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Alvin Gentry will replace Luke Walton as the head coach of the Sacramento Kings on an interim basis, according to a report from Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN. Walton’s former assistant Doug Christie was also reportedly in the mix for the job.
Sources: Alvin Gentry will become the Kings’ interim coach. Gentry is already under contract through 2022-2023, gets a raise to take interim job and agreement on some benchmarks of success rest of this season with team to try and keep job longer.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) November 21, 2021
Gentry was brought on as Walton’s assistant in Oct. 2020 after being let go by the New Orleans Pelicans earlier in the year. At the time of Gentry’s hire, it was believed that he would be Walton’s eventual replacement and whether or not that was actually Monte McNair’s plan when he hired him, it ended up that way.
The Kings will be the fifth team Gentry has been the head coach of. At his last stop, he posted a winning percentage of 43.8% over 400 games. Overall, Gentry has a winning percentage of 46.2% in the regular season and 56.7% in the postseason.
Like Walton, Gentry served on Steve Kerr’s Golden State Warriors coaching staff, but unlike Walton, Gentry has a reputation for being an offensive-minded coach. It will be interesting to see if Gentry can get the Kings back to where they were at their best stretches last year while keeping them servicable enough on defense to compete.
Through 17 games, the Kings are 6-11 with an offensive rating of 108.9 and a defensive rating of 110.5.
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