RealGM

Reading few of the coaching threads, the trend of this board goes, a blind worshiping of Geoff Pterie, blind hate for the Maloofs, and distortion of what really happened.

Here is the order of things since 2004 till now.
- The team starts sinking under Adleman until the Artest trade, Addlean is the highgest paid coach in the league, the Maloofs figure they needed a new blood they don't pick up his option.
- Both the Maloof and Petrie hire Mussleman who turns out to be a colossal failure and sets the team back few years.
-Musslean is fired after one year and Theus is hire, the Maloofs like the Monarchs coach, who was friends with the, but Reggie Theus is hired, a coach with college experience, there was no indication it was a Maloofs hire, in fact the press claimed the Maloofs favoured other guy.
- In 2009 Theus is fired and his assistant Kenny Natt takes charge.

During these years - Geoff Petrie has conducted a series of puzzling FA signing, the salary cap of the team was never lower than 65 million and always on the brink of luxury tax.

Now, if anyone here wants to talk reason and facts, please bring an article, quote or anything that says the Maloofs hired Theus, or that Mussleman was not a joint decision.

Using what happened in the last 5 years, Petrie gets an F for his performance, and the reasons he's not fired are: his reputation fro 98-04, his drafting, the fact that you may get a real moron for a GM, like the Orlando guy or Isiah.


So for everyone who is calling the Maloofs a "micro managing idiots" or is blaming them for what happened with the team, this is a place to try and put soe facts in place or keep repeating lies and hope it becomes the truth.

Sacramento's salesman

By Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports
June 20, 2007

As Jerry Tarkanian understood it, the Sacramento Kings' owners and general manager disagreed on the choice of the team's next head coach. The Maloofs wanted New Mexico State's Reggie Theus, and Geoff Petrie preferred Lakers assistant Brian Shaw.

"I think I got Reggie the job," Tarkanian said Wednesday afternoon.

Well, Joe Maloof wouldn't go that far, but he long has listened to Tark's counsel on issues of coaching. So Tarkanian pushed Maloof over the weekend and they prodded Petrie, and thus, there was Theus on a news conference dais saying of Shaw's failed candidacy, "You couldn't have picked a Laker."

Tark goes back a long way with the Maloofs on the Vegas strip and back longer with Theus, his first big recruit at UNLV in the 1970s. When it appeared that Shaw would be the Kings' choice over the weekend, Tark spent 45 minutes with Joe Maloof on the telephone Sunday night. Rick Pitino had long talks with Maloof and Petrie, too.

"Reggie called me Saturday after he had the second interview and thought he was right there," Tarkanian said. "But he was still the dark horse. Joe told me he, his brother and mother were really strong on Reggie, but Geoff still liked Shaw. I told Joe, 'This comes down to you and Gavin (Maloof) if you don't win. How come you aren't making the choice?' "


Because of how horribly the Eric Musselman hire turned out last season, the Maloofs wouldn't overrule Petrie on the coaching hire. Still, they stayed on Theus' side, and after another long talk with him Monday, Theus won Petrie over, too. "One of the points that Geoff really liked about Reggie was that he had been a head coach, and Brian Shaw and (Kings assistant) Scott Brooks hadn't," Joe Maloof said.

Good enough for you????

Not realy, It's an information I didn't see before, but it clearly says, that they did not overrule Petrie and it was Petrie's decision, isn't that what you read from the article too?

