Will Monte McNair’s contract status lead him to Mike D’Antoni in Kings’ coaching search?
The uncertain contract status of Kings general manager Monte McNair and ownership’s past impulses sit beneath the surface as underlying issues in the team’s coaching search.
The Kings have identified three young up-and-coming assistants as candidates for the job, but the clock is ticking and it’s not clear how much time McNair will have to nurture the growth of a first-time head coach. Sports 1140 KHTK’s Carmichael Dave has reported McNair is going into the final year of a three-year contract. There is some speculation McNair’s deal might include a team option for a fourth year. The Kings won’t comment on terms of the agreement, but in either event, McNair could be entering a make-or-break season unless the organization has offered private assurances that he will have additional time to execute his vision.
McNair is the latest in a long line of executives and coaches to feel the heat in Sacramento, where the Kings are mired in an NBA-record 16-year playoff drought. If McNair believes he has only a matter of months to assemble a winning team, he might find himself drawn to one of the four former head coaches on his list.
Someone he knows. Someone he trusts. Someone he has seen orchestrate the kind of turnaround the Kings will likely have to produce to provide job security for McNair and a sense of stability within the organization.
One man who checks all of those boxes is Mike D’Antoni, a 70-year-old coaching veteran with a 672-527 (.560) record and 11 playoff appearances in 16 seasons as a head coach. D’Antoni is currently working as a coaching advisor for the New Orleans Pelicans, who were eliminated from the playoffs with a 115-109 loss to the Phoenix Suns in Game 6 of their first-round series on Thursday.
D’Antoni is one of seven candidates expected to meet with the Kings this week for a first round of virtual interviews. Other candidates include Golden State Warriors assistant Mike Brown; Brooklyn Nets coaching consultant Steve Clifford; Milwaukee Bucks assistants Darvin Ham and Charles Lee; Boston Celtics assistant Will Hardy; and ESPN analyst Mark Jackson.
McNair and D’Antoni spent four years together with the Houston Rockets. McNair, who worked under Daryl Morey in Houston for 13 years, was vice president of basketball operations when the Rockets hired D’Antoni in 2016. McNair was promoted to assistant general manager two years later.
The Rockets won 55 games in their first season under D’Antoni, a 14-game improvement over their 41-41 finish in 2015-16. They went to the playoffs as the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference and advanced to the conference semifinals.
The following season, Houston went 65-17 to win the West with the best record in the NBA, finishing seven games ahead of the second-seeded Golden State Warriors. The Rockets looked like they were on the verge of an NBA championship. Instead, they lost Chris Paul to injury and then lost a hard-fought seven-game Western Conference finals series to the Warriors, who went on to sweep the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals.
Houston won 53 games in 2018-19 and 44 games in 2019-20, bowing out in the conference semifinals each year. In four seasons with D’Antoni, the Rockets amassed a 217-101 (.682) regular-season record and a 28-23 (.549) playoff record. D’Antoni, whose staff worked closely with McNair and the rest of the organization’s analytics people, constructed an offense that ranked second in scoring three times in four seasons. The Rockets led the league in 3-point attempts and ranked among the league leaders in free-throw attempts four years in a row.
D’Antoni did that with a roster featuring James Harden, Chris Paul, Eric Gordon and Clint Capela. What could he do with 24-year-old De’Aaron Fox and 25-year-old Domantas Sabonis? What can McNair do to surround Fox and Sabonis with the long, athletic 3-and-D players D’Antoni would need to work his magic? With his 71st birthday coming up on May 8, how far into the future would D’Antoni be willing to lead the Kings?
These are questions the Kings will have to address as they move through their coaching search, but D’Antoni, a two-time NBA Coach of the Year, possesses a strong resume and a proven record. He has coached the Denver Nuggets, Suns, New York Knicks, Los Angeles Lakers and Rockets. He finished under .500 only six times in 16 seasons, including two partial seasons and one lockout-shortened season.
The Suns went 21-40 over their last 61 games when D’Antoni took over for Frank Johnson in 2003-04. The next season, they went 62-20 after bringing in Steve Nash, who won back-to-back MVP awards while playing for D’Antoni.
D’Antoni had seven 50-win seasons and three 60-win seasons. He endured some difficult years as well, going 14-36 with the Nuggets in 1998-99; 121-167 over four seasons with the Knicks; and 67-87 over two seasons with the Lakers. D’Antoni resigned after his second season with the Lakers. He spent one year as an associate head coach under Brett Brown with the Philadelphia 76ers before joining Morey and McNair for a memorable run with the Rockets.
This story was originally published April 29, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
