The departure of Roland Beech is concerning

Roland Beech and the Sacramento Kings have parted ways, and Kings fans are left trying to figure out what it means. We’re working off of a single tweet from Adrian Wojnarowski, and all it specifies is that Beech is leaving the Kings. We don’t know if Beech was fired, if he quit, or if his contract was simply up and the two sides decided not to renew it. But we know one thing; it’s part of a larger pattern.

In July 2015, Vlade Divac fired Dean Oliver, who had been with the Kings for about a year. In August the Kings hired Beech to fill Oliver’s vacated role. The firing of Oliver caused a backlash against the organization, but the narrative of “Vlade doesn’t like analytics” was mostly silenced when Beech was hired. We still wondered if Beech would be truly empowered in the front office.

But it’s been a long time since Beech has been mentioned. We’ve heard nothing of his impact in the front office. To be fair, we haven’t heard of any clashes either. But this is another intelligent basketball mind that came to Sacramento and left a short while later.

And, as our own BabyGiraffe pointed out, it’s part of a much larger pattern.

Are we making too much out of the normal offseason movement within an NBA front office? Perhaps. But we’ve seen so much instability here that any departure is viewed as a canary in the coal mine. And as fans that endured so much with this ownership group, I don’t think it’s unfair for us to be concerned when we see a departure like this.

Roland Beech is a smart basketball mind. The Kings need more of that in the front office, not less. Even if this move is followed by another impressive hiring, the pattern alone is enough to be concerned about.