SACRAMENTO – Midway through last season, former Kings coach Dave Joerger was sitting courtside at the Golden 1 Center before a February home game when he decided to make light of a subject that was weighing heavily on the Kings’ long-struggling franchise.



This was pre-tipoff in the NBA, that time when hoops colleagues talk shop while players warm up and the crowd trickles in. And Joerger, the former Memphis Grizzlies coach who has been known to share his views on his team’s personnel in any setting, no matter who it might piss off, had an uncomfortable joke to share about the Dallas Mavericks’ Luka Doncic.



He had been chatting with a member of the Mavericks’ staff who was in town that day, and was seated near the general manager, Kings legend Vlade Divac, who was behind the choice to take big man Marvin Bagley III out of Duke with the No. 2 pick rather than the Slovenian sensation in Doncic. They were hardly alone on this front, as...