The Sacramento Kings parted ways with general manager Monte McNair after Wednesday’s play-in loss to the Dallas Mavericks, but the move had apparently been a long time coming.
McNair was not necessarily on board with many of the big decisions made by the organization within the past year, according to Sam Amick and Anthony Slater of The Athletic. Those were instead driven by owner Vivek Ranadive, who was seemingly at odds with McNair on those key decisions.
McNair was opposed to the midseason firing of coach Mike Brown, but was overruled by ownership. In addition, there are some within the organization who believe McNair was not enthusiastic about signing DeMar DeRozan last offseason, nor did he particularly want to make the midseason trade for Zach LaVine.
Things were set to come to a head again this offseason. Ranadive is viewed as wanting to keep interim coach Doug Christie permanently, and McNair seemed destined to not have the final say in the hiring of the next coach. At that point, it was fairly obvious that he was going to have to move on.
Reports already indicate that the Kings plan to replace McNair with longtime NBA executive Scott Perry, who previously worked for the Kings in 2017.
Ranadive had a poor initial reputation after purchasing the Kings in 2013, and gained a reputation as something of a meddling owner. That had faded recently as the organization tasted some success, but he had clearly been exerting some influence on major decisions recently. Many of those decisions have not worked out, and their handling of the Brown firing in particular was widely criticized around the league.
