I will be honest, I am extremely disappointed that Vlade Divac was forced out of the GM role before he had a chance to see if his vision would work, but not at all surprised. When he took over the job from Pete D’Alessandro in 2015, the franchise was in such disarray that I doubt anyone would have wanted to step into that dumpster fire. It would have been a career killer for sure. Pete was clearly in over his head and had shown that he really was not loyal to the city and fans of Sacramento.

Cue the dude on the white horse. Vlade was one of the few guys who loved the team, the city, and the fans enough to take the role and put his heart into it. Unfortunately, the NBA world was not interested in an awkward Euro with a thick accent who appeared bumbling and confused when trying to hold a simple press conference. The NBA fraternity of cookie-cutter GMs dismissed him as a clueless joke and stopped taking the Kings seriously whenever dealing with them.

Divac was far from clueless, but the optics did not look good and the prejudicial opinions had already been established. Bringing in Brandon Williams to be the public face of the front office did not help much as it was still known that Vlade called the shots from behind the curtain.

After Williams was fired in 2019, Joe Dumars was brought in as the new "face with street cred" in the front office, but Vlade would not relinquish his power and the struggles obviously continued. I can only hope that Dumars is willing to fully embrace this team, this city, and this fan base, or he too will be tarred, feathered, and run out of town just like Pete D.

At least Vlade brought this city the glory years of the early 2000s, and he will always be loved for that. Joe has not done anything for Sacramento, so he will be entirely judged on what he does moving forward from here. Good luck dude. This is Sacramento, it is a different game out here.