1. It's the Maloof's fault for deciding to overrule Petrie's decisions.

2. It's Petrie's fault that some of our trades/signings were less then stellar.

3. It's time's fault, becuase it took away the youths of Vlade, Webber, Christie and the rest, forcing us to rebuild.

4. It's our faults for demanding instant rebuilding and then being angry at the schedule results.

wtf?? we asked for an instant rebuild and got it 3 yrs later!!! So how is it our faut?? Thats not an "instant" rebuild. Those Maloofs wanted to compete every year with a jokey roster which we had noooooo star on the team. A bunch of 2nd 3rd 4th 5th tier players

Most of you whining about Petrie are acting like the Kings have been a playoff team forever. Well study the history of the KIngs. The Kings were losers pre-Petrie. So excuse me all to hell for defending the man who took the Kings from the post Bill Russel salary cap hell and put them on the brink of a championship. Here are a few items for the anti-Petrie crowd:

1) Petrie fans are not "blindly" following him. We understand the ups and downs of the NBA in a small market.

2) Petrie did not cause the career ending injuries to CWebb and Doug Christie. Or cause Vlade to age.

3) Petrie wanted to retain Adelman.

4) I will agree with you on one FA signing being bad. The signing of Mikki Moore never made sense to me.

5) Petrie did attempt to stay competitive instead of going to rebuild mode after the injury of CWebb. Bibby, Peja and Miller could not get it done as the "Big 3". This process used up a couple years. Then the Artest era used up a couple years.

5) Most of you have been crying for the Kings to rebuild. Well you have your wish and the Kings are set to get a top draft pick, have promising young players and shed the larger contracts. So deal with it, K?

6) So suggest the Coach the Kings should get. write about which young players the Kings should draft. Heck even tell us all who the Kings should get as a GM if this all does not work out, say after 2010. I understand Steve Kerr may be available

KB

PS I think the Maloof's are good owner's

You can throw the blame a number of places with some bad calls here and there.....

...but the fact is that the kings future was destroyed in 03 when CWebb blew out his knee. Thats the bottom line. While we didn't win the year before, that was our year to win a championship, no question.

At that point in time, we ceased being a contender, and began sinking. We had success, but we could never win a championship. Petrie tried to salavage the remnants of that current team to see if we could pull something together and it didn't happen, and unfortunately the rebuilding began too late, we should have started a few years earlier.

- I dissagree with the Adelman situation, especially since we had no backup coach in place.
...I actually liked Theus, but he was put in a tough situation. With the kings rebuilding, we need
to stick with someone and let them rebuild the team. Changing a coach every year gets us
nowhere.

- I can understand the Webb & Bibby trades, team was going nowhere, but we are still paying on
retired Webbs contract with Thomas sitting on our bench. That certainly hurts.

Thats just a few factors, but I honestly believe it all goes back to that one moment where Webber got hurt. Imagine if the same thing happened to Duncan in 2003. That would have set the Spurs back significantly as it did with us.

Lightning Strike wrote:2. It's Petrie's fault that some of our trades/signings were less then stellar.

This tip-toing around the subject is what made me create this thread, how can you define the last 3 years of GM work with less than stellar. People are ready to crucify the Maloofs, the coach, Kevin Martin, but Petrie is seemingly untouchable.
Petrie has done a horrid job managing this team, the signing of Mikki Moore and Beno Udrih, the bad PG situation we had for a while, the Brad Miller trade (who I don't view as bad but it wasn't that hot).

King Baller wrote:Most of you whining about Petrie are acting like the Kings have been a playoff team forever. Well study the history of the KIngs. The Kings were losers pre-Petrie. So excuse me all to hell for defending the man who took the Kings from the post Bill Russel salary cap hell and put them on the brink of a championship. Here are a few items for the anti-Petrie crowd:

1) Petrie fans are not "blindly" following him. We understand the ups and downs of the NBA in a small market.

2) Petrie did not cause the career ending injuries to CWebb and Doug Christie. Or cause Vlade to age.

3) Petrie wanted to retain Adelman.

4) I will agree with you on one FA signing being bad. The signing of Mikki Moore never made sense to me.

5) Petrie did attempt to stay competitive instead of going to rebuild mode after the injury of CWebb. Bibby, Peja and Miller could not get it done as the "Big 3". This process used up a couple years. Then the Artest era used up a couple years.

