{"id":825,"date":"2020-05-06T10:21:55","date_gmt":"2020-05-06T17:21:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kingsherald.com\/?p=825"},"modified":"2024-04-23T09:33:22","modified_gmt":"2024-04-23T16:33:22","slug":"sacramento-kings-draft-nik-stauskas-2014-nba-draft-grantland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kingsherald.com\/articles\/sacramento-kings-draft-nik-stauskas-2014-nba-draft-grantland\/","title":{"rendered":"Quarantine Rewind: The Kings Draft Nik Stauskas in 2014, and Grantland is there to document it"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome back to Quarantine Rewind.<\/p>\n

Last week we re-visited Gavin Maloof’s passionate ramblings after the Sacramento Kings selected Tyreke Evans<\/a> with the 4th<\/sup> overall pick in the 2009 NBA Draft. We’re sticking with the draft this week, but jumping to 2014 where the Kings selected Michigan Wolverines guard Nik Stauskas with the 8th<\/sup> overall pick, and fortunately for us, Grantland (R.I.P) was around to document the whole thing.<\/p>\n

For those unfamiliar with Grantland, I will lazily copy\/paste the Wikipedia introduction<\/a> for you here: Grantland was a sports and pop-culture blog owned and operated by ESPN. The blog was started in 2011 by veteran writer and sports journalist Bill Simmons, who remained as editor-in-chief until May 2015. Grantland was named after famed 20th-century sportswriter Grantland Rice. On October 30, 2015, ESPN announced that it was ending the publication of Grantland.<\/p>\n

Grantland was awesome. Those are my words, not Wikipedia’s.<\/p>\n

The Kings granted Grantland access to their entire draft process in 2014, and for Kings fans, it was a fascinating look at our new ownership group and front office.<\/p>\n

We were so accustomed to the Maloof way of doing the bare minimum at all times that Vivek Ranadive’s new Jazz band, NBA 3.0 approach was kind of refreshing. Vivek wasn’t afraid to try new things, and he desperately wanted to change the Kings’ reputation around the league. If this short documentary didn’t age so, so, so, so, so, so poorly, he may have accomplished that.<\/p>\n

You can see former Sacramento Kings General Manager Pete D’Alessandro haphazardly trying to negotiate a trade with the Philadelphia 76ers for Joel Embiid. If that was the conclusion to Grantland’s documentary, the Kings come out of it smelling like roses with one of the best young players in the NBA on their roster.<\/p>\n

Instead, the Kings drafted Nik Stauskas and nobody featured in this documentary outside of Vivek Ranadive is still with the organization.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for our viewing today, most of the Grantland short has disappeared from the internet. The only footage left on YouTube is part 3, but the good news is it does<\/em> include the infamous \u0080\u0098Nik Rocks!’ scene.<\/p>\n