It’s unorthodox to hire your head coach before your general manager — usually the GM gets to set the vision and bring in a coach to execute it.
But that’s not the way it is going down for new owner Kings owner Vivek Ranadive in Sacramento — Mike Malone is coming in from Golden State to be the head coach. Now they just need to find his boss and GM.
The Kings expanded that search to some big name guys over the weekend, reports Ken Berger at CBSSports.com.The Sacramento Kings’ new ownership group has reached out to Hall of Famers Larry Bird and Chris Mullin as well as former NBA coach Mike Dunleavy about running the team’s basketball operations, a search that is wide-open, league sources told CBSSports.com on Monday….
“It’s wide open,” another league source said. “It’s not concrete on those guys.”
But the leader from the start has seemed to be Chris Wallace, the GM who put much of the current Grizzlies roster together but who has been pushed aside as new ownership has gone to a more analytics-based approach. Marc Stein of ESPN hears he is still the front runner.
Word on NBA's executive grapevine is that Chris Wallace's lead in race to be named Sacramento Kings' new GM only got wider over weekend
— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) June 3, 2013
Sense is something would have to go awry now to keep Wallace from job. Kings first want to formally intro new coach Mike Malone later today
— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) June 3, 2013
You have to like that the new Kings’ ownership is aiming big. Call up the big names and see what they are thinking.
But expect Wallace to end up with the job.