Monte McNair has been through a whirlwind since he was hired as Sacramento’s new general manager.

He had to fill out his front office and get to know the existing staff with the Kings, all under the constraints of the pandemic. Then, the season began sooner than expected, and his new group had to handle the draft, trades, and free agency within a few days of each other.

Through it all, McNair says the “most fun” he’s had was when the Kings were deciding whether or not to match Bogdan Bogdanovic’s offer sheet from the Atlanta Hawks, as he told Adrian Wojnarowski on “The Woj Pod”:

It’s clear that McNair really likes doing the grunt work of dissecting deals from every angle and going through the process of figuring out what will work for each situation. He likes the details, and it doesn’t come as a surprise that digging into the Bogdanovic decision — which had a lot of levels — was an enjoyable experience for him.

McNair also went into some of the reasons why the Kings elected not to match, and it seems like the NBA Draft played a big role in that outcome. He also said he wasn’t worried about starting his tenure by saying good-bye to a fan favorite without getting any return because there was a bigger picture at play.

Haliburton’s preseason performance has certainly validated the franchise’s faith in him thus far, and it’s easy to see why everyone is so excited about having him in a Kings uniform. Although it hurt to watch Bogdanovic leave, and for nothing, knowing that the same front office also picked Haliburton lends some credibility to the operation.

McNair picked a good player to tie his fate to in Haliburton, and there’s no denying that it will be fun for Kings fans to watch him for years to come. Hopefully McNair and his staff will be able to put more good decisions together to surround Haliburton and De’Aaron Fox with a contending team.