new admin IMO.
Speaking of U’u, his Twitter faves are interesting. This is just speculation on my part, but it seems like he thinks the Kings should go in the player development direction for their new hire. Faves aren’t endorsements, obviously, but it’s interesting that he liked tweets associated with the KIngs’ interest in both Booth and Simon.
Sort of related, I’m hoping they pull Ty Ellis up to an assistant coach too, before another team steals him away.
I don’t know if it is likely, but certainly possible. McNair and Gupta would have overlapped in Houston, so a working relationship could already exist, and McNair could soon be out of a job if Morey and his staff are fired (as is rumored to be a possibility). So let’s say Houston fired Morey and his staff, and Gupta gets the job here, it wouldn’t be crazy for McNair to join Gupta’s staff.
It’s possible, I just don’t know if it’s likely.
Ha! Who made that article picture? That’s hilarious!!
Thanks, that was me. Sometimes we need to be creative since we don’t have the same photo bank we used to have access to. Kimani provides us awesome photos of game action, but he (understandably) doesn’t have a catalog of assistant GMs.
Love it, Greg!
It would be interesting to find out what impact Forde and the consultants are having on this process. With a few top candidates bowing out, has Forde been able to tell Vivek and the Ownership that to appeal to the Booth’s and Gupta’s that the lines of power and decision making have to be clear rather than the muddled mess they have been? Did Forde’s influence make Dumar’s less important? Its easy to speculate as to why people bow out, but sans concrete information it is all speculative. My worthless opinion is that this is Vivek’s first real process in hiring someone to change the image and operations of the team, and he is probably learning on the fly as to what that job really needs to be, rather than the messiness of what it has been.
I hope we get some real intel about the Booth situation at some point. It is odd that Vivek called him directly to convince him to interview with Forde. That doesn’t seem like the normal sequence of events, but maybe Vivek understands his reputation is a problem. I think it’s important to remember Booth’s head coach has been openly critical of Vivek over the years, so maybe that caused some hesitation.
I like Gupta a lot, and while I don’t know a ton about McNair, if he’s in Morey’s front office, then I’d guess he’s got his act together.
Not sure how I feel about Booth. I think I’m a little put off by the open shirt collar and five-day shadow.
Too soon.
Vlade’d!
As for McNair, I think he played in a Super Bowl.
All 3 of them are qualified IMO. If I have to rank them personally, I would go with Gupta, Booth, Mcnair.
Gupta being my first choice due to his connection with Hinkie and his savviness on roster changes.
Booth is actually my second choice just ahead of Mcnair. I liked what they did in Denver with their roster construction and talent evaluation. Of course we don’t know who is really responsible with those decisions, was it Connelly? or Arturas Karnisovas during his time with the Nuggets? or Booth? Probably all of them had some input in those decisions but I trust the Nuggets organization more than the Kings organization when it comes to decision makings and given that they promoted Booth to the GM position after Karnisovas was hired by the Bulls speaks volumes.
Vivek, congratulations on advancing to the second round of interviews!
As they like to tell recent college grads who are about to go into their first interview, “They’re not only interviewing you, YOU’re interviewing THEM!”
Sorry, NSFW language:
“It’s also worth noting Woj’s wording of ‘among those’, indicating those he mentioned were not the only candidates moving forward.”
Forde making the case for Perry to interview with Vivek for the GM position:
Please don’t fuck this up.
Please don’t fuck this up.
Please, please, please don’t fuck this up.
If the Kings hire Booth, will that give us an advantage when referee calls get challenged for a Booth review?
Completely not related to your comment, but I just realized something. I don’t have to listen to Grant bitch about how long booth reviews take anymore.
I think Gupta is the more exciting candidate, but I worry about his drafting ability. I LOVE his trading ability though. I think Booth would have the advantage on drafting, which I think will be more important for the team.
I don’t want the team to rush on this process, but I sure would like the new honcho to be able to have Mark D’Antoni still as a free agent when he or she is considering coaches.
No one worth a damn is taking this job if they’re not allowed to put Lose Walton on the dustbin of history.
With the shortened offseason, MD’A won’t be able to relax before jumping back in, assuming that he wants to coach in ’20’-’21. Under the current weirdness, he may want to sit out the new season, and dive back in next summer. Any new GM must be allowed to consider getting any coach that he or she wants, and when he or she wants them.
I don’t care about so-called budgetary constraints. While you may accuse me of finding it very easy to spend other people’s money, I’m not the one who tied up eight figures in the worst GM/Head Coach combo in modern league history.
The organization can bleed for this team, just as its fans have since 1985. Pony up, or shut up.
I think it should be noted that they tied up eight figures in guaranteed contracts for the worst GM/Head Coach combo in modern league history months before one of the most devastating pandemics in world history. We can all pretend basketball-related decisions are made in a vacuum, or we we can simply accept reality. They could hire Jerry West, Pat Riley, and Darryl Morey as the 3-headed GM hydra and still lose millions of dollars over the next few years. This is the big one. Almost every single revenue stream this team relies on is dependent on people being able to attend events. That simply isn’t possible for the foreseeable future. I’m not trying to be alarmist here. I just feel like the general consensus seems to essentially be “head in the sand”. The ramifications of this virus will be felt for decades.
In the team’s defense, when they wrote those ridiculous contracts last summer, there was no hint of what the next year would bring.
As far as getting the caliber of people like West, Riley, or Morey, the Kings aren’t any worse off than most franchises. Everyone is going to take it in the shorts for the next couple of years. If other teams are willing to pay for bright minds, Sacramento simply has to do what’s necessary to keep up. The NBA is a closed loop, and for a team or teams to purposely relegate themselves to second or third-class status simply isn’t acceptable.
I used to say it about the Maloofs, and even though it doesn’t strictly apply here because Ranadive is actually intelligent and a billionaire, the fact is, if your sports franchise is your main source of income, you aren’t wealthy enough to own it.
The ownership group bought the team as an investment to make money, but also as a point of prestige. Anyone in the group crying poor should sell their shares and get out. Times are fucking hard right now in so many ways, and sports can be a brief escape from misery. (Well, not for Kings fans, since that’s our default setting.)
The owners are obligated to do what’s necessary in order to remain competetive. The best way to go would be to stop signing grossly underperforming executives in the first place, but that’s not how we roll. In light of that, ownership is going to have to eat those contracts, and shell out to get the right people installed. I don’t give a shit about the financial burdens of billionaires, the responsibility of the group is to field competetive teams, both on the court, and in the front office.
Sorry about the pandemic, fellas, but you made a commitment, for better, or for worse. If the water is too deep, get out, there are a thousand idle trust fund kids who will buy your shares.
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