5) Most of you have been crying for the Kings to rebuild. Well you have your wish and the Kings are set to get a top draft pick, have promising young players and shed the larger contracts. So deal with it, K?

6) So suggest the Coach the Kings should get. write about which young players the Kings should draft. Heck even tell us all who the Kings should get as a GM if this all does not work out, say after 2010. I understand Steve Kerr may be available

KB

PS I think the Maloof's are good owner's

Yes, we are blaming Petrie for CWebb's injury and Vlade's old age, and we are also mad because the Kings aren't winning.

Everyone needs to calm down. This is a good thing for the team. I was really upset after last season, and our lack of dedication to rebuild even though we had no chance of winning. Now we are rebuilding. That does not mean as theus did last year and get young guys very few minutes and ending up with the 12th pick. Hawes did not get the minutes he deserved, and the future needed last year, but this year was handled much better. Thompson got great minutes. They traded the dead weight vets. WE ARE HEADING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION. We still have bad contracts IMO (Beno, Garcia, K9, Nocioni), but also have young contracts and Reef coming off the book.

Overall I am much happier with the Kings this year than last year, when we were 1 pick away from Bayless, and Hawes played very little as a rookie. The foundation is now set, we will have a top 4 pick in the draft, and 3 picks out of the top 31.

So who to blame? This is rebuilding. There is no reason to blame anyone. I blame fans that expected something better from this season. I would rather win 17 and get a top pick, than win 30 and end up around the 10th pick again. SO get over it, its called rebuilding.

Because of how horribly the Eric Musselman hire turned out last season, the Maloofs wouldn't overrule Petrie on the coaching hire.

That clearly shows that the Maloofs were blinded by the shiny objects that was PowerPoint.

but he long has listened to Tark's counsel on issues of coaching. So Tarkanian pushed Maloof over the weekend and they prodded Petrie.

Petrie may have finally signed off on Theus, but I do not think the Maloofs should have been involved in the first place and definitly should not get their "counsel" from a grown man that bites a towel.

Any way the past is the past and I am pretty happy where the team is heading, I think once we get a better PG we will be on our way. Beno showed he can be effective in limited minutes off the bench.

If this offseason goes well I think we can be back in the playoffs in 2 years.

That clearly shows that the Maloofs were blinded by the shiny objects that was PowerPoint.

And they learned from that mistake and waited for Petrie's confirmation in the Theus case.

_SRV_ wrote:Not realy, It's an information I didn't see before, but it clearly says, that they did not overrule Petrie and it was Petrie's decision, isn't that what you read from the article too?

How is that really clear? What's clear to me is that if Geoff had been left alone on this, that Mussleman wouldn't have been hired, and that after Muss was fired, Brian Shaw would've been our head coach. Why should the Maloofs have butted in? They screwed up letting Rick go (if it was really financial, I'm pretty sure they could have declined the option and then tried to re-sign him to a cheaper deal), and they were clearly in charge of the Muss hiring. Just because Geoff eventually gave in on the Theus hiring doesn't mean he should be blamed. It was nearing draft time, they couldn't wait another second to hire somebody. What this shows me is that both sides basically wouldn't budge, but the Maloofs, being the bosses, were going to be much more capable of making Geoff give in. I mean I guess, you can put a little bit of blame onto Geoff, but from the article, it clearly seems to me like this is a case of "Well we want you to make the decision, but we're not going to change our minds, so...".

About the FA signings: Nobody is saying that there aren't some mistakes. The focus here seems to be on Beno and Mikki, and as of right now, I'd say that's for good reason. But what I would say is that especially as of right now, those signings aren't why we're bad. We're bad because we're a young, inexperienced team without a superstar or a coach (preferably one that can bring in some kind of coherent, effective defensive system). The coaching situation, as I see it is the Maloof's fault. And superstars, as we all know, are pretty hard to come by. If you want to blame Geoff for that, fine I guess. But it wouldn't make much sense to me with the situation the team has been in--and more importantly, we don't not have a superstar because of the Beno and Mikki signings.

