The Kings are in the process of conducting the second round of interviews with the three finalists for their head coaching opening and owner Vivek Ranadive is heavily involved, Sam Amick of The Athletic reports.
Steve Clifford, Mark Jackson and Mike Brown were revealed as the finalists on Saturday.
Clifford, the former Hornets and Magic coach who mostly recently has done consulting work with the Nets, interviewed Sunday and continued his visit Monday, according to Amick. Jackson, the former Warriors coach and now longtime ESPN/ABC analyst, will then come to Sacramento for his follow-up interview.
Brown, now the Warriors’ associate head coach, is expected to speak with the Kings’ brass later this week. Brown’s interview(s) may take place in San Francisco as well as Sacramento, since the Warriors remain active in the playoffs.
The first round of interviews were conducted via Zoom and Ranadive wasn’t involved, Amick reports. GM Monte McNair, assistant GM Wes Wilcox and now former chief strategy officer Joe Dumars handled those interviews. Dumars was named on Monday the league’s executive vice president of basketball operations.
Dumars’ contract was expiring and he wanted more direct control over the front office if he was going to stick around, sources told Amick. He wanted McNair to report to him rather than Ranadive but the owner was not interested in doing that. It does not appear Dumars’ role will be filled.
As noted by Marc Stein in a Substack piece and affirmed by Amick, the Kings are seeking a defensive-minded coach.
I hope they Pick Mark Jackson out of the 3 listed !! But honestly I don’t know much about Clifford, though !!
They had a defensive-minded coach in Mark Malone….but the Kings will be the Kings.
Please let it be Jackson
Clifford and Jackson did as well as could be expected in their last HC jobs with middling rosters. It’s a pretty conservative group and Ranadive apparently wants it done quickly.
Mike Brown inherited Lebron so might have had higher expectations than delivered. He is a smart guy tho, indeed a past flaw being maybe him overly aware of this… similar to Jackson being overly into religion, which can be divisive.
Clifford never had a break-through team and fell victim to a youth movement.
Clifford is the only good coach in that group, & he is the best defensive minded one as well, seems like an easy choice, which means that SAC will messed it up, right?