Sacramento Kings: Analyzing Roland Beech
As the 2015-16 season looms in the distance, the Sacramento Kings organization is consolidating the regime change that took up the entirety of the previous year. Though on-court upgrades have been touted by fans and the Kings themselves, the less showy alterations are an integral part of vice president Vlade Divac‘s continuing transformation of the team’s culture. The hiring of new analytics chief Roland Beech is such a move.
Less than a month ago, the front office ended their relationship with analytics pioneer and widely respected basketball mind Dean Oliver. This was viewed by some as a sign that Divac was shunning the institutionalization of metrics-based analysis — a suggestion that one could attribute to the initial reporting on Oliver’s firing, courtesy of Sportando.com.
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At the time, this became the overriding tone of Dean’s exit, and the ensuing rush to write Divac off as a giant basketball caveman seemed to be a tad hasty. Given team majority owner Vivek Ranadive’s espousal of quantitative analysis in his organization, the idea that he would have so hurriedly hired and empowered someone completely at odds with that orientation seemed ludicrous.
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As I wrote at the time of Oliver’s departure, it was more likely that Vlade Divac’s intent was to bring in someone not just with a stellar resume, but someone whom he had hand-selected to provide him with keen, honest insights. Not every front office is home to a Daryl Morey (of the Houston Rockets), someone with a statistical analysis background and a general manager title.
Roland Beech brings a distinct background to the Kings’ operations, and his own storied past in the league. For the previous six seasons, Beech has been under the employ of one Mark Cuban. During his time with the Dallas Mavericks, Beech served during the team’s 2010-11 championship season and their NBA Finals run against the Miami Heat in 2006.
During the 2010-11 season, Beech served as an assistant coach, providing detailed briefings and consultation to head coach Rick Carlisle. What exactly did that entail?
Vlade Divac’s intent was to bring in someone not just with a stellar resume, but someone whom he had hand-selected to provide him with keen, honest insights.
Beech was heavily involved in finding key patterns that would give the Mavericks an edge not only by maximizing their positives, but by locating pressure points for the Big Three-era Heat, and attacking them in ways that would amplify their mistakes.
Given the disposition of many Mavericks’ players, coaching leadership, and team ownership, Beech had considerable reign despite his somewhat exotic background. Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Terry, Corey Brewer, Jason Kidd, Rick Carlisle, Mark Cuban — all these key personnel had a chip on their shoulders from past NBA Finals missed, titles lost, and slights given. They were amenable to the hard science of basketball metrics, likely because they knew their resentments and yearning alone could not inspire a victory.
Beech spoke about how the less glamorous Mavericks successfully challenged the Pat Riley-slick Heat in this year’s MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. If you’re at all interested in breakdowns of championships from a logistical standpoint, this discussion is worth your while.
Since player personnel and coaching were paramount in Beech’s success with the Mavericks, it’s worth considering the similarities and differences between the Mavericks and Kings. Though Mark Cuban and Vivek Ranadive are both basketball nuts for whom their respective teams are passion projects, those teams have had different fates during the last few years.
Ranadive is seemingly restraining himself from input in basketball operations, and seems more than content to hire a particular central figure (Divac, as it stands) to smooth over the frictions of professional sport. Cuban, though he seems to have relatively mellowed in his old age, has always been a fuming fixture of the team’s successes and failures. George Karl and Rick Carlisle are both headstrong, but Carlisle is much more a weight to be thrust upon and lifted off of his players.
Carlisle is, by nature, someone who pulls and pushes players into and out of the spotlight depending on matchups. This was reinforced during his and Beech’s time with the Mavericks, and having Beech’s numbers to back up his aesthetic instincts likely helped make the difference in the 2010-21 season, if not through their entire shared tenure.
Karl is known for emphasizing principles over tactical minutae, and though he preaches unselfish play (he’s a Dean Smith disciple, after all), he often prefers to push the speed at which things are happening more than the particular Xs and Os. Were he to buy into Beech’s perceptions of what made individual players more effective in certain situations, it’s hard to know how Karl would be able to both translate that into his own emotionally resonant, old-school patois.
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Balancing that with how Karl often clashes with players, it may be a pick-any-two scenario with Beech’s numbers, Karl’s implementation and team harmony. Beech and Karl may be on the same page, but their collaborations may alienate them from DeMarcus Cousins and Rajon Rondo (the two who come to mind where rifts are concerned).
Karl and his players may find a fluid, fast rhythm with which they are comfortable, but it may be less efficient than Beech would have seen come about in Dallas. Beech may find that the players are willing to buy into his numbers, but they may alter Karl’s wistful designs.
Ultimately, Beech’s role with the Kings will be more muted than it was with the Mavericks. That said, his role is different. Rather than looking to enhance a solid Western Conference playoff team into a perennial power, Beech will be fishing for his dinner in far murkier waters in his new role. That could give him a crowning achievement: helping to psuh one of the least inspiring squads into the playoffs after a few seasons.
It could also present him with a letdown that has likely drifted through his brilliant mind.
Next: Sacramento Kings: Grading The Offseason
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