This is classic mass hysteria. Classic get your pitch forks and torches and lets go knock down petrie's door. The only time I've been ready to kill Geoff was the Nocioni trade as maybe some of you remember. However in hindsight, I have NO problems with the trade, which just proves even further that Geoff knows more than any single person on these boards. Obviously we needed to make a trade. What were the Kings lacking? Defense, hustle, toughness, shooting, leadership. Guess who fits all those attributes? Nocioni. Is Nocioni a superstar or even an allstar? Absolutely not, but I assure you Geoff got the best value that was out there for Salmons and an expensive Miller. What were you expecting to get? Maybe a late 1st rounder? Ya, just what we need more raw talent. You need veterans on a team, and Noc is a great one imo. I think everyone is significantly underestimating how hard it is to be competitive in such a small market and a (imho) a rigged league. Petrie has proven in the past that he has very good skills as a GM. Do you think he magically lost that skill? GMing isn't like basketball, your game doesn't decline because your knees start to give out, he's doing the best with what he's got. After our glory years, it's hard to start from scratch, it takes time, especially when you have to fight owners who know far less about basketball than you do. Do you know how frustrating that would be? All the "facts" seem to point to the Maloofs putting a lot of pressure on Petrie to make certain moves, but you dismiss them. How can anyone argue facts when none of them are good enough for you? Sacramento is not going to sign any big time players, not a single one. Therefore, when it comes to FA he signed 2nd tier, 3rd tier players. When your a team like Sacramento, you get better through trades and drafting. Now we finally have a top 4 pick (i had a dream we got the 4th pick and I was pissed off) which is what everyone wanted, and we'll see where he goes from there. We can't make any big trades because the only valuable players we have our young and pretty raw, except maybe Kevin Martin who I am ok with trading. The closest big time trade we probably had was maybe getting Amare to Sac but obviously the value wasn't there on our end. You want to trade our youth for veterans? Ask the Clippers how that went for them. Honestly just be patient, I don't mean to sound harsh, but sometimes angry fans just sound like a bunch of 8 year old kids who want a toy and want it now! Just relax be patient, we are no where near the time when we should be panicking, believe it or not we are in a pretty good situation. There's a lot of teams who would love to trade places with our situation. We have a good young core and Hawes most notably looks like he could be a perennial allstar and we have cap flexibility with a top 4 pick this year. Everyone just put your torches and pitch forks down, give Geoff some time (We just started rebuilding last year) and see where our young core goes.

mitchweber wrote:
How is that really clear? What's clear to me is that if Geoff had been left alone on this, that Mussleman wouldn't have been hired, and that after Muss was fired, Brian Shaw would've been our head coach. Why should the Maloofs have butted in? They screwed up letting Rick go (if it was really financial, I'm pretty sure they could have declined the option and then tried to re-sign him to a cheaper deal), and they were clearly in charge of the Muss hiring. Just because Geoff eventually gave in on the Theus hiring doesn't mean he should be blamed. It was nearing draft time, they couldn't wait another second to hire somebody. What this shows me is that both sides basically wouldn't budge, but the Maloofs, being the bosses, were going to be much more capable of making Geoff give in. I mean I guess, you can put a little bit of blame onto Geoff, but from the article, it clearly seems to me like this is a case of "Well we want you to make the decision, but we're not going to change our minds, so...".

I'm reading that the Maloofs saw their mistake in Mussleman and did not want to repeat it with Theus, that is clearly stated in the article, you are speculating what happened behind the scene and shifting the responsibilities of the hiring.

mitchweber wrote:About the FA signings: Nobody is saying that there aren't some mistakes. The focus here seems to be on Beno and Mikki, and as of right now, I'd say that's for good reason. But what I would say is that especially as of right now, those signings aren't why we're bad. We're bad because we're a young, inexperienced team without a superstar or a coach (preferably one that can bring in some kind of coherent, effective defensive system). The coaching situation, as I see it is the Maloof's fault. And superstars, as we all know, are pretty hard to come by. If you want to blame Geoff for that, fine I guess. But it wouldn't make much sense to me with the situation the team has been in--and more importantly, we don't not have a superstar because of the Beno and Mikki signings.

