The Sacramento Kings shocked most, including many of us, when they selected Nik Stauskas with the No. 8 pick in the 2014 NBA Draft. It wasn’t that Stauskas wasn’t deserving of such a selection, but it wasn’t a route many expected the Kings to take.
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Most of us watched the Sacramento Kings war room video feed in the minutes and hours leading up to the draft but multiple times the feed was cut, leading us to ponder what was taking place. Had the Kings made a decision? Were there trade talks going on? What was happening?
We may never know what took place in those particular moments, but Grantland had unprecedented access to the Kings war room and they did show how the franchise came to the Stauskas conclusion.
In the clip, which is a small sample of a soon to be released longer version, owner Vivek Ranadive goes around the room and takes a pole of who the front office brass prefers to select with Stauskas and Elfrid Payton as the seemingly most likely candidates for the selection.
The decision appeared to be rather unanimous as the general feeling was Stauskas was the best available player left on the board in addition to filling a shooting need.
Can’t wait to see the full video which is scheduled for release on July 1st.