We’ve spent the better part of the last month dissecting all the different ways the Sacramento Kings have been disappointing in the NBA restart. Vlade Divac’s plethora of roster mistakes are well documented. Luke Walton has only exacerbated those mistakes with his coaching. The players, outside of a select few, have played well below expectation. Vivek Ranadive, the only one with the power to actually do something about it, has remained silent. It’s not going well for the home team.
We’ve been hearing little whispers about Joe Dumars’ increasing involvement in the front office over the last several weeks, and The Athletic’s Sam Amick shed more light on what is shaping up to be another internal power struggle in Sacramento.
Rival executives have highlighted the increased influence of Kings advisor Joe Dumars as a sign of trouble for Divac, as sources say he has become a valued voice for owner Vivek Ranadive after being added to their group in June of 2019. The two were together in Orlando to watch the early Kings’ action from the outside-the-bubble seats, but sources close to the situation insist there is synergy and trust between Divac and Dumars here. That being said, Dumars who lives in Los Angeles is expected to have an increased role going forward.
Nobody would really question Vlade Divac’s dismissal at this point. He’s been in charge since 2015 and the Kings have made little progress while several Western Conference competitors that began their rebuild after Divac are already back in the playoffs. The problem is, at least for now, this sounds like another half measure for an organization that desperately needs to clean house.
Amick isn’t reporting that Divac’s job is in jeopardy, necessarily, and he does detail that sources have told him Divac and Dumars have a good relationship, but we’ve seen this story play out in Ranadive’s organization time and time again. Vlade Divac was empowered during Pete D’Alessandro’s reign. Scott Perry and Brandon Williams were in varying degrees of power during Vlade Divac’s tenure. Now, it’s Joe Dumars’ turn to play the Game of Thrones.
An empowered Joe Dumars isn’t particularly inspiring, either, considering how his run with the Detroit Pistons flamed out, but Amick does give us one bit of good news:
With Ken Catanella and Peja Stojakovic working with Divac and Dumars, and with teams like the Clippers setting a new standard on this front by having multiple GM-caliber executives in their ranks, it wouldn’t shock me to see the Kings make an addition to fortify the front office.
Hopefully the Kings make a significant addition to fortify the front office in the offseason. Preferably in a title that clearly ranks this new executive higher than all the others involved.
This is just the first shoe to drop in what will surely be an interesting few months in Sacramento.
Not surprising at all, which is precisely the problem. More shocking would be to hear they were lining up a massive offer for RC Buford or Sean Marks or Koby Altman as their GM. Someone taken who they plan to hire away. That’s what good orgs do.
Instead, they bring in an experienced but faded executive with a mixed record to save money and avoid rocking any boats. Pathetic.
14 years. No playoffs. Constant humiliation. The boat not only needs to be rocked, it needs to be shot with a cannon and lit on fire.
Has Koby Altman really done anything worthy of a “godfather offer”? One of these things is not like the others.
You’re right, it was more an example. I’d prefer the other two or someone like Ujiri.
Vivek:
“Gosh darn it, Vlade. I can’t trust you to make draft choices anymore after you bung-holed the Luka draft.
….anyway, do you happen to have Joe Dumars’ phone number?”
Are we Jake Gyllenhaal in Donnie Darko, or Jake Gyllenhaal in Broke Back Mountain?
The clown show continues.
This organization just doesn’t get how to do things properly.
14 straight years of no playoffs shows the Kings know how to lose better than any other team.
This was obvious.
RikSmits
21 hours ago
LongGreat read! Thanks.If (big if) change will occur, it quite likely that Vlade will be replaced by Dumars, isn’t it? Might be an improvement, might be a lateral move¦
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Dumars?
Can we just move ahead and start calling him Joe Dumbass?
“Vivek hired who?”
Joe Dirtmars? Works for me.
Viveks’ MO; bring in a new person, give him a vague ole, and then promote him in an attempt to outs the current GM. He did the same with Vlade and Pete D.
It is the cheapest option; a guy who is already on the payroll. And Vivek can still sell him as a “new” GM and change, while claiming “continuity” and bringing forward an “experienced GM”.
Nobody wants the continuity of this shitshow, nor the experience of drafting Darko’s. But this is likely what we will get.
How obvious. How underwhelming.
Maybe it’s a way to escape responsibility for his hiring/firing. If he fired Vlade, maybe he thinks that would be an admission of failure on his own part.
