A word to any and all NBA head coaches that are anywhere near the hot seat: apparently when your star player has viral meningitis, your head could be on the chopping block.
As first reported by Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports, the Sacramento Kings fired head coach Mike Malone Sunday night. At 11-13, the Kings currently sit half a game behind the Phoenix Suns for the eighth spot in the Western Conference standings.
Sacramento has lost eight of its last 10 games, but it seems DeMarcus Cousins‘ absence for nine of them wasn’t enough to save Malone, who led the Kings to a 9-5 start with impressive wins coming over the Portland Trail Blazers, Los Angeles Clippers and San Antonio Spurs.
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Hired by the Kings in June of 2013, Sacramento struggled to a 28-54 record in its first season under Malone. This season, however, Boogie, Rudy Gay and Darren Collison were playing some of the best basketball of their careers, and it was pretty evident that Malone was coaxing some massive improvements out of Ben McLemore‘s game as well.
For the time being, assistant Tyrone Corbin will serve as the team’s interim head coach. Corbin’s last head coaching gig was with the Utah Jazz, where he compiled a 112-146 record (.434) in three and a half seasons.
To say this is a surprise is a bit of an understatement. Though Malone had a very short amount of time to prove himself, and though the Kings posted a respectable record with Cousins in the lineup, ownership’s lofty (read: unrealistic) expectations apparently hadn’t been met. As Woj noted, Malone’s relationship with general manager Pete D’Alessandro wasn’t great and even with Cousins sidelined, Sacramento’s recent skid pushed him over the edge.
For Kings fans, this is a frightening move that indicates owner Vivek Ranadive might not be the right guy to lead Sacramento back to the promised land of NBA relevance. The fact that he actually cares about the team makes him an automatic improvement over the Maloofs, but this decision shows he’s not quite in touch with reality — not only in terms of expectations for his team, but also for acquiring the right personnel.
In other words, Ranadive was probably the only person on earth who thought a team with Cousins, Gay and Collison as its three best players was a playoff squad.
Funnily enough though, the Kings currently are in the playoff mix. We’re only a little over a quarter of the way through the season, but even with Sacramento’s recent skid, Malone’s team is still right on the cusp of holding an official playoff spot. And yet, even that wasn’t enough to meet Ranadive’s expectations.
Keep in mind, this was the same guy that toyed around with the idea a “5-on-4” defensive scheme.
In short, this is a pretty unfair and baffling firing that could very well ruin the Kings’ hot start to the 2014-15 season. These are the kinds of moves that make sure bad teams stay bad and the loyal Sacramento Kings fans — not to mention Mike Malone — deserve better.
Dropping the mic. MT @WojYahooNBA
— Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) December 15, 2014
Another longterm candidate to monitor for Kings coaching job, league sources tell Yahoo: Vinny Del Negro.