Vlade Divac Offers Peja Drobnjak A Job, Too
By Ti Windisch
Vlade Divac is trying to corner the market on front office guys named Peja, I guess. Aris Barkas over at Eurohoops reported early Sunday that Divac is trying to add Peja Drobnjak to his staff. Drobnjak did not have a long or very memorable NBA career, but he did play professional basketball for two decades between overseas and NBA seasons combined.
More from Kings News
- 3 Ways Chris Duarte improves the Kings chances in 2023-24
- Bleacher Report crazily lists Kings’ All-Star as “most overrated NBA player”
- Kings and Heat fans clash on Twitter to debate All-Star players
- Sacramento Kings’ Chris Duarte playing in 2023 FIBA World Cup
- 3 Young players the Kings must develop, 2 to give up on
Drobnjak played with Peja Stojakovic and Vlade on the Serbian national team, which means there’s going to be a real Serbian presence throughout the Sacramento Kings should the two Pejas decide to join the team. As of this writing, neither of them have elected to decide either way, publicly at least.
Vlade has been busy adding members to his staff of late. The news of his interest in adding Drobnjak comes just one day after the Kings announcing they’ve signed Roland Beech to be their new VP of analytics, replacing the departed Dean Oliver.
Vlade clearly has no qualms with bringing in the staff members that he wants to, and it makes sense. Cohesion is very important, and having a staff that was mostly brought in by Divac that all share the same goals and strategies to achieve them will make the entire Kings organization run better.
According to the Eurohoops article, the position Divac offered Drobnjak is one of a scouting nature. Having a guy who’s played all over the world and for so long as a scout makes a lot of sense–Drobnjak has seen hundreds (if not thousands) of basketball players grow and develop around him throughout his years in the league, in all sorts of leagues.
Having great analytics guys in the front office is great, but there’s nothing like having scouts that have seen countless hours of basketball live and up close. They know what to look for, and pick up on some intangibles that you just can’t notice from reading stat sheets.
That’s not to say analytics isn’t important–I’m thrilled the Kings landed a great guy to work hand-in-hand with Vlade like Beech–but I feel like a mix between traditional scouting and analytics is the ideal way to go, and it appears Vlade Divac and Vivek Ranadivé feel the same way.
As I said, it’s still uncertain whether either Peja will join the Kings. I feel like Vlade could convince his countrymen to join his staff and assumed Stojakovic would be a lock to come back to Sacramento, but as of right now neither man has chosen to return or not.
We’ll see what they ultimately decide, but I wouldn’t be opposed to having either guy join the Kings staff. More help in scouting both prospects and NBA players is never a bad thing–whatever keeps us from having another Stauskas situation.
More from A Royal Pain
- 3 Ways Chris Duarte improves the Kings chances in 2023-24
- 5 Players the Sacramento Kings never should have signed
- Bleacher Report crazily lists Kings’ All-Star as “most overrated NBA player”
- Kings and Heat fans clash on Twitter to debate All-Star players
- Sacramento Kings’ Chris Duarte playing in 2023 FIBA World Cup