Sacramento Kings: Is Vlade Divac a good General Manager now?

Is Vlade Divac a good General Manager now, or have the Sacramento Kings risen despite his missteps?

Does it take a village to raise a GM or a GM to raise a village? If we are talking about Vlade Divac, both cases apply.

The former Sacramento Kings player was hired in early March of 2015 as team’s vice president of basketball and franchise operations. The Kings had just fired head coach Mike Malone after a rough start of season, with a 11-13 record (mostly due to the absence of DeMarcus Cousins by injury).

Without a head coach, the team saw in George Karl, who had just been named Coach of The Year in 2013 with the Denver Nuggets, a perfect fit and so they signed him. Vlade’s initial duties, with Pete D’Alessandro as team’s General Manager, were reported to be “advising the front office and coaches”, however with just a month on the job, ESPN’s reporter (at the time), now NY Times reporter, Marc Stein published:

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"“Divac is indeed already regarded as the team’s top basketball official by owner Ranadivé.”"

After some turmoil insidel the organization with some reports stating that Vlade was actually being the man doing D’Alessandro’s job, D’Alessandro himself left the Kings and accepted a front-office position with the Nuggets and slammed the door.

The 2015 draft was just a couple of weeks away and at the center stage of the Kings organization at the time was the fact the head coach George Karl and the team superstar DeMarcus Cousins were not getting along, to say the least. There were a few reports noting that Vlade tried actively at the time to trade Cousins without success and so all became water under the bridge… and with 6th pick the Kings selected a 21-year-old center (Cousins position) Willie Cauley-Stein.

With the draft in the rearview mirror, Vlade, who wasn’t the team’s General Manager yet (officially), started to operate as such and in the month of July went let’s-clear-the-salary-cap full mode sending Nick Stauskas, Carl Landry and Jason Thompson to the Philadelphia 76ers, receiving the rights of Arturas Gudaitis and Luka Mitrovic. Two days later, the Kings added Marco Belinelli (3-years, $19 million) and Rajon Rondo (1-year, $10 million). And added another center with the signing of Kostas Koufos (4-years, $33 million).

By August, Vlade had already been “promoted” to vice president of basketball operations and, finally, Kings general manager, and the 2015-16 season initiated with the following roster: Rajon Rondo, Ben McLemore, Rudy Gay, Omri Casspi and Demarcus Cousins as the starting five, with: Caron Butler, Willie Cauley-Stein, Darren Collison, Seth Curry, Duje Dukan, Kostas Koufos and Eric Moreland on the bench.

By the 2016 all-star break, news were the Kings and their head coach George Karl were parting ways. However, in sudden turn of events, Karl got retained by the team, giving the impression Vlade’s was being contradicted by his team owners. Despite all that, and stay with me here, one month later Vlade signed a multi-year contract extension with the Sacramento Kings and everyone was wondering what exactly was going on over there.

By April 2016, Karl was gone and Vlade was still standing. The team had finished the season eight games out of the playoff with a 33-49 record.

The Kings were now coach-less and in a span of three weeks Vlade had interviews with Sam Mitchell, Vinny Del Negro, Mike Woodson, David Blatt, Mark Jackson, Jeff Hornacek, Nate McMillan, Patrick Ewing, Elston Turner and… Corliss Williamson! |Insert Wow emoji here|

The Kings opted with Dave Joerger and offered him a four-year deal worth $16 million.

In July, Vlade was actively trying to change the look of the Kings signing Arron Afflalo, Garrett Temple, Matt Barnes, Anthony Tolliver and selected Marquesse Chriss in the 2016 draft but traded him right away for the rights of Bogdan Bogdanovic as well as the Phoenix Suns’ 2016 draft 13th and 28th picks, who turned into Georgios Papagiannis and Skal Labissiere, respectively.

February of 2017, with a ballsy move, the Kings traded DeMarcus Cousins and Omri Casspi to the New Orleans Pelicans in exchange for Tyreke Evans, 2016 first-round draft pick Buddy Hield, Langston Galloway and a first and second-round draft picks for the upcoming summer.

In the Summer of 2017, the Sacramento Kings selected a young promising point guard in De’Aaron Fox at the 5th position, plus Justin Jackson at the 15th, Harry Giles at the 20th position and Frank Mason III at the 34th. Signed two solid veterans in George Hill and Vince Carter and for the first time in few years, it was looking like Kings weren’t rushing it and kind of knew what they were doing.

At the end of the 2017-18 season with the Minnesota Timberwolves clinching their first winning record and playoff berth since 2003–04, the Sacramento Kings became the laughing stock of the West Conference by holding the league record of most seasons without a winning record as well as the longest postseason drought and that was the kind of pressure they were carrying it into the following season.

Then the 2018 NBA Draft came, and they selected Marvin Bagley III with the second overall pick. It could’ve been Luka Doncic, most likely the next rookie of the year, who was selected at the 3rd spot by the Hawks then traded to the Mavs. However, Bagley has been averaging 13.3 points, seven rebounds and a block per game in 24 minutes per game.

By the end of 2018 year, the Kings were surprising almost everyone in the league with a winning record of 19-17, the first winning record since 2004.

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These were four longs years of Vlade Divac conducting the Kings organization. He, along with Kings owner, were heavily critized at the beginning of their marriage back in 2015, but they stuck together as good marriages should, and now, for a change, the Kings are good and exciting, and Vlade looks like a smart guy on the job. Still looks like a rookie on the job, but a promissing one.

Did the team made Vlade look better, or was Vlade who made the Kings look better? Well, if we are asking this question we are actually answering to it. Either way, the Kings are back.

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