Kings planning on talking to David Blatt and Ettore Messina about their coaching position

The Kings coaching search is continuing to add names to bring for formal interviews and yesterday the Sacramento Bee's Jason Jones reported that the Kings will be bringing in former Cavaliers coach David Blatt for an interview this week.  Blatt was fired from the Cavaliers after a 30-11 start following a run to the NBA finals in his first year as coach last year.  There have been multiple rumors that Blatt was let go because he had lost the respect of his players with the way he treated his stars, particularly LeBron James.

Before Blatt came to Cleveland to coach the Cavaliers, he was one of the most successful coaches in Europe, primarily in Israel but also with stints in Russia (where he coached the national team) and Italy.

The Kings are interviewing another former European coach this week as well in Spurs assistant Ettore Messina per Jones:

Kings do plan to speak with Spurs assistant coach Ettore Messina this week, too.

— Jason Jones (@mr_jasonjones) May 2, 2016

Who knows if this means Messina will come to Sacramento during an off-day of their series or if it's just a courtesy phone call but I am glad that the Kings are at least getting a chance to speak to Messina.  Messina was widely speculated to be after the Lakers job, where he started in the NBA as an assistant a few years ago, but that opening was almost immediately offered to Warriors assistant Luke Walton, who took the job soon after.

In other coaching news, the Indiana Pacers were eliminated yesterday, which means the Kings are now free to interview Nate McMillan (a Pacers assistant) for their coaching position as he apparently was waiting for the playoffs to be over before doing any interviews.