All of this is paraphrasing because fuck you if you want me to type out an hour word for word. I'll keep updating it as I go along.
What direction are you taking the Kings team?
Demarcus injury took it another direction. He's a game changing franchise player, but he's not at 100%. You can't blame anyone for that. "No one is pointing the finger at anyone." It's all part of the process of building a certain play style for the new arena. Better pace. Open floor. Use Cousins creatively and get others involved. No one wants to not play defense. We struggled this and last year with and without Malone. We gotta get better still, no better evidence than the last few games. That's the team we want to put into the new arena. The 01-02 teams were #1 in pace with big men. I'm not saying #1 or #2 in pace, just top 3rd.
Firing Malone was an unorthodox strategy. Like "punting on first down" despite good field position. And not replacing with an upgrade has ended in disaster. The locker room is lost and regressed. How does the front office justify making this move 28 games into the season for improvement when the actually effect has been the opposite? And do you feel as though it's in the best interest of the organization to bring in a permanent head coach now in order to recapture the locker room?
That's a good question. I read a lot of them on Twitter. There's no good time to fire a coach. Michael is a good, young coach who will have a nice career. I consider him a friend. There are a lot of organization who campaign against their own people. We look at these things at analyzing things and look at data, and we realized what we have going forward wont put in a place to succeed. We really truly believe that. "You could string the guy out, that's not fair to him, that's not fair to the players, to you guys." I've been in the position 17 years, I know what's going to happen. I could point to all the things we didn't feel analytically made sense, but Michael isn't here to defend himself. Obviously, we expected this to happen. Ty Corbin is a very good coach. He had two winning seasons out of three, and he took a team to the playoffs that I think had less talent than ours. He's highly qualified. He has our full support. Put the heat on me. Give Ty a chance.
Is there a better time to fire a head coach? It's a substitute teacher thing. It's tough for players to buy in. If that's your guys, why not commit to him long term right now?
"Why would we do that?" He's going to be our coach the rest of the season. We got to find the right guy. I don't know who's going to be the coach in 2 season. I don't even know who's going to be the right coach next season. We just let a coach go. To jump in and say I'm going to hire any coach right now is the wrong decision. "Ty has every opportunity to have the job long term." " What happens at the end of the year? I don't even know. I really don't. What I know is we're gonna get it right. We're gonna get the right coach, and we're hoping that it's Ty." But to sign a long-term deal with someone is short sighted because you just let a coach go.
Is Ty Corbin your coach at the end of the year?
Yes. Yes he is.
Does any of your data take into account a coaches ability to gather the team into one cohesive strategy and bring the best out of your best player?
I didn't start as a data analytics guy. I'm an attorney. I was an agent. I was in politics. I learned about analytics and stats through talented people. I want to get rid of the notion that we just look at people as if they're numbers. I like to connect with our players, coaches, and staff. I think Michael did a great job with Demarcus. I think we all did. EVERYONE told Vivek not to keep Demarcus. I'd be shocked if you could find one person who told him to keep him. I'll bet 95% of GMs he interviewed said get rid of Demarcus. The relationship is strong enough with all of us. We text all the time, angry and happy. I'm with him as much as any GM is with any star player. To answer your question, 100% we have to look at the person as well.
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