Billy King was on The Rights to Ricky Sanchez this past weekend and had a few interesting nuggets which perhaps are well-known, but I have not been paying attention to him:
-The KG/Pierce deal with the Celtics was done with the idea that they would basically have a 2-year window with those guys, and then would spend in FA and/or whatever they needed to do financially. Then Russia invaded Ukraine, Russians got hit with sanctions, and Prokhorov's appetite/ability to spend was significantly hampered, thereby torpedoing the plan.
-When King was with the Sixers, he talked with Pat Croce and/or Ed Snider every day and had a running dialogue about all the things that he was thinking about the team, so the decision-making process was easy and straight-forward. Prokhorov on the other hand spent most of his time in Moscow and had no cell phone and no e-mail. Anything that King needed communicated would go through Prokhorov's right-hand man, Dmitri. King never really knew exactly what Dmitri said to Prokohorov and/or what his thought process was with anything. They only had 1 face-to-face meeting in 5 and a half years: the day that Prokorov fired him.
-His final trade as GM of the Sixers was, in fact, the acquisition of the titular Rights to Ricky Sanchez.
