Addressing reporters on Sunday, Kings general manager Monte McNair explained why the team fired head coach Luke Walton just 17 games into the season after initially deciding to bring him back for the 2021/22 season.
“The start of the year was a lot of what we were hoping for, and we really thought it could have been even better,” McNair said, per Jason Anderson of The Sacramento Bee. “I think we saw a lot of the things that we thought this team could do, but these last eight games were a change, and, for me, the question became what’s the best way to move forward, and that’s my job at every point in the season.”
The Kings began the season with a 5-4 record, but have since dropped seven of eight games. That stretch included losses vs. San Antonio, Oklahoma City, Minnesota, and Toronto, all of whom are multiple games below .500.
“It wasn’t any one thing,” McNair said. “It was a combination of things, but sitting here with where we’ve been the last two weeks, we felt we weren’t getting the consistency and certainly the results we wanted. We all need to be better. This is not on any one person, but we did feel this was the change that was best to get us back to where we need to go.”
Here’s more on the Kings and their head coaching change:
- McNair said on Sunday that he still believes the Kings have enough talent to make the playoffs and thinks Alvin Gentry is capable of leading them there. The team chose Gentry over other assistants – like Doug Christie – as its interim replacement due to his previous head coaching experience, McNair added (Twitter links via Sean Cunningham of ABC10 Sacramento).
- Kings player development coach Rico Hines will move to the front of the bench as one of Gentry’s assistants, McNair said (Twitter link via Anderson).
- Michael Pina of SI.com and Jonathan Tjarks of The Ringer take a look at what’s next in Sacramento following Walton’s exit, with Tjarks suggesting that the Kings will soon need to determine whether De’Aaron Fox is still the player they want to build around.
- The timing of Walton’s dismissal is another “Kangz” moment for Sacramento, according to John Hollinger of The Athletic, who notes that a coaching change made in the first third of a season probably should’ve just been made during the offseason.
I say “no” to the following message because Kings are in the West.
McNair said on Sunday that he still believes the Kings have enough talent to make the playoffs and thinks Alvin Gentry is capable of leading them there.
Kings GM Monte McNair is dilusional if he thinks this team he put together has enough talent to make the playoffs. This was a bad team in 2020-21 and the only players they added this offseason were Tristan Thompson, Alex Len & Mo Harkless along with draft pick Davion Mitchell.
Mike Brown will be the next head coach if they offer him a lucrative 5 year contract.
Depends what they do with Bagley. If they move him for a win now guy I think they make play-in. They have 6 dudes who deserve at least 20 mins a night on good teams, the issue is 4 of them are guards.
Who takes Bagley though?
luke walton was too good for this team anyways. they deserve everything they get. drafting bagley, lol…what a joke squad.
You cannot tell for sure in the offseason, whether a HC will later lose the lockerroom during a dry spell. It would be good to know but a lot to expect from an employer to know it correctly. I would prefer an employer not try to make that guess based on his own “insight” which in most cases will be inadequate… most people are not as smart as they think they are.
Quote your sentence.
Most people are not as smart as they think they are.
I sent this message to the “Man” who call me “silly man”.
Sounds more like K.AL, but I’m sure I used some kind of sillyness.
Another bad move for SAC, what makes them think that Gentry will do any better than Luke?
Their only right choice for now was Christie, that at least brings hope to the fans, Gentry does nothing for no one at this point!
Fox is the only star in this team, no one else is or will ever be a star in this team… so either they build around him or they start again, with a plan to compete in 5-6 years from now, there is no way around it, is Fox or nothing!
Same old Kings, blow it up already. Just like the Magic, and too many other teams mired in mediocrity. Why would you push to get into a play in game just to get swept in the first round and get a worse draft pick anyway?