Sacramento is a passionate city searching for a head coach that will lead them back to relevancy in the NBA. According to Vlade Divac, that’s the type of coach he believes he hired.
“I am thrilled to welcome Dave to the Sacramento Kings,” said Divac. “He is a strong and passionate leader with a proven track record of producing results. Dave shares our focus on creating a long-term culture of winning and I look forward to a bright future ahead for the Kings with his leadership on the court.”
// That sounds like a match made in heaven. After a long list of candidates who were interviewed for the position, Divac knew Dave Joerger was his guy because he shared the same views on building a long-term culture of winning basketball in Sacramento.
This interview was recorded after the press conference:
There were many qualified candidates for Sacramento, but when the Memphis Grizzlies made it official on moving on from Joerger, Divac wasted zero time in reaching out and doing what he does best in my opinion, which is leading, selling and unifying.
Those are valuable characteristics to have in quest of becoming a successful General Manager in the NBA.
When a franchise has a label of dysfunction or even a dead-end situation, it makes it really difficult to make positive moves that can benefit the organization. The two most current moves Divac made in the past two weeks have been considered solid and smart by the biggest critics the Kings have had in quite some time. I won’t name them because it won’t add much to this story.
Today’s press conference was all smiles. Joerger said all the right things and now it’s a matter of executing and winning some basketball games.
In three seasons as head coach for Memphis, Joerger was 147-99 (.598) and 9-13 in the playoffs. The Grizzlies reached the conference semifinals in 2015, losing to the eventual champion Golden State Warriors. Joerger spent 10 years in the minor leagues as a coach before reaching the NBA as a Memphis assistant in 2007.
He had plenty of interesting things to say. What stood out to me was how he addressed his approach of coaching DeMarcus Cousins.
“Same thing as it will be for all of our team. These are the things we expect from you, if you are on this side we are going to win more games,” Joerger said.
This isn’t Joerger’s first rodeo. He’s dealt with plenty of personalities throughout his career. Cousins or any player who may be considered as a “problem” will love this guy because he understands how to handle these types of situations.
“I’ve had great relationships with players throughout the course of the years,” Joerger said. “Some of them have been the people that win citizenship awards and some of them have been people that maybe on the outside think that these guys are tough guys to coach. And I’ve had great relationships with all those guys and I would go to the mat for any of those guys, and so looking forward to building those relationships with our guys.”
If Cousins doesn’t get along with this guy, I don’t know whom he will get along with. Joerger is hard working, genuine, has zero tolerance for nonsense and is hungry to bring success to this organization.
For the time being, it seems as if Divac took a giant step in the right direction by hiring Joerger as the Sacramento Kings’ head coach.
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