I don't blame Petrie because the Kings are bad, every team becomes bad after contending, that doesn't mean you're allowed to sign irrelevant players, commit to players you don't need. And the same way signing Beno and Moore is not the reason we don't have a superstar, the same applies to the hiring of coaches.
You (and others) have been parading this board with statements and throwing the blame on the Maloofs and others and clearing Petrie of all charges, while the reality is:
1. It is a rebuilding process, and that team is supposed to deteriorate during it.
2. Petrie is the General Manager and he is responsible for what happens with the team unless declared otherwise (Like in Addleman case).

Nicky Nix Nook wrote: I don't mean to sound harsh, but sometimes angry fans just sound like a bunch of 8 year old kids who want a toy and want it now!

+1

Except in this case it's, "I want to win right now".

KB

It's the fans fault for expecting too much.

_SRV_ wrote:I'm reading that the Maloofs saw their mistake in Mussleman and did not want to repeat it with Theus, that is clearly stated in the article, you are speculating what happened behind the scene and shifting the responsibilities of the hiring.

Is it or is it not true that Brian Shaw would be our coach if the Maloofs weren't so stuck on Theus? And is it or is it not true that the Kings wouldn't have been looking in a dry market for a coach, had the Maloofs not let Rick go, and then hired Muss?

Sure, Geoff is responsible for having signed off on it, but the article is very clear in implying that with less interference, Shaw would have definitely been the choice. Plus that quote from Tarkanian "How come you aren't making the choice?" is pretty damning. It just doesn't seem like it's really that hard to read between the lines here. This seems pretty clear to me that Geoff signing off on Reggie wasn't a confident decision as much as it was Geoff giving in, since they were really running out of time.

I don't blame Petrie because the Kings are bad, every team becomes bad after contending, that doesn't mean you're allowed to sign irrelevant players, commit to players you don't need. And the same way signing Beno and Moore is not the reason we don't have a superstar, the same applies to the hiring of coaches.
You (and others) have been parading this board with statements and throwing the blame on the Maloofs and others and clearing Petrie of all charges, while the reality is:
1. It is a rebuilding process, and that team is supposed to deteriorate during it.
2. Petrie is the General Manager and he is responsible for what happens with the team unless declared otherwise (Like in Addleman case).

True, but it's still one of a couple of things that has the team where they are and that is the Maloof's fault. And I maintain that we could have kept a competitive team with Rick, which kind of makes everything else hard to determine and predict.

1. Agreed.
2. I would argue that that article declares otherwise, with regards to Geoff actually deciding on the coach. He also technically signed off on the deal for Muss, but that doesn't mean it was really his call. I think that if Geoff really like Theus, Theus would've been hired earlier.

Is it or is it not true that Brian Shaw would be our coach if the Maloofs weren't so stuck on Theus?

I don't know that, the Maloofs asked Petrie to revisit his decision and reconsider Theus, while stressing they did not want to overrule Petrie.

And is it or is it not true that the Kings wouldn't have been looking in a dry market for a coach, had the Maloofs not let Rick go, and then hired Muss?

True, I said so in my first post.

Sure, Geoff is responsible for having signed off on it, but the article is very clear in implying that with less interference, Shaw would have definitely been the choice. Plus that quote from Tarkanian "How come you aren't making the choice?" is pretty damning. It just doesn't seem like it's really that hard to read between the lines here. This seems pretty clear to me that Geoff signing off on Reggie wasn't a confident decision as much as it was Geoff giving in, since they were really running out of time.

