Kings to hire longtime NBA executive as next GM

The Kings are finalizing a contract with veteran NBA executive Scott Perry to be their new general manager, reports Shams Charania of ESPN (via X).

Charania’s report has been confirmed by several other outlets, including The Athletic, Yahoo Sports, Fox 40 Sacramento, and TheKingsBeat.com (All X links here).

Sacramento and former GM Monte McNair mutually agreed to part ways after the team was eliminated from the play-in tournament on Wednesday night.

The Athletic recently reported that Perry was the front-runner to replace McNair. Mere hours later, he will be rejoining the Kings, having previously served as the team’s VP of basketball operations from April-June 2017.

Perry’s first stint with Sacramento was brief because he was hired away by New York to be the Knicks’ GM, but he reportedly had a strong working relationship with owner Vivek Ranadive. That connection undoubtedly helped him land his new position.

Perry, 61, played college basketball in the 1980s and then transitioned to coaching, primarily working in his home state of Michigan. The Detroit native got his first NBA job back in 2000 as an executive with the Pistons.

He had two separate stints in Detroit’s front office and also worked for Seattle, Orlando, Sacramento and New York. Perry was the Knicks’ GM from 2017-23.

The Kings haven’t even conducted their exit interviews yet, tweets Sam Amick of The Athletic, yet they’ve already found a new head of basketball operations. Perhaps the impetus for hiring Perry so quickly is that he was rumored to be a candidate to join the Pelicans’ front office under Joe Dumars, his former boss and longtime colleague in Detroit.

Perry, who has also worked as an ESPN analyst, was reportedly one of four front-runners last year to become the Pistons’ head of basketball operations. Trajan Langdon was ultimately hired for the job.