On Saturday afternoon, a Kings’ story came across the wire that was both shocking and inevitable when Yahoo Sports reported coach Dave Joerger and upper management were locked in a disagreement about the teams future that could ultimately lead to the dismissal of the third-year head coach.

Sacramento is a cagey 8-8 with impressive victories over San Antonio, Memphis, and Oklahoma City. Sophomore point guard De’Aaron Fox is a burgeoning star averaging 19 points and seven assists. After a decade of rudderless drifting, the franchise seems to be putting together the pieces for a successful future.

And yet Marvin Bagley, a player lauded for his high ceiling, a player the Kings drafted second overall to be a franchise cornerstone, isn’t getting the crunch time minutes a situation which is causing growing strife between Joerger and the front office.

But the story has an even deeper level of politicking which shows an organization teetering on the edge of regression to disarray while, at the same time, showing immense on-court progress. The Yahoo article cites “sources” who are presumably close enough to the situation to have information. But who are these mystery sources? If they are within the front office, why use the media as a platform to express dissatisfaction? Are all the other avenues exhausted?

A Coach’s Prerogative

The crux of the strife comes from the minutes that Marvin Bagley is or isn’t playing, a situation which would normally cast dispersion on the man who fills the spot above him on the depth chart, but Nemanja Bjelica’s play has been nearly unimpeachable.

The 30-year-old Serbian has been integral to team success, providing spacing which no other forward on the roster can. He is converting on 48.3 percent from behind the arc on 3.6 attempts. He also adds 2.3 assists and is one of the best system passers on the team. According to Cleaning the Glass, the Kings are 6.4 points per 100 possessions better and opponents are 7.8 percent worse. I said all that to say this:

Bjelica is not the problem.

No matter what else comes out of this discussion, at this juncture, he gives Sacramento the best chance to win games. And coaches want to win games.

Joerger is doing exactly what every coach for all of basketball history has done, he is playing what he perceives to be his best five players in crunch time to give his team the best chance to win. And to Joerger’s credit, the Kings have no reason to lose; they don’t have their own draft pick this season. Winning and establishing a culture of winning is absolutely vital to future success.

But perhaps the question shouldn’t be about whether or not Joerger is doing what is best for the 18-19 Kings, but rather if he is stunting the development of the ‘22-’23 Kings.

 

A GM’s Expectations  

On June 21st, Vlade Divac and the Kings’ brass made a difficult decision to draft Duke’s Marvin Bagley with the second pick. With only DeAndre Ayton off the board, the Kings were in the driver’s seat of the entire draft. Bagley had shown flashes of being one of the most explosive, high-ceiling players to enter the league in years.

Bagley has a limited outside game, but a tremendously high motor on the glass. He doesn’t quite have the length to be a full-time defensive anchor but has promising skills blocking shots from the backside and containing players off the dribble. Overly reliant on post-ups to get his offensive game going, he can be a bit of a black hole once he receives an entry pass but has shown flashes of being able to carry a scoring load with his quickness and, well… his lefthandedness. But all of the good things he has shown so far take time, take reps, take big game minutes to develop.

On the same day the Kings selected Bagley as their heir apparent (or perhaps as a co-crowned prince with De’Aaron Fox), they signed Bjelica to a three-year, $20.5 million dollar deal. I am not sure a tacit discussion took place (it should have), but I am sure upper management believed Bagley would get the reps and Bjelica would come off the bench.

Early in the year, it makes sense to acclimate a rookie to the speed of the game slowly. But a fifth of the way through the year, Bagley still finds himself glued to the bench for long stretches of close ball games. Basketball careers are long, but even so, he is missing out on valuable learning experiences or, at the very least, pushing those experiences down the line.

But Bagley has been a net negative across the board (as most rookies tend to be). One of the most interesting philosophical questions built into this dichotomy is whether a rookie should earn his playing time or should the team look out for future development. Therein lies the central pillar to the disagreement between coach and front office.

A Franchise’s Future

So that’s the story so far. Joerger wants to win games, Vlade wants to develop his future cornerstones.

The culture of competing is relatively new. The Kings have been relegated to the league’s background for so long that even that small spark makes a huge difference around the locker room. The Kings believe, for better or for worse, they can win every night and letting Joerger go at this juncture might disrupt this tenuous balance.

The head coach is the culture setter and while I am not behind the scenes to see who the leaders are from day-to-day, Joerger deserves some credit in this field. He has also adjusted his coaching style (something I discussed last week) to suit this uptempo roster.

But on the other side of the coin, Joerger hasn’t shown anything above average in his rotation or his Xs and Os. If the Kings’ front office truly believes that sitting Bagley is causing irreparable harm, perhaps a replacement is warranted. If the Kings can find a coach whose main focus is player development, who will dedicate a significant portion of his time to Fox and Bagley’s improvement, the transition may even be beneficial in the long run.

But changing coaches midseason over a personnel dispute sets a dangerous precedent. What if the next coach disagrees with Vlade and Co.? Will he be afforded the rope to explore all options or will he be kept on a short leash as the front office holds a majority of the decision making power about rotations?

A much safer choice (with the caveat that this smoke is indeed indicative of fire), would be to release Joerger from his contract in the offseason and search for the next piece to the puzzle without having to plan and scheme for two to three games per week. Even losing a month of development could have a deleterious effect on the young roster.

The best teams have a coach and a front office that works in harmony. The coach makes the on-court decisions and the GM supplies the proper personnel to make the coach’s gameplan effective. In order to take a step to the next level, the Kings have to find this balance. In the NBA, harmony is fleeting and windows open and close in a few short seasons. While the Kings have a young core now, they need to spend the next two or three seasons positioning themselves as power players in the Western Conference during the 2020s.

The team cannot waste these developmental years. But firing Joerger isn’t a panacea which will immediately turn this bright young group into a contender.

So the Kings stand at a crossroads and the decision they make will echo over the next decade. A ravenous fan base hungry for a playoff contender hangs on every game, every report, every news story. Let’s just hope Vlade is the man to build that contender.

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