According to Will Guillory of The Athletic, current Pelicans General Manager Trajan Langdon has declined an interview with the Sacramento Kings to head up the team’s basketball operations.
Sources tell @TheAthletic that Pelicans GM Trajan Langdon has informed the Sacramento Kings he will not be involved in their search for a new head of basketball operations.
Langdon, one of the hottest names on the market, is heading into his second season with New Orleans.
— Will Guillory (@WillGuillory) September 9, 2020
Langdon’s name was linked to Sacramento’s search for their new front office leader by Sam Amick and Shams Charania of The Athletic on Tuesday afternoon, but it’s important to note that the list was made up of candidates who the Kings wanted to speak with, not candidates who actually hold interest in joining the organization. A highly respected official such as Langdon always felt like a bit of a long shot, as he is well-regarded around the league, already holds the title of General Manager in New Orleans, previously worked under his current boss, David Griffin, in Cleveland, and has one of the most exciting up-and-coming stars in his fold in Zion Williamson.
For now, the Kings will turn their gaze to the remaining five potential hires on their list: Timberwolves EVP Sachin Gupta, Heat assistant GM Adam Simon, Nuggets GM Calvin Booth, Rockets assistant GM Monte McNair and former Hawks GM Wes Wilcox.
Yeah I was expecting that. He has it good where he is now. I’m also expecting Gupta to decline as well. Hoping Simon wants the chance to run his own franchise, cause he also has it good in Miami.
Simon has already turned down multiple GM opportunities, I don’t see how it’s any different with one of the worst owners in the entire league
“Thank you, but I respectfully decline the demotion to the Sacramento Kangz organization.”
“Hear me out. You’re guaranteed to get one or two years paid vacation, on us!”
Is breakfast included?
OK fine, I’ll make the you the GM of our e-sports team too, final offer!
And all the headaches that go with it…
I’ve heard a lot of very positive things about Langdon, but I’d prefer to go with someone who isn’t a former player. There have been some that have ascended to GM and crushed it, but I want someone who has been thinking about big-picture stuff since they were a kid.
Get me a geek, a dork, or a brilliant doofus. I don’t care if he or she dresses like a local news reporter from the 1970s, I want someone who can see down the road, and strategize accordingly. I want brilliance backed by the will to get things done.
There are people like that out there, including several on the list announced yesterday. Let’s move this franchise forward already.
I think it’s important to recognize that not all former players are the same. Langdon and Booth weren’t stars, and after they finished playing they works their way up through the ranks in the league. These guys may not have been thinking about stats since they were a kid, but they’ve been thinking about basketball their whole lives. And then they joined organizations and proved they can think about it in ways that are beneficial to front offices. I don’t think we should think of “former players” to just be guys like Vlade and Peja who hadn’t put in the legwork before being put in charge.
speaking of former players who worked their way up the ranks, I wonder if this one is interested in the job:
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how dare you
Is that the San Antonio Lone Ranger?
Hell James Jones went from playing in 2017, to assistant GM that summer, to interim GM in 2018, to full GM in 2019.
Player to GM in 2 years!
Lebron James has been a GM for years!
I don’t think there is any correlation/connection between former player versus not, star versus not. You just have to evaluation each candidate.
Good executive/good player:
Jerry West. Danny Ainge. Larry Bird. Joe Dumars (I know it’s mixed, but still built a title team).
Really bad executive/good player:
Magic. MJ. Vlade. Mullin.
Good executive/meh player:
Sean Marks. Etc.
And so on and so forth. This list is not meant to be exhaustive at all (I just went with who I could think of off the top of my head). Point is: it’s a mixed bag no matter how you sub-categorize a GM by their prior player experience or lack thereof.
Pat Riley could certainly hang out with Marks there.
For sure:
Riley – Good exec.
Phil Jackson – Bad exec.
Isiah Thomas – disaster and a walking lawsuit.
Geoff Petrie – really good player/really good exec.
And on and on.
Is Bird retired? Maybe our French-Lick native Jerry Reynolds could give him a holler.
You mean someone like Pete D’Alesandro?
I get your concern there just aren’t any absolutes.
Pete didn’t understand Isaiah Thomas’ value on the court. He was not a brilliant doofus, just more of a regular doofus.
One step closer to Wilcox. Or Perry.
Vivek, you’ve got a lot of reputation fixing to do
Yeah, that was my thought too.
Yeah, working on, one shaka sign at a time.
Looks like Mastrov is trying to figure out how to work his still.