Could be; but if as a grown up person you can’t publicly acknowledge that you make mistakes and are willing to take painful steps to remedy them, I have zero trust in you.
Rik, I DID admit I was wrong!
Anyway, why bring me into this?
They don’t necessarily need more voices in the room. They need better voices, from people who know how to run and build a modern team.
If you don’t want to pay a ridiculous amount for a new GM, that’s fine. Go poach one of the top assistant GMs out there and tell them “Go earn it!”
Maybe a Toronto Raptors intern would fare well here in Sac as a GM.
This is a tangled up mess and IMO requires a pro’s pro to fix it. Skimping on paying a qualified GM will only lead to more of the same.
This is probably the least inspiring move they could do for the front office and least effective, which means that is of course what they will do.
VR: “Hi Joe! This is Vivek Ranadive speaking. How would you feel about joining the most forward-thinking franchise in sports? A team with a BRIGHT future!”
JD: “Boy, that would be amazing.”
VR: “Right? RIGHT??!”
JD: “Yeah…..(sighs)….so how is YOUR team doing, by the way? ”
He can work two phones at once! That’s improvement.
That’s two more than Vlade can work!
completely unrelated but I saw this and thought of Carl:
Similarly unrelated, I saw this and thought of RORDOG:
I saw this and thought of RORDOG
such a handsome fella
I didn’t even realize until just now it’s the same photo as my (altered?) avi.
Wrong! Relish is a forbidden topping in the RORDOG
As a Kings fan, there’s nothing to relish.
The Kings need to ketch up to all the other rebuilding teams that are now good.
Is a Hot Dog a Sandwich and worth a wall painting? I dijon know?
!
?
#
@
years without playoffs HERE WE STAY!!
I’m expecting we break 20 years without playoffs after this move – it says so much about the ownership/senior management and their inability to run a successful basketball ops
Which ends first:
a) Sacramento Kings playoff drought.
b) Sacramento Kings 35-year lease contract with the city.
I’ll take “a,” at year 11 of the lease – 2025-26.
Very possible underwhelming FO:
Dumars takes over for Vlade as VP of Basketball Ops. Vlade moves to some other role, maybe in community outreach, maybe business development, maybe the ownership group, whatever.
Catanella promoted to GM. A few more accessory hires as scouts and development staff, maybe a couple other former staffers with ties to Dumars fill in as Assistant or Associate GMs.
Peja leaves, or stays and does player personnel work. Galen and Bornn return.
The end. That’s your FO. Provides a slew of changes with very little actual activity. No big external hires. No bank-breaking “statement move” for a coveted, respected current executive. Allows Vivek to pay Vlade off over time and save a little face. Dumars could immediately win fans over by firing Walton and hiring someone proven or desired, like Stan Van Gundy, Adrian Griffin, Ime Udoka, Vanterpool, etc.
It all sounds nice, if not completely underwhelming. But nothing with this team will truly change until Vivek stops interfering and bites the bullet on a capable GM and gets out of his way. We can’t luck our way out of bad decisions. Success isn’t accidental.
If Peja leaves…how will he get his VIP seats for free with another team??
You cant do “Bank Breaking Moves” if you don’t even have an account with money in it, care of all the past hiring and firings.
Not to rain on the little bit of hope some fans may have about Dumars; however, while Dumars was the GM of the Pistons during their nice run – there was another name who played a very crucial role there.
John Hammond. No, not the kind, yet naive creator of Jurassic Park. Hammond was the Assistant GM of the Pistons when they were making mostly smart moves (though also for Darko).
In April of 2008, the Bucks hired Hammond away from the Pistons to be their GM. After Hammond left for the Bucks, the fates of those two franchises went in opposite directions.
Hammond took two very different versions of the Bucks to the playoffs – once with Bogut, Jennings, Moute, and Delfino – and today’s version he built from scratch with Giannis, Middleton, and Brogdon. He then left for the Magic where they have already added Isaac, Fultz, Ross, and Ennis and hired Clifford as coach and made the playoffs two seasons in a row.
Meanwhile, after Hammond left a 59 win team in Detroit, Dumars immediately signed Kwame Brown, traded Billups and McDyess for a late career Allen Iverson, and traded Amir Johnson for Oberto. When that team went 39-43, Dumars threw a ton of cap space at Charlie V and Ben Gordon, traded Afflalo to the Nuggets for a 2nd round pick, and traded new draft pick Chase Buddinger to the Rockets for a 2nd round pick. That led to a 27-55 season. Dumars did make a good draft pick in Khris Middleton, who he later traded to Hammond and the Bucks with other assets for Brandon Jennings. Other than that first 39 win season, after Hammond left, Dumars won between 25-30 games in his last 5 years with Detroit and left the franchise a mess.
