Breaking News: George Karl has been relieved of his duties as head coach of the Sacramento Kings and will go down as the eighth coach to exit the job during the last 10 seasons.
The post Rick Adelman era hasn’t treated the Kings organization well and just when many thought bringing in a guy with a Hall of Fame resume would catapult Sacramento back into the playoffs, the complete opposite happened.
Karl ranks fifth all-time in the NBA for most wins, achieving 1175 regular season victories over a 27-year career. But his relationship with his best player and coaching style were not good enough to end the Kings’ drought of not making the playoffs in the past decade.
The roster Vlade Divac assembled clearly left many in the “what if” phase because the Kings were out-coached in at least 10 games this season. Sacramento could’ve had 10 more victories this season if the coaching and execution was at least above average down the stretch of those specific games.
I’m not blaming Karl entirely because that certainly wouldn’t be fair, but he was as much a major factor in Sacramento’s unsuccessful season as All-Star DeMarcus Cousins and the organization as a whole.
I won’t go deep into why Cousins or the organization was at fault because that’s a different story for another day but what is clear is that Karl’s system did not fit the personnel of this current roster. And the lack of making adjustments really jeopardized his team’s chances of pushing for a playoff spot.
After nearly pulling the plug on Karl in Brooklyn after a 128-119 loss to the Nets, the Kings decided not to and this never-ending saga continued past the All-Star break where many thought his tenure was sure to end. I was covering the game in Brooklyn and Boston; trust me when I say the atmosphere surrounding the team wasn’t pleasant at all.
After the Brooklyn loss, Cousins expressed his feelings in very typical fashion.
I don’t like watching interviews where vibes were extremely negative but it had to be done in order for all this to make sense.
They allowed 18 made threes that night to the Nets and 46 points to the Celtics in the first quarter on Super Bowl Sunday. Things were not looking so well for Karl, which is why many thought the Karl experiment would end nearly at the one-year mark.
Nope! After considering the lack of coaching stability and guaranteed money owed to Karl, he was given the final 30 games to turn things around and get the team into the playoffs. That didn’t happen. Although the team played better down the stretch, one can argue that it came at a meaningless time where the opposing team didn’t have much to play for and the Kings had nothing to lose.
Also, the unwillingness to play Willie Cauley-Stein and Seth Curry consistently during the meaningful part of the season gave the Kings a little bit of an edge down the stretch when these two players did get a chance to shine. Again, that was on Karl.
Karl won’t walk away asking for government help to survive like many do when getting fired because he was fortunate enough to have signed a four-year deal, worth $14.5 million in February of 2015. Oh yeah, let’s not forget that $11 million was guaranteed.
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Look, each camp will respectively have their side of the story and many can argue that Karl never had a fair shot in Sacramento, but what you can’t ignore is the stubbornness to cater to a team that was assembled to feed Cousins in the post and grind out games just as Michael Malone’s team would.
I get it, egos were involved but a coach of Karl’s pedigree should’ve had the capacity to make the necessary adjustments to make the season successful. It ended salty and in blowout fashion with eight players dressed to play in Houston yesterday.
That specifically wasn’t Karl’s fault but the elimination from playoff contention at least mentally a month before the season ended bestowed the front office to elect to “tank” and have a better shot at having a draft selection in the upcoming NBA draft.
The Karl experiment has ended and now some of the names being mentioned in the coaching search are Tom Thibodeau, Scott Brooks, Jay Larranaga, David Blatt, Kenny Atkinson, Jeff Hornacek, Jeff Van Gundy and Vinny Del Negro.
Whoever Divac hires, at least it will be the first time the General Manager will have the pleasure to choose his guy in the Vivek Ranadive era. That’s a move in the right direction and if you’re a fan of this team, structure in this organization has to be a welcoming sight after a decade of mediocrity.
As for Karl, he will go down as one of the best to ever coach in the regular season but parting ways was written on the wall since the start of his short tenure. Moving on and accepting this experiment as a failure will benefit both Karl and the organization in the long run.
How so? Karl will get the rest he needs to take care of his health and continue to enjoy his family with the nice check he earned from the Kings and the organization will get a clean slate as they start a new era at the Golden 1 Center next season with a new head coach.
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