New site just as negative as the old one!
Haters! Why not only positive GM search news?
OK, how about this?
We are positive that Vlade is no longer the Kings’ GM.
Not surprised by this. I assume Calvin Booth will do the same.
It would be surprising if he left Denver so quick
Amick had Tim Connelly on his Pod the other day, and I was surprised about how Connelly was openly advocating for members of his staff, including Booth, to get hired elsewhere. I found this interview with Connelly and Booth from July, they really do seem to have the type of relationship in which Connelly would be excited for Booth if he got the opportunity to run his own team.
I’m actually warming up to the idea of bringing in Booth. If I could pick a culture to replicate, Denver’s is probably near the top of the list. They do a really good job of finding talented players they believe are develop-able. Plus we all know the Kings have a great track record of hiring front office execs away from the Nuggets in the past.
Are we really ready for another former Kings center to be GM? I mean…really?
In all honesty, what has he really done in Denver. He’s been there 3 years, since August of 2017. What great decisions has he been apart of there? Draft Porter Jr?
“The Sacramento Kings announced today they have hired Olden Polynice to be the franchise’s next General Manager. Compensation details have not been released, but Vivek Randive did confirm he’ll be allowed to work in a Sacramento Sheriff’s Officer uniform.”
I was hoping for Causie, but OP will do.
I’m not too concerned about stuff like that. Denver has one of the best basketball operations in the league. The person in charge felt Booth was qualified to be second in command. There may be better candidates, but Booth is qualified for the job. Coming from Denver’s culture gives him a few bonus points IMO.
Yeah, but will Vivek let him do it?
In other news…Joerger might have another job soon.
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1303732598955442178
If Pacers hire Joerger it validates what a good coach he is. Pacers are an intelligent organization. Credit to their front office for having the success they’ve had even with the disadvantage of being a small market team.
It would be cool to see Becky Hammon be a head coach as well though.
wierd to see him interviewed
thought he’d be continually blacklisted for being the insubordinate punk some believe him to be (Doncic)
didnt get a call last summer. Now he’s surfaced for two jobs so far this summer?
Is this sarcasm?
Serious question, cuz I am not sure if I am missing the tone/intent here.
(PS – I am life tired so I may very well be the idiot in this scenario! 😉 )
No, he’s been pushing this one for a while. Just nod and move on.
Thanks. Wasn’t sure.
Who doesn’t want to sit at home making loads of money after getting fired mid-contract?
I don’t get it.
We suck lmao
This stuff happens, but [reads notes] it‘s important to express confidence, to express calm.
Yea I wish I had confidence in the Kings.
To quote Cloris Leachman in Spanglish, “Lately, your low self-esteem is just good common sense.”
Having confidence in the Kings right now would be nothing short of delusional. Hope? Sure. Faith? Maybe, since faith is always belief without evidence. But not confidence.
The only sports entertainment that’s really keeping me from the shitter is the Golden Knights. It’s such an amazing feeling to feel relevant.
Boo!
This is the reality of the situation. A sought-after executive would rather have a lower position with New Orleans than be head of BB Ops in Sacramento.
This isn’t like the Celtics or the Heat we’re talking about. This is the Pelicans. A team we’re supposedly on par with.
I wonder if Vivek will ever wake up. We are a laughingstock. Window dressing won’t do it this time. Do whatever it takes to get a top-notch President of BB Ops. Get out of their way, and let them blow this shit up if they want to.
I don’t think anybody thinks the Kings and Pelicans are on par in terms of direction and vision.
Yeah, that’s why I added in “supposedly”.
I’m sure there are some media members in Sac who think we are right with them.
Yeah, we are on par with nobody. We’re in a whole laughing stock league on our own, craning our neck to look up at the Knicks who at least are a desirable location from TV market/commercials revenue perspective.
100% agree. I was only humoring those who still buy into talking heads that speak of this organization as anything other than a rudderless ship run by incompetent buffoons.
Well we’re on par with Chicago, Charlotte and New York on being dysfunctional so there’s that.
On the bright side, if one was looking for signs that Vivek has woke up, then firing Vlade would be the type of thing you’d look for. I’m actually pretty confident they’ll find a competent GM. It may not be a blue chip GM prospect, but there’s plenty of people capable of doing the job to choose from. The real question to me is if ownership is willing to give the new GM the financial resources to hire a competent staff.
