Under the guidance of Sacramento Kings legend and current VP of basketball operations and GM Vlade Divac, the Kings have assembled the most talented roster they have had in nearly a decade. So why are so many expecting the worst out of Sacramento this season? It’s complicated. The long-term consequences for how Divac went about creating enough cap space to acquire the likes of Rajon Rondo, Kosta Koufos, Marco Belinelli, Caron Butler, Seth Curry, James Anderson, Quincy Acy and Duje Dukan
LAS VEGAS– The people at the NBA who make the schedule for its annual Summer League don’t do anything by accident. For the second year in a row, the featured game on the first day of action pitted this year’s top two draft picks against one another. So Sunday afternoon’s matchup between the Denver Nuggets and Sacramento Kings was meant to be an awkward, bittersweet affair. In the middle of it all was Mike Malone. Fired in the middle of last
Is veteran coach George Karl secretly a snake in the grass? That’s what DeMarcus Cousins and a few other stars from Karl-led teams seem to believe. Via Basketball Forever, here’s the infamous tweet of emojis from Cousins last night mashed with several others in past years from previous Karl players such as Carmelo Anthony and Andre Igoudala. There seems to be a common theme. According to Yahoo’s Adrian Wojnarowski, Karl has recently tried to convince Kings’ management to trade Cousins, an idea that owner Vivek Ranadivé
The Denver Nuggets have been searching for a reliable coach after the firing of Brian Shaw in March, and has finally decided to hire a coach who was also fired earlier in the season: former Sacramento Kings’ coach Mike Malone. Malone made quite the impression on general manager Tim Connelly and president Josh Kroenke during their meetings, and has reportedly signed a four-year deal with Denver, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports: [Read more…]
It would be fitting if the man who helped lead the Sacramento Kings during their most prosperous years could help guide them back after a decade of mediocre irrelevance. You may recognize Vlade Divac’s smooth European voice from your Waze navigation system, but most know Divac— aside from being traded for Kobe Bryant— for being the center of the turn-of-the-millenium Kings team that nearly reached the NBA Finals and turned Arco Arena into the loudest building in sports. With a new arena
The last 12 months represent by far the least amount of basketball Kevin Durant has played in his eight-year NBA career. In a sadly ironic twist, it also represents a time when he has had more intrigue swirling around him than ever before. In the last year, Durant has won NBA MVP and given a moving acceptance speech; quit as the new face of Team USA; created a bidding war between apparel companies in the mid nine figures; become the beacon of
There are few things that indicate futility more than when a coach loses the connection with his team. When that happens there is nothing to fix, nothing to do, nowhere to turn. It is over. The wonder of team sports is the coming together of a group of people willing to put personal agendas aside for the common goal of winning. When that happens you truly get a whole bigger than the sum of the parts, and magic happens. When people
It certainly wasn’t shocking to see the Denver Nuggets fire Brian Shaw. After all, they’ve lost 12 of 13 games and we’re just days removed from a chant of “1, 2, 3… six weeks!” during another defeat, leading to serious questions about their effort. The 57-win Nuggets of two years ago under George Karl have rapidly transitioned to a laughing stock under Shaw, falling to 36-46 a year ago and now poised to finish much worse this year (currently at 20-39). Shaw, 48,