This thread is so speculative it kinda pisses me off. Its impossible to respond to intelligently. The solid wall of complete bullpoopoo thrown up by this organization even since the shaka man took over makes it essentially impossible to cut through and have any real idea of who deserves credit or lack thereof for anything. It is entirely possible Vivek is a complete raving egomaniac with his fingers in everything because he's clueless about being clueless. Its also entirely possible he's a naive twerp with no feel for the game who was taken advantage of. And its even possible he is a hard working learning on the fly ambitious owner who has repented for his past stupidities and is improving. Any of them could be true.
But starting a thread absolving him is pure guesswork. Not educated guesswork. Just guesswork. I am attempting to ignore Vivek right now until he sticks his neck up and clearly owns something I can either praise or pounce upon. Until that happens the only new factor, the one clear change and hope is the 7'1" guy, not the 5'6" guy. Everything else has been chaos and darkness, and even if Vlade has muscled it all back in line for the moment, if Vivek is one type of idiot or another it may not hold. I'm not going to take that leap until I've seen a lot more than 1 week of hope.
To be honest, Vivek should not be judged on the 10+ years of frustrations that the Kings fans have endured.
He is only responsible for the last 2 years, not the last 10 years. And to be honest, the frustration under Vivek really has only been from December 2014 to June 2015, once they made the bonehead decision to fire Mike Malone without a plan.
If people are going to give Vivek all the blame for hiring PDA and Mullin, then he should get some credit for hiring Vlade. You can not just say, oh, he just got lucky.
If the man has learned from his mistakes and is allowing Vlade to run everything without his meddling, then we as a fan base should appreciate a owner who can recognize his mistakes and learn from them.
Vivek is learning on the job and he has made some horrendous mistakes, but I think he clearly shows passion for the Kings and wants to win as badly as the rest of us want the Kings to win.
He did well in hiring Mike Malone and his biggest mistake was hiring PDA. PDA clearly was not ready to run a team and I think that also contributed to Vivek's meddling in the team. PDA was not fit to run the Kings and was a "Yes" man to Mullin and Vivek. Vivek has said so himself that his biggest mistake was listening to a bunch of NBA cronies (i.e. PDA and Mullin), I think he was a bit star-struck by Chris Mullin stature.
For Vivek to recognize his mistakes and state publicly that he has given full basketball control to Vlade, I think that is a step in the right direction.
As for the Karl situation, I think it is Vlade's decision now. I believe Vlade has the power to fire him, but I think that Vlade feels he can heal this Karl-Cuz relationship. Only time will tell. Vlade clearly feels that Karl is the best coach for the Kings right now and his track record is second to no other coaching candidate.
To be honest, just looking at all the big free agents changing teams (i.e LMA and DeAndre Jordan) and the reasons coming out as to why, I think there is a lot of dysfunction and dislike in many of the NBA locker rooms. Phil Jackson and Kobe really did not like each other during their glory years. A lot of the FO and players did not like Thibs in Chicago. But all the dysfunction of other teams didn't go public, unlike when PDA was in charge of the Kings.
Vlade needs to tighten up the ship and keep in-house problems, in-house. Vlade should fine or fire FO personnel, Coaches and players for leaks to media. Being a former player, I think Vlade is aware that not every locker room is harmonious and I bet he has seen worse situations than Cuz-Karl and seen those dynamics succeed in the NBA.
IF Vlade can get Karl and Cuz to co-exist and respect each other, then the Kings will be good.
