RealGM

Former Sacramento Kings GM Vlade Divac recently sat for a wide-ranging interview with Croatian media outlet Index. The conversation touched on Divac's international career, the recent gathering to honor Drazen Petrovic, and Divac's NBA playing career, before finishing with questions about his tenure leading the Sacramento Kings front office.

When asked about the decision to pass on drafting Luka Doncic, Divac said that it was strictly basketball related.

"I had De'Aaron Fox at that position, whom I drafted a year earlier. At that moment, I thought that Fox was a player who could become a franchise player in the future," Divac said. "Time will tell if I was wrong. As things stand now, it looks like I am, but I have faith in Fox that he will have a better career."

Divac clarified that not drafting Doncic had nothing to do with his relationship with Doncic's father Sasa. The former Kings GM said he has love and appreciation for the elder Doncic. Divac said he simply didn't think Doncic and Fox could play together, unlike how Doncic and Kyrie Irving fit together.

"Irving is a classic basketball player, just like Luka. Fox isn't, he's a player who needs the ball, just like Luka needs it," Divac said. "I could have taken Luka, but then I would have to trade Fox."

Via Sasa Cobanov/Index

Hindsight is 20/20 but this is a good argument for why lottery teams should take BPA 99% of the time.

Also a good reason why Vlade is no longer a GM

Foxes are smart

Divan seems to be a real moron. I read the entire interview and, like so often before, he’s talking out of his ass.

There are worse excuses, but that is still an awful god damn excuse.

Put this down on the list of What Ifs and Things You Will Never Know. If Luka were drafted by Divac, he might never get the ball from Fox and neither of them would turn out to be who they are right now.

HAHA

his reasoning makes sense. You just drafted a potential starting PG the previous season, why would you draft another PG. where would you play Luka?

It's the same reason the Blazers opted to not draft Jordan. How did that turn out?

That's not to say that I don't understand Vlade's decisions, I think many GMs would have made the same one, it makes your young 'potential' franchise player unhappy, and you have to figure out a way to make them work out short term, however, with how Luka progressed so quickly, it wouldn't have taken them too long to realize who the true franchise player was, and they could have subsequently traded Fox for a very good return.

beefman wrote:his reasoning makes sense. You just drafted a potential starting PG the previous season, why would you draft another PG. where would you play Luka?

Well they coulda at least took him and tried it out for a year or two like they did with Hali and Fox. If it didn't work, then they coulda traded De'Aaron for a bag of assets.