Back in July, during NBA Summer League, Grantland’s Zach Lowe tweeted out some version of the following question regarding the Sacramento Kings: “So, um, does anyone have any idea what the Sacramento Kings are doing?” Lowe later dedicated an entire column to the Kings, outlining their strategy (Draft 3.0!) as the franchise attempts to pick itself up off the pile of NBA have-nots. Five months later, not only do we not have an answer to that original question, we have even more questions.
In case you missed it Sunday night, the Sacramento Kings fired head coach Mike Malone after just 106 games. The move was somewhat shocking — on the surface — considering Malone had the Kings looking like playoff contenders early on, with DeMarcus Cousins playing like a bona fide All-Star and Rudy Gay — Cousins’ Team USA running mate — not being an offensive black hole. Unfortunately, Cousins has missed the last nine games due to viral meningitis, and the Kings have gone 2-7 in that stretch to dip below .500. Losing a player like Cousins would be tough for any coach to overcome, but it provided a convenient excuse for Kings management to give Malone the axe.
Malone’s replacement, Ty Corbin, isn’t any better, but he at least will have been promoted with the blessings of the current front office regime of Pete D’Alessandro and Chris Mullin (owner Vivek Ranadive hired Malone before hiring a general manager and president, which is usually a recipe for disaster). Other names being tossed around as potential permanent solutions are Vinny Del Negro and George Karl, meaning installing Corbin to play out the remainder of this season would be a colossal waste of everyone’s team. For those of you who enjoy unintentional comedy, Vinny D is the obvious choice. For those of you who prefer an exciting brand of basketball and first round playoff exits, Karl is your man.
Whoever the long term solution ends up being (even Mullin’s name is being tossed around as of this afternoon), he’ll probably have to buy into a bizarre strategy Ranadive floated earlier this year. According to Yahoo’s Adrian Wojnarowski, Ranadive is all-in on the idea of a 4-on-5 defensive strategy — which is either insanely brilliant or the dumbest strategy since Paul Westhead’s insane run-and-gun Denver Nuggets teams of the early 1990s (probably the latter):
How Karl would deal with Ranadive will be fascinating, too. The owner played the part of a fantasy league owner, treating the Kings like a science experiment. He shared tactical experiences with Malone about coaching his child’s youth team, and pressed him to consider playing four-on-five defense, leaking out a defender for cherry-picking baskets. Some semblance of that strategy is expected to be employed with Corbin now, a source told Yahoo Sports.
You can read the rest of Woj’s column here, which dives further into the reasons why Malone is no longer the coach, including not wanting to play Royce White (sounds like good coaching to us), not wanting to trade for Josh Smith (also probably a good idea). Hey, they’ll always have Stauskas (Stauskas?…Stauskas?…).
[Yahoo, image courtesy USA TODAY Sports]