I don't know, we all have bosses, and we sure disagree with them a lot of time, that doesn't mean their choice is always what happens, sometimes they force it (Like the Addleman/Muss case) which is wrong, and sometimes not, like Theus case, it's really not the same.

True, but it's still one of a couple of things that has the team where they are and that is the Maloof's fault. And I maintain that we could have kept a competitive team with Rick, which kind of makes everything else hard to determine and predict.

1. Agreed.
2. I would argue that that article declares otherwise, with regards to Geoff actually deciding on the coach. He also technically signed off on the deal for Muss, but that doesn't mean it was really his call. I think that if Geoff really like Theus, Theus would've been hired earlier.

_SRV_ wrote:I'm reading that the Maloofs saw their mistake in Mussleman and did not want to repeat it with Theus, that is clearly stated in the article, you are speculating what happened behind the scene and shifting the responsibilities of the hiring.

Is it or is it not true that Brian Shaw would be our coach if the Maloofs weren't so stuck on Theus? And is it or is it not true that the Kings wouldn't have been looking in a dry market for a coach, had the Maloofs not let Rick go, and then hired Muss?

Sure, Geoff is responsible for having signed off on it, but the article is very clear in implying that with less interference, Shaw would have definitely been the choice. Plus that quote from Tarkanian "How come you aren't making the choice?" is pretty damning. It just doesn't seem like it's really that hard to read between the lines here. This seems pretty clear to me that Geoff signing off on Reggie wasn't a confident decision as much as it was Geoff giving in, since they were really running out of time.

I don't blame Petrie because the Kings are bad, every team becomes bad after contending, that doesn't mean you're allowed to sign irrelevant players, commit to players you don't need. And the same way signing Beno and Moore is not the reason we don't have a superstar, the same applies to the hiring of coaches.
You (and others) have been parading this board with statements and throwing the blame on the Maloofs and others and clearing Petrie of all charges, while the reality is:
1. It is a rebuilding process, and that team is supposed to deteriorate during it.
2. Petrie is the General Manager and he is responsible for what happens with the team unless declared otherwise (Like in Addleman case).

True, but it's still one of a couple of things that has the team where they are and that is the Maloof's fault. And I maintain that we could have kept a competitive team with Rick, which kind of makes everything else hard to determine and predict.

1. Agreed.
2. I would argue that that article declares otherwise, with regards to Geoff actually deciding on the coach. He also technically signed off on the deal for Muss, but that doesn't mean it was really his call. I think that if Geoff really like Theus, Theus would've been hired earlier.

Agreed, the Maloofs wronged this team a lot by firing Addleman, but that was where intervention stopped, my point in that Petrie has his share in the blame, and the picture drawn on this board that Petrie is seemingly innocent just doesn't seem to be true.

And in the Maloofs defense, most of this board (except for ICMTM and Smills) were in favor of letting Addleman go, they weren't the only ones blinded by the Artest euphoria.

To me the bottom line is that it seemed like neither side was going to give in--that's the implication I get when I look at how late the hiring was. Since the Maloofs were the bosses, Geoff was the one that gave in. The article does make it perfectly clear that Geoff preferred Shaw. Was he actually convinced at the last moment? Maybe. But that seems unlikely. Why wasn't he convinced earlier? Geoff knew Reggie's history--why would he just now make Reggie's experience as a head coach the deciding factor?

And no, the intervention clearly did not stop with Rick or Muss. You can try to place some blame on the Theus hiring on Geoff if you want (although I'll still disagree), but to say that there wasn't some pretty heavy intervention from the Maloofs is just ignoring the article.

And I'll fully admit that I was one who was also fine with Rick being let go at the time, because I didn't fully appreciate him. I can't say that I wouldn't have done something similar in the same situation. And that is why I'm not the one making the decisions, and its why the Maloofs shouldn't be making the decisions.