The Sacramento Kings Are ‘Team Turmoil’
The Sacramento Kings introduced George Karl as their third new coach in this season alone. The terms of the deal were not disclosed which, according to NBA.com, is team policy. Karl, as the sixth-winningest coach in NBA history, brings a long track record of success, including a trip to the NBA Finals with the Seattle SuperSonics, but his last coaching job in Denver ended ironically with his firing the same year he won the NBA Coach of the Year Award in 2013.
In his press conference, Karl noted the following, below.
“Winning is not an easy process.”
Karl seems to be displaying a penchant for understatement. The Sacramento Kings are the new team turmoil as they have a multitude of issues to solve before they could possibly focus on becoming a winning team — much less a title contender.
The first issue is to bring coaching stability to the Kings, who fired Mike Malone in December. Sacramento then fired interim coach Tyrone Corbin after only 27 games, which Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy declared as “inexcusable” for one of the league’s “class acts,” according to the Detroit Free Press. This was partly due to their well documented courtship of Karl while also expecting Corbin to continue to win games. That lack of direction from the coach can easily be considered a major factor in the Kings’ losing record at this point in the season.
With the belief that the Kings had enough talent to “win now,” Karl stated that he looked forward to working with Sacramento’s best player, Demarcus Cousins, despite Cousins’ less-than-stellar reputation. It should be readily apparent the next major issue is the success of the relationship between Karl and Cousins, which will go a long way to determining the future for the Sacramento Kings.
ESPN’s First Take aired a lengthy segment about the likely outcome of the relationship between Karl and Cousins.
After the firing of Mike Malone in December, Cousins had to defend himself from accusations that he got the coach fired in a report from NBCSports.com.
“I wasn’t consulted when the decision was made to fire Mike Malone and I’m not being consulted now.”
Cousins would go on to say that he was looking for the turmoil surrounding the Kings to come to an end soon, and the focus could return to just basketball.
“I just hope they make a decision soon and stick with it.”
The next area of turmoil for Karl to solve is the likely roster reshuffling, as this season is lost with their current losing record of 18-34, which is too deep a hole to climb out of in the ultra-competitive Western Conference. Karl increased the turmoil when he said, as reported in the Sacramento Bee, his goal for the rest of this season is as follows.
“Play the game at a better level …”
Rant Sports is reporting the most likely scenario for a trade is for rookie Nik Stauskas to be paired with another player to get an upgrade for the immediate future. The next rumor currently circulating is that Derrick Williams or Jason Thompson may be traded for the Bucks’ Ersan Ilyasova and Detroit’s own Jonas Jerebko.
If Karl is successful at bringing an end to all of the turmoil surrounding the Sacramento Kings, then it will not be long before Kings’ fans are reliving the glory days of Chris Webber and Rick Adelman.
[Photo by: Brian Bahr/Getty Images]
