Kings Have Fired Head Coach Luke Walton, I Think They Made The Right Decision

[Herbert]

I have to say that I'm not at all surprised by this turn of events. Luke Walton is no longer the head coach of the Sacramento Kings.  I didn't like the way Luke Walton handled his rotations as a head coach of the Lakers and I feel like he carried this over to his time with the Kings as well. While in LA I felt like his coaching decisions were detrimental to the team, particularly Julius Randle. They got so bad that Julius asked for the team to just let him go, which was ridiculous but it was so bad that the Lakers actually let him go! I think Lakers management knew  and felt bad for him.

And then later Walton goes over to the Sacramento Kings. I'll be the first to admit that I hardly ever saw any Sacramento games but I did start to hear rumblings about Marvin Bagley. And the situation sounded eerily similar to Julius Randle. Lack of consistent playing time when he wasn't injured, Bagley wanting to play on a different team. In Bagley's case, he even fell out of the rotation completely. Getting multiple DNPs due to coaches decision.  Bagley's agent even made a public statement on the situation, which is almost unheard of.

My point in bringing all this up is that, it seems to me that coach Luke Walton developed a pattern of using inconsistent rotations. This rubs guys the wrong way. Especially guys that have some talent, and are still trying to establish themselves in the league and get their 2nd contract. Many fans feel like if you are getting paid you need to shut up and play but players are not robots. How you treat players matter. You can say all the right things in the press, but if you are messing up a young guys career, their play is gonna be affected on the court. Both the Lakers and Kings teams were young upcoming teams while Walton was the coach. Young teams in general tend to struggle but I feel like Walton exacerbated this due to the way he manages the team.

I always felt like Walton got too much credit for coaching the Warriors when Steve Kerr was out. Coaching great players always makes the coach look good. Maybe he'll go back to the warriors in the offseason or take some time off. I feel like Luke Walton is well liked around the league. He has his Golden State connections, his Laker connections. He's NBA royalty as the son of Bill Walton. I'm sure he'll be fine. It be nice to see him comeback and really coach up a team and make some noise. But he has to really work on his rotations and figure out the best way to coach the young guys while still maximizing the team's overall effectiveness.  Playing time is a huge factor in this and when its mismanaged or inconsistent I think it can wreak havoc on your team.