Sacramento Kings owner Vivek Ranadive recently gave a lengthy interview about his short time leading the team. In it, Ranadive seemed to deflect much of the blame for his team’s shortcomings from himself. The Kings owner speaks a lot about issues from management and coaches but not much about himself.
Well, one former Kings’ executive is not having it. Geoff Petrie, who ran the Kings for a long time before Ranadivé’s arrival and only a short time afterwards, did not take kindly to that interview.
Petrie had the following to say to Kevin Draper of Deadspin:
Petrie wrote that Ranadivé’s interview was a “sophomoric attempt at revisionist history,” and that the “representations regarding Keith Smart, myself, and our professional staff” were in fact “an ugly lie.”
Deadspin: What did you think about Vivek’s interview with Sam Amick?
Geoff Petrie: Well, like I said in my email, I thought it was kind of a rambling attempt at revisionist history. A lot of what he said doesn’t really … if you look back on the three-and-a-half years that he’s been the managing owner, it doesn’t really fit with a lot of the history. The main reason I reached out, [the interview] is long and covered a lot of territory, but when it comes to some of the representations about myself and Keith Smart and the management group that was there at that time, it was basically totally untrue, what was represented there.
Deadspin: Do you know how many of those people were retained, or how they were treated, the people below the top people on the basketball side, the people most of us wouldn’t have ever heard of?
Petrie: None of them ever really … they basically slaughtered a high percentage of them without any discussion or … a bunch of supplicants came in after Pete was hired, and they basically cleaned house. They kept a few people, but most of them were gone within a year. And the situation with Shareef [Abdur-Rahim] was, who happens to be one of the classiest people you’ll ever run across, was … really deplorable.
There’s a lot more from this interview and it’s definitely worth a read.
It’s hard not to agree with Petrie. Vivek Ranadive has been notoriously known for meddling in front office decisions and it has shown in the Kings’ lack of success during his tenure. Any comments leaning otherwise don’t really change that fact.