I mean, any owner in the NBA would have fired Vlade like 3 years ago… I doubt any NBA team would have ever hired him in the first place. So I mean the fact that we dropped the shittiest GM in the league after 5 wasted years is not really a sign of any competence in my opinion.
Plus the fact it sounds like he wasn’t even fired. Vivek actually floated the idea of co-GM’s with Joe freaking Dumars.
I’m not optimistic we will get anyone competent here. And if we do, will they be allowed to do their job? I’ll believe it when I see it.
Agree. I also think hiring an agency to help out is a huge step in self reflection for Vivek.
It’s a step in the right direction, but we’ll see if anything good comes out of it. We’ve been hoping this guy will figure it out for 7 years now.
I mean, he needs many steps in the right direction. Hiring a qualified President of BBall Ops and getting out of his way would be a giant leap in the right direction.
I’m not sure that there are plenty of competent people capable of doing the job, when at any given moment, there are seemingly not even thirty who appear to be able to do the job adequately.
Maybe? I just don’t think this stuff is terribly complicated. It’s not like they’re hiring someone to plan a manned mission to Mars. 53% of teams make the playoffs each year, so it’s not like the bar for success is super high.
I suspect it’s actually quite complicated. Maybe the individual “pieces” of the job are easy enough, but putting the whole meal together when you have 29 other GMs competing for assets is another story.
Which is why they need to get it right. This is like chess at the very highest level, and the Kings are playing Candyland.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand there’s a lot of stuff involved. I just find it hard to believe that the talent pool is so small that the Kings will have trouble finding a competent candidate that’s willing to accept the job.
Not a fan of Wilcox but I guess he wouldn’t be the worst choice. I guess Sacramento is not all that terrible if Pete D is currently an assistant GM for the magic. I hope someone who has a vision and determination to make this team great would want to come and Vivek is dumb enough to not let go his stupid ego
I don’t know about that. In looking over his time in Atlanta both as assistant GM and GM, I couldn’t find much of anything that impressed me. I think he is bottom of the barrel material, kind of on par with Pete D’Alessandro
The Kings leak lots of things to appear competent.
Reality usually paints a much different picture.
Welp. I’m guessing the next news would be that Gupta and Simon have declined to be interviewed as well which totally sucks but is understandable. Simon won’t be leaving Miami to go to Sac. And just like Langdon, Gupta was just hired last year by the Wolves under Rosas so he might opt to stay in Minny.
Don’t know much about the other candidates but I guess Booth and Mcnair should be the next logical choice? Man I can imagine most of the candidates would decline to be interviewed and in the end the Kings just might go with Perry or Dumars as the GM.. KANGZ!
Langdon just got a raise!
Good news.
https://twitter.com/JillAdge/status/1303812104135127041
The Dumars thing is still so confusing to me. He went from advisor to GM to interim GM to temporary GM over the course of a month.
Hopefully he is just captaining the ship until a new skipper can be found.
It’s *almost* like they have no idea what they are doing.
Maybe he is just there as a buffer to Vivek. He is likely handling all press matters at the moment, because there is literally no one else.
From the outside looking in, it appears that Vivek just wanted to give the job to Dumars… then received pressure from somewhere, changed course and announced a formal search (with Dumars as a candidate). Then some more pressure and another changing of course to announce that Dumars will not be considered.
I really think Vivek just wanted to pull another scenario like with Vlade phasing out Pete… except this time Joe phasing out Vlade. It’s like he is incapable of just clearly stating what he wants to do. Not a good characteristic of a leader.
Obviously. I’m still curious about how it all went down. Was it Vivek’s goal to get rid of both Vlade and Dumars the whole time? Did he actually want Dumars in charge while keeping Vlade in a lesser role? Did the minority owners force some sort of course correction? I’d just be interested in knowing how they got from point a to point b.
Did Vivek hire Dumars just to fire Vlade?
Hasn’t Dumars been “around” for over a year now? Part of me wonders how much time Dumars has actually spent in Sacramento as opposed to being on some kind of Zoom call. Was he in the bubble or seen courtside prior to Covid?
That’s the thing. He was in Orlando. There were reports that Dumars and Vivek hatched this plan while sitting together watching the Kings play.
Why don’t they just rip the bandage off and announce MK as GM?
Just go full chaotic neutral.
I’d rather they just rip the bandage off and announce MK as unemployed. Then bring back a few lower-level workers who were recently laid off.
Nah. Go full chaotic evil and hire KAAAAAAAHN.
“Introducing your new Kings GM – Luke Walton”
Say no, Joe!
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