Monday Musings: Monte McNair shows patience, discipline and aggression

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Monte McNair walked into Saturday’s press conference with a spring in his step and a smirk on his face. In a matter of three days, he had completely reshaped his roster and landed the first All-Star in Sacramento since DeMarcus Cousins exited during the 2017 season.

This was a moment for McNair. He shared the stage with no one. The moves that he made came from a team of front office personnel, including Wes Wilcox, Ken Catanella and Joe Dumars. 

The fact that McNair was on a stage with only one microphone spoke volumes. This is McNair’s team now and he just bought himself plenty of time to mold this roster in his image.

As McNair began to speak, he did his due diligence and thanked everyone involved. He also took a moment to reiterate some of the things that he preached when he took the job in September of 2020.

“When we first kinda met as a group, I guess, man, almost 18 months ago now, I said, we want to be aggressive, but patient, we need to be disciplined and we’ll be strategic while building out the talent base here, but when the opportunity presented itself that we would take a swing,” McNair said on Saturday. “I think at both deadlines we’ve seen a little bit of the discipline, and now we’ve seen a little bit of the aggression.”

Make no mistake, McNair showed patience. We could argue that he showed too much patience, but the goal was never for a quick fix. Building a lasting winner has only happened once in the 37 years the Kings have called Sacramento home.

It takes calculated risks and a lot of luck. You can’t gamble, because a misstep for the Kings can lead to years of setbacks.

With the 2021-22 season completely spinning out of control, McNair heard the murmurs about his seat getting hot. This is where discipline joins the conversation.

McNair came into the season with plenty of movable contracts and assets at his disposal. He waited out the Philadelphia 76ers on the Ben Simmons front and moved away from his former mentor when Daryl Morey clearly had unreasonable demands.

48 hours before the deadline, and with his team in the midst of another tailspin, the discipline paid off. 

It’s unknown who came to who with the trade parameters, but the Kings and Pacers had been in contact for the weeks and even months leading up to the February 10, NBA trade deadline. 

This is where the aggression kicked in.

It doesn’t always happen this way, but the Kings and Pacers both gave up something of tremendous value. Tyrese Haliburton is about as likable a player as you will find in the NBA. He has an incredible skill set and there is potential for him to become one of the great assist men in the game.

Buddy Hield and Tristan Thompson were cap fillers in this trade and maybe even less than that when you consider the two years and roughly $40 million remaining on Hield’s contract.

The true asset was Haliburton and his value was so high to the Pacers that the Kings were able to acquire a 25-year-old two-time All-Star in Domantas Sabonis without giving up a first round pick.

“Ty is a fantastic player as we all know and certainly a fantastic person as well,” McNair said. “And this league is tough. We know we have to give up talent to get talent, and any move can be viewed as a roll of the dice, but our job is to make those decisions that we think put us in the best place to succeed going forward.”

Indiana is resetting their roster. They are tearing things down and Haliburton is a perfect player to rebuild around. He’s bright, engaging and an instant fan favorite.

There isn’t a Kings fan out there that is celebrating Haliburton’s departure and if there is, they don’t know basketball. In case you need a reminder of what Haliburton brought to the table, he scribed a letter Monday morning on The Players Tribune, which should be required reading.

The fact is, the Kings were in a dark place. They needed an epic shake up and they needed a star to build around. 

Golden 1 Center has become a ghost town and the play on the court, even with Haliburton thriving, wasn’t good enough. In fact, it was downright unwatchable for much of the season.

In trading for Sabonis, McNair has reinvigorated the remaining players. The difference between what we saw for the first 56 games and how the team has played over their last two contests is stunning. 

It’s a small sample size for sure, but even in the 96 minutes of total action, you can see the difference. When Sabonis steps off the court, the Kings go back to who they were before the trade and it’s not good. It’s boring and lackadaisical. It’s unacceptable.

The roster hasn’t fully adjusted and all of this will take time, but it’s easy to see how different types of players can fit around Sabonis. He makes his teammates better in a unique way and it won’t be hard to find players that want to play alongside him.

If there was one concern about Sabonis, it was that he is only under contract for two more seasons. Trading away Haliburton without team control of Sabonis is a scary proposition, but one that the big man tried to squash the moment he stepped in the door.

“Since the second I came into the NBA, I figured out the hard way that this is a business, I got traded on draft night and then a year later got traded again,” Sabonis said at his introductory press conference. “I’m just trying to find a home where I’m loved. I want to come out and compete everyday and I feel like I found it here. I love it here and I just want to keep playing and getting wins.” 

These are amazing words, but let’s see how they hold up a year from now when Sabonis is eligible for a massive contract extension. This is the new challenge for McNair. He needs to quickly build around his star big man and keep him happy. 

That should be viewed as a good challenge and a good thing for Kings fans who have been waiting the last 15 seasons for a postseason berth. This isn’t about the 2021-22 season. It’s about building a sustainable winner and Sabonis should be able to be a part of that.

“I think for us, we’ve stated our goal, not to just get to the playoffs, but then stay there,” McNair said. “Someone like Domas, who’s been on an All-Star team twice, but is still at an age where he can be a part of not just the team that gets us to the playoffs, but the team that can win a round and win another round and be part of hopefully a long playoff run here, to us, that’s huge.”

McNair wasn’t done. In addition to bringing in Sabonis and his teammates Justin Holiday and Jeremy Lamb in the swap with the Pacers, the Kings made a second move to add a long-time team target in Donte DiVincenzo, as well as Josh Jackson and Trey Lyles.

Interim head coach Alvin Gentry has a tall task of integrating six new players into the fold, while developing an identity and potentially chasing a play-in or even playoff spot in the Western Conference. But these moves were incredibly necessary.

The first 18 months of the Monte McNair regime were hard to watch. He made a pair of nice draft selections, but other than that, the biggest transaction he was known for was the one he didn’t make when he allowed Bogdan Bogdanovic to escape to the Atlanta Hawks.

That is no longer the case. McNair showed incredible patience. He showed remarkable discipline. And when the moment was right, he was aggressive in a way that may have completely reshaped the trajectory of the Kings’ franchise.

McNair isn’t done. He still has a huge task in front of him, but there is light at the end of the tunnel for the first time in years in Sacramento. The Kings still have cap flexibility. They still have moveable veteran assets and they still have all of their draft picks.

The wait was excruciating, but stage 1 of returning the Kings to prominence is complete. After watching the last week unfold, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t completely fascinated to see what McNair comes up with next.