As of Sunday, November 20th, 2021 9:59 AM PDT, the Sacramento Kings have announced they will fire head coach Luke Walton. Walton began his tenure as Sacramento Kings head coach on March 15th, 2019 when he was hired by then-general manager Vlade Divac. During his time as head coach of the Sacramento Kings, Walton tallied a record of 68-93 (.433).
Interim Head Coach
Unless the Kings have an outside candidate they have been secretly talking to, it is most likely that Kings current assistant coach Alvin Gentry will take over in an interim head coaching role. Gentry has a lot of NBA head coaching experience, coaching 1105 career games with a record of 510-595.
I would assume that Kings GM Monte McNair would enjoy performing a full search in the off-season for the best head coach to fit the team’s long-term goals. How much of a say will franchise owner Vivek Randive have in the head coach search/attributes of that coach?
Sacramento Kings fans have thrown out a few names in the YouTube chats of their favorite local Kings radio shows. A couple of those names have been current Kings assistant coach Doug Christie and Stockton Kings head coach Bobby Jackson. I could see those guys heading the ship for the Sacramento Kings someday, but not really in this mid-season situation.
Some questions I have … Does McNair roll with an interim coach and do a full search in the off-season? Is there a veteran head coach out there who is currently unemployed that would want to take over immediately, with hopes of staying on for multiple seasons? Will there be a college coach who jumps ship for an NBA head coaching opportunity? Is there a hidden gem on the bench of a current NBA team that McNair has been eyeing? Will San Francisco Giants general manager and sports analytics expert Farhan Zaidi be consulted? Do Marvin Bagley III or Vivek Ranadive now take the crown as ‘most reviled person‘ in the SacTown sports world? Will we see Bill Walton in Golden One Center ever again?
Best wishes to Luke, he was not dealt an easy set of circumstances and had to endure the ghosts of Maloof past. In the meantime … I’ll be refining my resume and scouring the job boards in search of the Sacramento Kings head coach vacancy.
As always … Go Kings!
-Tom Witt
Tom Witt Writes 
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