A Great Offseason Leads To A Promotion For Vlade Divac
By Ti Windisch
Well, it looks like I don’t have to look up Vlade Divac‘s official title with the Sacramento Kings every time I want to praise his personnel moves anymore. In a massive press release that also detailed Peja Stojakovic‘s return to Sacramento, the organization announced that Divac is now officially the Kings’ Vice President of Basketball Operations and General Manager.
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Divac deserves the title of GM–he’s been fantastic this offseason, when having a lesser man running the Kings could’ve resulted in absolute disaster. If George Karl really pushed for DeMarcus Cousins to be traded and Vlade teamed with Kings owner Vivek Ranadivé to ensure Boogie stayed in Sacramento then he essentially preserved the Kings’ hopes of being more than an eternal punching bag. Which is obviously good.
Just based on that alone it’s clear Vlade Divac is a good choice to hand the reigns of the Kings to, and that’s before we even get to his personnel moves. Signing quality veterans like Kosta Koufos, Caron Butler, Marco Belinelli and even the enigmatic Rajon Rondo were good moves than instantly improved the Kings without mortgaging Sacramento’s long-term future.
One move that Vlade made that many commentators felt did damage Sacramento’s future plans was the Nik Stauskas trade. That trade sent Stauskas, Carl Landry and Jason Thompson along with a protected future draft pick for essentially nothing–the rights to overseas prospects and a future second-round pick.
The real benefit of that trade was getting Sacramento some cap relief, which was necessary to bring in the strong supporting cast I spoke on before. Much was made of the Kings punting on a highly-drafted prospect in Stauskas, but to be honest he just didn’t look very good in his time with Sacramento anyway.
Stauskas was supposed to be a three-point specialist, but he shot just 32 percent from deep in his time with the Kings. Some specialist, eh? Divac replaced his potential marksmanship with Seth Curry this offseason anyway, so losing Stauskas really doesn’t hurt Sacramento much at all.
The Kings may not be title (or even playoff) favorites this coming season, but considering the shallow, incomplete roster he was given to start with I would say Vlade Divac did a pretty damn good job building something solid in Sacramento. One important thing to keep in mind with general managers is it takes a while for them to build their own core.
Although thankfully for Kings fans there was quite a bit of roster turnover this offseason, Divac still has not had the time to completely mold this team to match his own vision. He’s brought in a lot of guys both in the front office and on the roster than he thinks will be best for Sacramento, but he’s still only had the power to do so for a few months.
It’ll be intriguing and exciting to see what this team looks like after a year or more into Divac’s reign as GM–hopefully there are no more sudden front office changes and we get to see Vlade Divac’s final version of the Sacramento Kings in the near future. And hopefully that result is a winning team.
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