NBA Rumors: Sacramento Kings targeting Mike Woodson, Vinny Del Negro
By John Buhler
The Sacramento Kings are reportedly eyeing either Mike Woodson or Vinny Del Negro to be their next head coach to replace the recently fired George Karl.
The Sacramento Kings will have to hire themselves a new head coach this offseason, as general manager Vlade Divac decided to cut ties with former head coach George Karl on April 14th. This was the first big decision made by the relatively new general manager and he will have a big opportunity to name Karl’s successor.
According to Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical of Yahoo! Sports, that Sacramento Kings have reportedly targeted Mike Woodson, Vinny Del Negro, and Kevin McHale as candidates for their head coaching vacancy.
Both Woodson and Del Negro have scheduled interviews with Sacramento and while the Kings might be interested in McHale he was not mentioned in the post in having an interview in place with Sacramento.
All three men are former NBA veterans and have commendable head coaching experience in the NBA. Woodson once led the Atlanta Hawks and the New York Knicks. He is now a top assistant on Doc Rivers’ staff with the Los Angeles Clippers.
Del Negro has been out of the league for a while, but use to coach the Chicago Bulls before Tom Thibodeau and with the Clippers before Rivers replaced him. McHale led the 2014-15 Houston Rockets to the Western Conference Finals just last season before being fired early in 2015-16.
It would make sense for Sacramento to hire a former NBA head coach that was also a former NBA player to bring the type of professionalism needed to play competitive basketball. Sacramento has not made the Western Conference Playoffs in a decade. Woodson, Del Negro, and McHale have all led teams to the NBA Playoffs as respected NBA head coaches. Expect these three men to be finalists for the vacancy in Sacramento.
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