ESPN’s Bobby Marks says Monte McNair is making ‘biggest hire in Sacramento Kings history’
Kings general manager Monte McNair has set out to make what ESPN NBA Front Office Insider Bobby Marks is calling “the single biggest hire in Sacramento Kings history.”
The Kings are hiring their 12th head coach in 16 years since Rick Adelman led them to their last playoff appearance in 2006. McNair, a first-time general manager who just completed his second season in Sacramento, is preparing to hire a head coach for the first time in his 15-year executive career. McNair has assembled an interesting and diverse set of candidates with an opening round of interviews scheduled to begin this week.
Sources told The Sacramento Bee the Kings’ initial list of candidates includes Golden State Warriors’ assistant Mike Brown; former Orlando Magic head coach Steve Clifford; New Orleans Pelicans coaching advisor Mike D’Antoni; Milwaukee Bucks assistants Darvin Ham and Charles Lee; Boston Celtics assistant Will Hardy; and former Warriors head coach Mark Jackson.
The youngest is 34. The oldest will turn 71 next month. Some have been named NBA Coach of the Year and led their teams deep into the playoffs. Others are seeking a first opportunity as a head coach.
Some are branching out from the Gregg Popovich and Mike Budenholzer coaching trees. Others have connections to McNair and Kings assistant general manager Wes Wilcox.
With few jobs expected to be available this summer, sources said the position has generated strong interest, but Warriors assistant Kenny Atkinson and former Portland Trail Blazers coach Terry Stotts are noticeably absent from Sacramento’s list. Additional candidates could emerge as teams are eliminated from the playoffs in the days and weeks ahead, but for now the Kings have seven coaches to consider.
The right coach will optimize the duo of De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis and partner with McNair for years to come to bring a winning brand of basketball back to Sacramento. The wrong coach could set the franchise back four more years, perpetuating a cycle of hirings and firings and bringing on another rebuild in a market where fans have lost patience after 16 consecutive losing seasons.
The Kings finished 29th in the NBA this season in average home attendance (14,439) and total home attendance (577,583). Pressure is mounting inside and outside the organization with fans and former members of the organization voicing frustration with owner Vivek Ranadive.
McNair made a bold move at the trade deadline when he sent Tyrese Haliburton to the Indiana Pacers in the deal that brought Sabonis to Sacramento. Sabonis, a 25-year-old two-time All-Star, has two years remaining on a four-year contract.
If all goes well over the next 12 months, Sabonis and McNair will both be signing lucrative extensions next summer. If it doesn’t, McNair could find himself on the hotseat and Sabonis might decide to keep his options open with unrestricted free agency approaching in the summer of 2024. Fox has four years left on a five-year, $163 million contract, but after suffering through five losing seasons under three head coaches and counting, he, too, could grow discontent if the Kings can’t get it right this time.
“The short tenure of Monte McNair is going to be defined not by what he does in the lottery in June or which free agent he signs, but who he hires as the next head coach, the single most important transaction in Sacramento Kings history,” Marks said on the NBA on ESPN YouTube channel.
“… Who you hire and provide stability to an organization, that’s as good as going out and signing a $25 million guy that can give you 17 points and 10 rebounds and make an All-Star appearance, because you’ve got stability at that position and it’s not a merry-go-round as far as head coaches. Let’s face it, the single biggest hire in Sacramento Kings history is going to happen in the next couple months, and they’ll go through this long, exhaustive search. Monte said it right. They’ll go through it. They have to. I mean, they owe it to their fans. They owe it to the people who have paid a lot of money to go watch a below-average to terrible product for the last 16 or 17 years. That’s the reality of it.”
This story was originally published April 24, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
