As the George Karl negotiations teeter on the brink of completion one moment and disaster the next, it’s time to acknowledge that this situation was completely avoidable. Hindsight is 20-20, but it didn’t take a crystal ball to see that firing Michael Malone without a plan in place was going to end in disaster.
There is a hot tub time machine somewhere out there that could erase the last two months of torture for Sacramento Kings fans. A “Way Back” or a “TARDIS” dressed up like British phone booth or maybe Doc Brown’s DeLorean? The Kings need a device that would allow us to unwind every minute of action, every mean tweet, every bit of #WeWantKarl.
That is what the Sacramento Kings ownership and management staff need right now. A way to cosmically undo a mistake. To rewind history and change one specific moment in time.
As we near the newly elongated All-Star break, the buzz is intensifying in Sacramento. This is a chance for the Kings to take a serious look at the direction of the club and try to stop the bleeding before even more damage is done.
The type of damage we are talking about has been done to the locker room, the television ratings and the season ticket base. The Kings had momentum on all of these fronts. And then to quote the great Geoff Petrie, someone took a “philosophical vacation.”
This is a hypothetical that will never come to fruition, but what if Vivek Ranadivé did the unthinkable? What if he shunned the circus surrounding Karl and asked Michael Malone to come back?
There is nothing that says that Malone would even listen to such ramblings, but what if he would? What if he would come back on a new three- or four-year deal and continue the amazing work he had started? What if his love for the players in the Kings’ locker room exceeded his misgivings about a group that cut his legs out from under him just two months earlier?
You can’t go home again. That is an NBA mantra, I believe. Sure, Phil Jackson took a hiatus from the Lakers, only to return and win more rings. But in the coaching world, that guy walks on water. He is an outlier. An aberration.
But maybe Malone is as well.
We don’t know if he was headed for greatness. It is too early in his tenure as a head coach to make such assessments. But we do know that the team was better with Malone than it is without. He was the captain of the ship, and without him, it’s heading for the ocean floor.
We also know that for the first time in his career, DeMarcus Cousins was buying what his coach was selling, and so were the other 13 men on the roster. If you need proof as to who changed the culture in the Kings’ locker room, just look at Cousins’ post-game comments from Thursday.
“It comes down to playing hard – get some pride, just have some self-respect, act like you care – that’s what it’s coming down to,” Cousins said. “The same team that was winning is the same team that’s in the locker room now – nothing’s changed but the attitude of these guys in the room. Everybody in this room, that’s the only thing that’s changed – our attitudes.”
If the Kings wanted a more exciting brand of basketball, they probably should have gone out and brought in players that play that style. This Kings team is built to punch people in the face. They are a team that had an identity as a bruising, rebounding, defensive-minded club.
Steph Curry and Klay Thompson aren’t walking through that door. And even if they did, who’s to say that Malone wouldn’t have figured out the right way to use them? The Kings needed a coach to put the pieces they had into a functioning puzzle, and that is what Malone accomplished in his short stint this season.
So many people want George Karl hired, but they haven’t considered that the Kings don’t have the pieces to make just any system work. If you really looked at Sacramento’s roster, Kings fans should be begging for Jeff Van Gundy, Mike Fratello or dare I say Michael Malone.
The Kings need shooters and passers. They need multi-dimensional, high-basketball IQ players who can do more than just run and jump.
The idea of “positionless basketball” is nothing new, especially in Sacramento. Petrie was known for his ability to find players who could fit in anywhere. Players who weren’t just athletes, but thinkers as well. The Kings have a few of those pieces in place, but they need so many more.
Everyone outside the walls of the team is clamoring for change. That’s what happens when your team loses 11 of 12 games and falls 15 games under .500 with 34 games remaining.
But what they should be asking for is the chance to go back in time. To give Malone the chance to continue the progress he made and for the front office to add complimentary pieces along the way.
There may have come a time when Malone proved unworthy of taking the team to the next level, but that time wasn’t Dec. 14, 2014.
An entire Sunday Musings on science fiction. But this is the NBA, where you can’t go back. That would make too much sense. Instead, everyone must suffer through the final three months of the season praying that it doesn’t get worse.
We must all live in a universe where Michael Malone is no longer the head coach of the Sacramento Kings and wonder what might have been. Be it Corbin or Karl or someone else, it didn’t have to be this way. This season didn’t have to play out like this.
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