Stability in head coaching is one of the most underrated keys to success in professional sports. Shuffling through eight coaches in nine seasons is a recipe for disaster, and if you don’t believe that, then look no further than the Kings’ 234-459 record over that time.
While the Pittsburgh Steelers have had just three head coaches since 1969, the Kings have pumped through three in the 2014-15 season, and there are still 29 games remaining. Good hires, bad hires, they all run together now in a sea of ever-changing ideas.
“I think stability is incredibly invaluable in sports and you study the franchises that have belief in stability and see their success and then you study the franchises that have tried this other system and their failure – stability works,” new head coach George Karl said following his introductory press conference this week.
Sacramento has had a long history of swapping out its leader. Outside of the Rick Adelman era, only Garry St. Jean coached more than four seasons in the team’s 30-year stint in the capital city. Sixteen head head coaches in 30 years tells you almost everything you need to know about the team’s tenure in Sacramento.
Take away the brilliant eight-year run by Adelman and the Kings don’t even have a winning season you can point to. That’s 22 seasons of sub-.500 ball.
For players, it’s brutal. Jason Thompson has seen six coaches go in his seventh seasons in the league. Newly hired George Karl is the seventh frontman with whom he has to build a relationship in as many years.
The inconsistency has stymied the growth of one of the franchise’s longest-tenured players. How would you like to start over with a new boss, a new system and new competition every year on the job?
“It’s not easy,” Thompson told Cowbell Kingdom. “It takes a lot of talking to people, veteran guys to try and get through it. You try to be as professional as possible, because you know with a new system – offensively, defensively, the coach is going to look at the player differently than they may have with other coaches.”
“It’s not the easiest, but you’ve got to play through that and learn each time,” Thompson added.
With George Karl, the Kings are trying to give Thompson and his teammates something they have never had. He is the first coach with a realistic opportunity to coach out a four-year contract and, if his health holds, maybe even more.
In his last three stops, Karl has stayed a minimum of six seasons. Despite being labeled as a hard man to get along with, he has found a way to capture locker room after locker room.
“Basically, I’m kind of proud that I made it seven years in Seattle, six years in Milwaukee and nine years in Denver,” Karl said earlier in the week. “There’s a stability that doesn’t exist very much. I think stability comes from the coach, kind of being at least sane.”
If it’s going to work in Sacramento, ownership and management need to take a bit of a step back and give Karl room to breathe. General manager Pete D’Alessandro and his team worked with Karl in Denver. Not only do they know his process, but they know what types of players he needs to make it work. Synergy between coach and management appears obtainable.
“I don’t think you can win a championship in this league unless you have a unified organization as much as you have a unified basketball team,” Karl said. “With Pete, Mike (Bratz), Vivek (Ranadivé), I think we have a chance to not only be unified, but a very very trusting organization with each other.”
In their final season together with the Nuggets, Karl, D’Alessandro and Bratz helped lead Denver to a 57-25 record. But that wasn’t enough to keep the band together. Karl was let go, while D’Alessandro and Bratz took positions in Sacramento.
“What the organization didn’t understand is that the connection that team had was very, very important, because we liked each other, we trusted each other, we worked hard together with each other and the gym was a fun place to be,” Karl said. “We weren’t afraid. They threw that out thinking another coach is going to come in and play it right in.”
The results have been disastrous for the Nuggets. After Karl ran up a 423-249 record over eight-plus seasons in Denver, Brian Shaw has gone just 56-80 in a season and a half as his replacement. The Nuggets have gone from perennial playoff contender to seller at the trade deadline.
Sacramento is hoping that George Karl is the guy to finally stabilize the coaching carousel for the Kings. His four-year, $15 million deal says that he is planning to stick around, at least for a while.
After Friday’s win over the Celtics, Karl is just 203 wins away from Don Nelson’s all-time mark of 1,335 regular-season wins. If the veteran coach can get traction with this group of players in Sacramento, don’t be shocked if he sticks around long enough to steal away the record.
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