Sacramento Kings: Dean Oliver and the Personnel Side of Analytics

Ask anyone of substantial build — growing pains can come in waves, but are just part of the process of maturing. At this point, the Sacramento Kings‘ aches and pains might indicate their development into a towering behemoth. Well, perhaps one ought to hold off on such high expectations.

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The latest change in the Kings’ frame is the subtraction of the team’s statistical guru, Dean Oliver. The respected league consultant, whose acumen earned him the title of ‘director of player personnel and head of analytics,’ was brought into the organization last October during the tenure of then-general manager Pete D’Alessandro.

One of the pioneering members of the basketball’s still-blooming metrics movement, Oliver spent time with the Seattle SuperSonics [moment of silence] during the early- to mid-2000s, moving to the Denver Nuggets during George Karl‘s reign as head coach, leaving in 2011 to join ESPN as their director of production analytics.

When he was brought into the Kings’ front office in 2014, new owner Vivek Ranadive was looking to install a culture of higher basketball learning, based on the kind of rapidly-applicable figures and statistical patterns that would (ideally) turn the team’s losing ways around. This model, championed to great effect by Western Conference powers like Houston and Dallas, appeared a stable solution which would assure some necessarily measurable results. Appearances, though, can be needlessly cruel. Since his arrival, things in Sacramento have been in perpetual motion, with key figures coming and going while Oliver remained in his highly valuable post. The collection of heady and highly rational figures that made up Ranadive’s post-tech-sector brainchild rapidly became just a body count for the small market that seemed to kill off its best and brightest.

Now, with vice president Vlade Divac‘s dominant influence clearly established, Oliver’s tenure has been truncated. This tidbit was broken by small Rome-based basketball news site Sportando.com, then later seconded by more conventional NBA sources like Marc Stein and Bill Herenda. While the headline proved to be true, what seems less clear is Sportando’s assertion that Vlade Divac cut Oliver loose due to a wholesale rejection of basketball’s analytical culture.

This assertion seems like an unfounded addendum to a quite brief footnote in recent Kings history. Though he seems to have kept himself at more of a respectful distance from Divac’s operation than D’Alessandro’s, Vivek Ranadive simply would not have hired a vice president of basketball operations who was not at least sympathetic to his desire to utilize analytics and data in decision-making. Though he came in as a connection to Kings glories of yesteryear (which have been absent since yesterdecade), this cannot have been a 180-degree spin from someone who has dedicated his professional life to technology and data management.

While Divac may have made a decisive move in parting with one of basketball analytics’ foremost developers, this need not be read as a philosophical move, but a personal one. Divac has likely been anxious to bring in a hand-picked group to complete his front office, and is likely seeking a trusted source to deliver him statistical information in ways that can work for him. Part of running a successful organization which melds qualitative and quantitative analysis to put out a compelling entertainment product (something the Kings will hopefully bring to market in the near future) is balancing the packaging with the materials. Oliver’s quantitative pedigree is, by nature of his resume, unimpeachable.

That said, the things which he’s worked so hard to make a part of the vocabulary of basketball operation are no longer unique to him. His once-novel paradigm is now that of the entire enlightened portion of the professional and amateur basketball worlds. It’s only fair to allow Divac to bring in a confidant who can mesh well with him personally, someone whom he trusts to provide the right analysis by asking the right questions. The back-and-forth in a comfortable arrangement like that seems more likely to build stability and long-term progress than the Scotch-taping together of experts that has defined Ranadive’s Kings up to this point.

With news that Vlade’s former teammate and Kings All-Star Peja Stojaković has been offered a role in the Kings organization, we may see more welcome faces in the front office. One wonders how long head coach George Karl can be part of Divac’s smoother dynamic. The man, by his nature, is not smooth – even in the winter of his career. Divac and Ranadive may not have the patience to deal with a coach who mars their designs. How far Vlade the Uniter will go to execute his vision will determine both Karl’s longevity, and ultimately, the success of the Kings over the next several years.

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