It’s really easy to pile on what might be one of the worst run organizations in professional basketball. The Sacramento Kings, under the ownership of Vivek Ranadive, haven’t done much to counter the perception that they don’t know how to operate an NBA franchise. And yet, they’ve made what appear to be multiple great moves to stock up their front office in the last couple of days.
Imagine that this is the part where I spend 1500 words excoriating Ranadive and his right-hand man, Vlade Divac, for absolutely making a mess of an NBA franchise while the good people of Seattle sit empty-handed and watch it all burn.
The DeMarcus Cousins era is over and Buddy Hield is here.
It was good for the Kings to move on from Cousins, even if the trade was suspect in so many ways. It is just fine that Hield is here, even despite deranged comments like those of Ranadive, comparing Hield to two-time NBA MVP and human 3-point shot cheat code Steph Curry.
The moves that have happened with the roster have happened, so let’s look at something that has the potential to be much more exciting – the front office changes.
Scott Perry, Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations
I can tell you a few things about anyone who is an “EVP.” Namely, they are pretty good at doing stuff and they make a lot more money than I do. So who is Scott Perry and what is he going to be doing for the Ranadive Empire?
Let’s start by acknowledging that the role an EVP of Basketball Operations plays is extremely vague in most cases and could be just about anything involving basketball or the operations of the team. It is probably both. Perry will likely have a broad range of duties and decision-making to conduct, but his role will likely include the oversight of many financial and personnel decisions.
Now that we kind of know what his job will be, who is Scott Perry?
Perry is an experienced NBA guy, having worked with the Detroit Pistons during their most recent championship run in the 2000s. He has also worked with the Oklahoma City Thunder and spent the last five seasons as the assistant general manager for the Orlando Magic. Perry’s services became available when he was essentially allowed to walk by the Magic as part of the moving-on process in the firing of GM Rob Hennigan. You can get a full rundown of Perry in this great piece from Jason Jones at the Sacramento Bee.
Luke Bornn, Vice President of Strategy and Analytics
Hey, this looks promising.
Bornn will be tasked with beefing up the analytics team for Sacramento. That’s going to include a lot of things. The important pieces will be putting together the numbers, breaking down what they mean, and interpreting them to produce the best results and strategies for their players. That’s a crude breakdown, but I think you get the idea.
Bornn, and the team he assembles, will have to figure out how to best utilize the skills of the newly acquired Vivek jewel that is Hield.
His track record is a bit more impressive than Perry, in my estimation. He’s coming in as a professional of high pedigree with international experience and the unique perspective of transitioning from European football. He was previously the analytics guru at AS Roma in Italy.
He’s also got some shiny, impressive names on his resume like Harvard, where he worked in the world of statistics. That’s pretty cool and kind of a big deal. That might sound a tiny bit familiar, as it vaguely mirrors the movement of Kirk Goldsberry, who contributed to the now-defunct Grantland with shot charts and other statistical breakdowns before he joined the San Antonio Spurs.
In my summation, Perry is probably a solid hire, though he doesn’t stand out to me because of the issues Orlando had over the past several seasons. He has also worked with Joe Dumars and Sam Presti, so there are some impressive names on his resume. Still, in the five seasons he just spent with the Magic, who remain a fair distance from the playoffs after years of toiling in the lottery, nothing looked to be truly progressive or life-changing.
Bornn is a sexy hire. He’s got Harvard and European football experience under his belt. He’s all about evaluating athletic performance. His job might be easy at first, as he can just say “bad,” and probably be right about most players on the Kings roster.
Evaluating the impact of both hires might be latent, and that could be frustrating. Perry will have a hand in the decisions, but how much weight he carries and cares to be involved in the GM-level decisions isn’t known yet. The world of analytics is very competitive and secretive, so what Bornn brings won’t be simply deciphered, though it would be reasonable to assume that it will show through over the course of the upcoming season.
Regardless of how obvious the results may be and how quickly we can see it, the decision to hire Perry and Bornn is encouraging. Even if Perry doesn’t turn out to be amazing, he at least knows how to work in the NBA, which cannot be said for Divac or Ranadive. It’s a small but encouraging step for one of the most deservingly maligned franchises in the league. 2017-18 is already getting interesting for Sacramento.
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