In the early years of Vivek Ranadive‘s ownership of the Sacramento Kings, he addressed the issues surrounding the franchise and made controversial decisions.
One of them is the firing of then-head coach Mike Malone, which became an unpopular move for fans and DeMarcus Cousins.
The 59-year-old businessman defended his decision to fire the current Denver Nuggets bench boss during an interview with Sam Amick of USA Today citing that Malone and the Kings' former general manager Pete D'Alessandro never got along ever since they started working together.
“From day one, (D'Alessandro) and (Malone) didn't get along. They hated each other's guts. They didn't even want to share an assistant.”
Ranadive also explained that he played the role of peacemaker when the front office executive wanted to show the door to Malone right on the get-go, and pleaded for things to be ironed out first before settling for that drastic step.
“They tried to fire (Malone) right from the get-go, and I was peacemaker. These two guys, they never spoke. They hated each other. They hated each other's guts. It was like one person would say one thing, and then the other person would say another thing.
“And they wanted to get rid of him very early on, and I was the one who said, ‘No, no, let's make it work. Let's make it work.'”
Almost two years after the firing, the Northern California team has since seen two other head coaches follow suit before hiring Dave Joerger. D'Alessandro moved on and is now part of the Nuggets' organization as their general manager, where he hired Malone and even introduced him as their new coach during a press conference last year.
At the end of the day, seeing Mike Malone and Pete D'Alessandro together as if nothing bad happened certainly adds more question to their former employer's story.
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