The final roster Dumars left the Pistons with was a 29 win team that was about $11M over the salary cap with Andre Drummond, Greg Monroe, Brandon Jennings, Will Bynum, and Josh Smith. Oh, did I mention that Dumars signed Josh Smith to a 4 years, $54M contract in 2013 when the salary cap was ~$63M? Smith was waived by the next GM while he still had 2 years and $26M left on his contract.
Yes, Dumars does deserve credit for hiring Hammond and likely listening to him, but it wasn’t as if Dumars had a gift for identifying great Assistants. He never found another protege during the following 6 seasons, so it really comes off more like finding lightning in a bottle. And his moves after Hammond left the franchise cannot be described as anything other than disastrous.
Him taking over for Vlade is at best a lateral move. And if it delays a true reset with the front office – one with an actual full search and interview process that ends with us hiring a promising, modern GM – it could be a massive negative for the franchise.
THIS IS THE DARKOST TIMELINE.
Great post, but I don’t agree that it’s a lateral move. Dumars has infinitely better experience and contacts than Vlade (not to mention a far more proven track record, despite several missteps), but I think it’s an extremely underwhelming hire that shows zero ambition. And that perception radiates, to prospective signings, draft picks, coaches, etc. Hiring him will do nothing to repair our reputation as a broken, cornershop NBA team that has no plan.
Well, hiring anyone over Divac would be a step upward, so I agree that it would not be a lateral move. That said, it would be the equivalent of standing barefoot in knee-high water and putting on socks.
That’s the most perplexing part “underwhelming hire that shows zero ambition”. It’s the absolute opposite of how the business side of the team works.
How can the same person who does the amazing things on the non-basketball side of the business make such dipshit decisions with on-court matters? It makes absolutely no sense.
And the language – the very same man who talked about NBA 3.0 and being “2 seconds ahead” has a front office that is led by Vlade Divac, Joe Dumars, and Peja Stojakovic.
And it’s not even as if we have invested in world-class analytical or technological capabilities.
There is no credible way to spin our FO and basketball operations approach to be even close to NBA 3.0 or “2 seconds ahead.”
2 seconds ahead of a day late
Wow, that’s a divergence.
Whats a few million when you already lost 100M due to Corona.. Wake me up when we have broken the wheel.
Vivek should just name himself as the GM and the Coach, it what his heart truly desires. Can it really get much worse?
Dude, you’re a Kings fan. You should know better by now!
New Kings Herald T-shirt:
Sacramento Kings: Can it really get much worse?
And then on the back: Sure it can, with Vlade’s face printed below
You’re right, it’ll get worse. It always gets worse
I wish he would just live his basketball GM fantasy in a basketball fantasy league, and take the real Kings basketball franchise seriously.
Hmmm….maybe we’re all just living in a simulation that Vivek created. A program he wrote to simulate the world of his fantasy basketball team.
Dumbshits.
Hey, at least he’s not another 2002 hire!
Joe Dumars as GM is a significant upgrade.
That’s how comically low the bar has been set.
Too many cooks in the kitchen. Vivek, just fire them all and poach a solid GM candidate.
And not even good cooks – this is more like me trying to make anything beyond BBQ chicken.
UH..HUH HUH HA…. He said GM-Caliber executives
What’s really sad is Vlade won the lottery twice after the Cousins trade. Obviously Fox was a hit but he whiffed on the second pick when Dononvan Mitchell was available. We dont need to recap the 2018 draft but somehow Coach Joerger had that team playing well. Hiring Walton has been foolish so he basically blew the lottery winnings on garbage and the Kings are broke again with only Fox to show for it. Its time to move on.
Kings Name Joe Dumars Senior Vice President of Growth Strategies and Executive Empowerment
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SACRAMENTO, CA – The Sacramento Kings announced today Joe Dumars has been named Senior Vice President of Growth Strategies and Executive Empowerment.
In this capacity, Dumars’ responsibilities will include advising Kings Owner Vivek Ranadive, assisting the organization’s executive empowerment programs, and identifying and implementing strategic growth initiatives.
