On Monday, the Sacramento Kings made headlines when it was reported that their current assistant general manager, Wes Wilcox, is expected to leave the team to become the University of Utah's men's basketball general manager. Wilcox has been with the team since he was hired into his current role in 2020.
Along with Wilcox being the highest-ranking sitting NBA front office member to take a college front office job, this developing story is interesting because of what it might mean for the future of the Kings.
Great change may be happening in Sacramento
On Tuesday, the Kings lost to the Oklahoma City Thunder 121-105. That game marked the fourth straight time and the eighth time in the last ten games that the Kings have come out with that outcome.
Now, the Kings sit at 35-37, tied for ninth place in the Western Conference with the Phoenix Suns, and only a half game ahead of the eleventh-seeded Dallas Mavericks. Needless to say, the Kings are way underperforming the expectations they created with their eventful offseason.
In a results-driven league like the NBA, whenever a team fails to meet expectations, people lose their jobs, and Wilcox's decision may be an example of someone jumping off the ship before it sinks.
One person who is definitely on the hot seat is the general manager and president of basketball operations, Monte McNair. Like Wilcox, McNair has been with the Kings since 2020. He is the architect responsible for conducting the 2022-23 team that helped end the Kings' dreaded playoff drought. However, he is also the guy who brought in DeMar DeRozan and negotiated the return package for De'Aaron Fox.
Another casualty of any Spring cleaning the Kings try to do will probably be interim head coach Doug Christie. By all accounts, everyone around the team likes Christie. But given that he only has the "interim" label, he would have had to knock the ball out of the park since taking over, and while the team got off to a strong start with him, Christie's 22-19 (53.7%) record isn't that much better than the team under former head coach Mike Brown (41.9%).
In terms of players, if the Kings decide they want to do a full-out rebuild, it is hard to imagine that anyone other than Keegan Murray (24 years old), Devin Carter (22), and (maybe) Keon Ellis (25) will be made untouchable. That means that Malik Monk, DeMar DeRozan, Zach LaVine, and Domantas Sabonis could all be on the trade block this summer.
This offseason could be one of great change for the Kings, and if it is, this Wilcox news would be the first domino to fall in all of that.