Vlade Divac landed one of the least enviable jobs in basketball on Monday when he was named the new Vice President of Basketball Operations and General Manager of the Sacramento Kings.
Divac, who spent six years playing for the Kings between 1998 and 2004, will be joined in the front office by one of his former teammates, Peja Stojakovic, who has been named director of player personnel and development, while other new additions include Mike Bratz, who will serve as Assistant GM, and Roland Beech, who will become the team’s new Vice President of Basketball Strategy and Data Science.
In an official media releasemade via the team’s website Divac said “We’re fortunate as an organization to enter this season with three professionals of this caliber. Having such individuals as integral members of our basketball operations team offers more than a unique set of basketball philosophies, experiences and instincts, but also a depth of character commonly associated with winning cultures. With Mike, Roland and Peja on board, I’m more confident than ever in the future success of the Sacramento Kings.”
Whilst the majority of Kings diehards are likely to approve of the appointments, coming in the midst of one of the most challenging offseasons in recent memory as they have, others should be forgiven for not sharing the former All-Star’s confidence at this stage.
Although, on paper at least, new additions like Rajon Rondo, Willie Cauley-Stein, Marco Belinelli, James Anderson, Caron Butler, Kosta Koufas, Seth Curry and Omri Caspi should make the team better than it was last year, Rondo’s attitude, Cauley-Stein’s ability to earn minutes at power forward, Butler’s age and Caspi and Koufos’s inconsistency make the 2015-16 campaign an interesting prospect to say the least.
Throw in the George Karl-DeMarcus Cousins debacle and it soon becomes apparent that Divac has one heck of a task on his hands.
How, exactly, he goes about assembling this group of misfits will very much determine just how likely he is to bring about that future success of which he speaks. Add the likes of Darren Collison, Rudy Gay, Ben McLemore, Quincy Acy and Reggie Evans into the mix and you’ve got a fine old mess of players to whom minutes must be allocated effectively if Sacramento is going to avoid Western Conference mediocrity next season.
Of course, whichever way you look at it, Cousins is likely to eat up the bulk of those minutes, as, regardless of what George Karl thinks, he remains the franchise-centrepiece; the player around whom this roster continues to be built.
With that in mind, the additions of Belinelli, Anderson, Caspi and Butler make a lot of sense, as all four are wing players who shoot the three-ball at a relatively high clip and who could benefit from an inside-out approach focused around Cousins, assuming Karl’s willing to adopt one.
If he does, Rajon Rondo may profit from playing alongside a potential pick and roll linchpin like Cousins, although given how poorly he performed in Dallas (a team whose roster featured Tyson Chandler, a player who is, better, or at least quicker and more agile, in pick and roll situations than Cousins) there’s no guarantee that such an aid will help him recapture his championship-winning form of 2008.
Regardless of whether he succeeds in doing so or not, it seems highly likely that Rondo will assume the role of starting point guard next season, which in turn means Darren Collision could well become one of the first players traded by Divac, as when he joined the club on a 3-year $16 million contract back in 2014 he did so under the impression that that particular job was well and truly his. If Rondo’s arrival does indeed force Collison to the bench the former Bruin’s willingness to serve as a role player may ultimately come down to Divac’s powers of persuasion. That said, despite the hip-flexor injury that limited his 2014-15 campaign to just 45 appearances, Collison averaged 16.1 PPG, 3.2 RPG and 5.6 APG as the ball handling component of a mildly effective triumvirate that also featured Cousins and Gay.
If Collison is traded he could leave the door open for Seth Curry, who, having proved this summer that whilst he’s not quite in the same league as his brother has the potential to be a legitimate scoring threat, may have a chance to be one of Rondo’s understudies for the 2015-16 campaign. He’ll have to make the roster first though, something that will very much depend on the impression he makes on Divac and George Karl during training camp.
Speaking of which, training camp will no doubt be a proving ground for Willie Cauley-Stein, a player who, drafted 6th overall, appears to offer no end of defensive potential. His energy and effort will be a great addition to the Kings’ bench and, since the departure of Jason Thompson, he’ll only have to compete with the likes of Reggie Evans and Quincy Acy for minutes, assuming, that is, that Divac and Karl opt to deploy him at power forward, rather than have him eat into Cousins’ minutes.
As for the best of the rest, Rudy Gay will most likely continue doing what Rudy Gay does next season, while Ben McLemore can probably expect to see increased minutes at the two spot in the absence of the recently traded Nik Stauskas.
However Divac divvies up the minutes the success of this team will likely depend on how willing its more colourful characters are to buy in to their new GM’s vision. There’s no doubt that he’s fully focused on the future, but a number of these players will have to prove themselves in the present if they’re to remain with the franchise long enough to see just what it has to offer.