“I never make the same mistake twice” quipped Ranadive. “Joe will report directly to me, and I have no doubt that he will empower executives to do what’s best for this organization moving forward”.
“It is a great honor to be here” proclaimed Dumars. “I want to thank Vivek for this opportunity. Vlade and I go way back, and I’ll do everything in my power to ensure Vlade feels empowered to do what’s in the best interest of this proud organization; we all have to make sacrifices sometimes to do what’s best for the team”.
Dumars joins the Kings with over 30 years of NBA experience both as a player and front office executive in addition to an extensive executive business background. Since 2017, he has served as president of the Basketball Division for Independent Sports & Entertainment (ISE), a full-service sports agency representing more than 300 players from the NBA, NFL and MLB. Outside of basketball Dumars was the founder and CEO of automotive supply company Detroit Technologies Inc. for 10 years (1996-06), helping the company grow to more than $120 million in revenues. He is also the founder and owner of the Joe Dumars Fieldhouse, a multi-purpose, indoor sports complex and entertainment facility with two locations in Detroit.
The Hall of Fame guard served as president of basketball operations for the Detroit Pistons for 13 seasons (2000-14). In 2004, he became the first African American executive to lead an organization to an NBA title. He also guided the team to six straight Eastern Conference Finals appearances, two Conference Championships and was named NBA Executive of the Year in 2003. In 2010, Sports Illustrated named Dumars one of the Top 10 sports executives of the past decade.
During his 14-year NBA career, Dumars won two titles, was named NBA Finals MVP, appeared in six All-Star games and was named All-Defensive First Team four times. He was also a member of the 1994 gold-medal USA Basketball World Championships team. Dumars was the first recipient of the NBA Sportsmanship Award (1995-96), which was subsequently named the Joe Dumars Trophy.
Dumars holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Management from McNeese State University
I’m guessing executives like Divac will not feel more empowered from this hiring.
hehe, nice
I never make the same mistake twice – Vivek Ranadive
Never. It’s always more than twice.
Vivek is a piece of shit.
Sounds like Silicon Valley bullshit speak for Vlade is going to have a babysitter.
this is right out of an office parody movie or TV series.
Lol I tried to come up with a fake title that sounded sufficiently corporate that also implied we brought him in to gently persuade Vlade to resign.
oh man I DOVE into the that sarchasm, even changed my twitter name to that title. I totally believed it.
Haha damn I shouldn’t have said anything!
Everyone needs to realize how prescient this parody was! It’s buried in an old post but a fake press release coming true within 24 hours should be recognized.
The front office needs no additions until everyone currently in it is subtracted.
I don’t know if Dumars would be any good, but if he has a job in this organization, he’s gotta be a complete ass-kiss to Divac.
Popovich wants to retire. Offer him head of basketball operations, and that all he needs to do is hire his choice of head coach, show up when the Kings are in San Antonio, and otherwise do as much or as little as he wants.
If anyone currently in place remains after the needed purge, they will contaminate whomever comes in. Burn sage, and remove all the executives.
The formula definitely looks familiar, Dumars may be in charge. If so, the timing is right to make a change. As bad as next year will be, there is an opportunity to clear the books for the 2021-22 season. It could be only:
6 players:
Fox – on an extension
Buddy/Bogi – keep one (Bogi unless the coach changes to someone who understands how to maximize talent or at least, minimize liabilities)
Barnes – under contact
Bagley – we’ll see! 2021-22 option for $11M
2020 1st round pick
2021 1st round pick
Everyone’s else contracts expire or have a small guarantee. This off season provides a blank slate for the following year. Next year will be bad regardless. It’s an ideal time to let someone else make some bad decisions. Fox will be 24/25 in 2021-22. There isn’t much time left before we screw up our latest savior. Change now!
Rats. I forgot about whatever albatross the Hield contract will return in trade.
I’m waiting for Vlade to decline Bagleys option to make him earn it.
Groundhogs day…. rinse/repeat/still shitty…… ð
Well, so much for the hope that this might be turned around after the embarrassing bubble experience. Shame on me for once again thinking that now is the time they will draw the right conclusions.
Divac needs to go first and foremost followed by Peja. That would be the first step for me to start taking the Kings seriously again
NBA 3.0 – hire successful former players and turn them into unsuccessful executives while completely wasting the careers of promising young players, making zero playoff games, and losing fans by the drove in the process.
Nice blueprint, Vivek. No wonder the Warriors ownership group was like, “no, you should TOTALLY bid on the Kings…”
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