Why The Kings Fired Dave Joerger

By Christopher Felts

The Sacramento Kings had their best season in over thirteen years and they just got rid of the man responsible for it. While Dave Joerger’s tenure as the King’s coach didn’t result in the playoffs, it did leave a lot of fans hopeful. The fans saw the potential in the young core of players as well as Joerger’s leadership. De’Arron Fox and Buddy Heild both had breakout seasons. Buddy set a record for most three pointers in first three seasons of a player. De’Arron Fox emerged as a leader and a fantastic point guard. These two players are the future of Sacramento and it’s all under the leadership of Dave Joerger.

Dave Joerger gave Sacramento hope. For the first time in years, we were excited to see and watch the team grow. The Kings added a great piece in Harrison Barnes and the young core seemed to be growing fast. As the season winded down and we knew the playoff picture wouldn’t include the Kings, we were excited for next year. The Kings were sure to build off of this season and make it back to the playoffs for the first time since 2006. I even made a blog talking about how exciting this team was.This season also brought the Kings closer to the playoffs than ever before, so why fire the man responsible for this excitement?

Reportedly, Joerger failed to develop a relationship with star rookie, Marvin Bagley III. It’s said that Joerger wanted to draft Luka Doncic instead of Bagley. This led to him not developing a relationship and played into minutes limitations for Bagley. Marvin Bagley had a wonderful second half of the season once he started getting more minutes, but Coach still refused to use him more.

Bagley only got a few starts, but nothing substantial or consistent. This led to a lot of frustration within the fan base. My problems of Coach Joerger were more of the on-court stuff.

There always seemed to be a lot of inconsistency with this team. It’s the NBA, you’re not going to win every game. You’re going to lose to teams you should probably beat, it happens. The problems come because of how the team lost.

There was no game that exemplifies the inconsistency in play as the last game versus the Portland Trailblazers. The Blazers basically sat out their entire starting lineup versus the Kings. No C.J. McCollum or Damian Lillard. The Kings were up, at one point, by 31 points. They ended up losing by 5. That is a coach gaff of the highest order. The Kings had several games like this. Earlier in the season they lost to Celtics and Bucks while leading them by 15 in the fourth quarter. Games they could’ve won, and should’ve won but didn’t, cost them a playoff spot.

With all of that though, the fans were shocked and angry to see Joerger fired. The reason being, the Kings have a history of changing things up to negative results. Just when things are getting good for the Kings and making progress, they break it up. Former Kings star Demarcus Cousins was starting to develop well under Coach Mike Malone. He liked him. Then Cousins found out, over Twitter no less, that Malone was fired. This is a sign of dysfunction.

The Kings traded Cousins for Buddy Hield, in what was perceived as the dumbest trade ever, to great results. The questions is whether or not that move was brilliant or dumb luck. The Kings have a great core and great potential. The have hired former Lakers Head Coach Luke Walton, who is said to be a great coach, but didn’t get the support and confidence from the front office.

This is a perfect combination. From what most people say, Luke Walton is an especially good coach who was given a bad situation in L.A. and the Kings young core are especially talented, time will prove that. And both of them are itching to prove that.