Kings General Manager Vlade Divac Reportedly Plans On Firing Dave Joerger


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UPDATE: According to Adrian Wojnarowski, Dave Joerger’s time in Sacramento will come to an end on Thursday. Wojnarowski reports Vlade Divac will fire Joerger during a meeting sometime during the day.

As for the next direction to Kings go in, Marc Stein of the New York Times reports that it might be worth keeping an eye on Lakers coach Luke Walton, while Zach Lowe of ESPN notes that Sacramento might be the latest squad to turn to a Gregg Popovich assistant.

EARLIER: The Sacramento Kings didn’t make the playoffs this season, but you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who thought they didn’t wildly exceed expectations. The young, high-flying Kings went 39-43 on the year, ending up as the nine-seed in the Western Conference and showing more than enough to give fans reason to believe better days are in Sacramento’s immediate future.

But of course, because this is the Sacramento Kings we’re talking about here, something weird has to pop up that causes everyone to raise their eyebrows. That thing, per Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, is the squad’s general manager, Vlade Divac, “seriously weighing” getting rid of head coach Dave Joerger.

Sam Amick of The Athletic reported on Thursday morning that Divac agreed to a four-year contract extension with the franchise. Part of this agreement was that Kings owner Vivek Ranadive “made it clear” Divac will get to make the final decision on whether Joerger, who has been the team’s head coach since the 2016-17 campaign.

Joerger has accrued a 98-148 record during is tenure in Sacramento, which came after three seasons at the helm of the Memphis Grizzlies. This isn’t the first tie that Joerger’s job security has been called into question — he reported seriously butted heads with assistant general manager Brandon Williams over whether the team’s main priority back in November should have been develop young talent or compete.