Sacramento Kings: How Long Before George Karl’s In The Hot Seat?

For NBA fans, the start of training camp and eventually, the regular season, is an exciting time of year. Pretty much every team in the league (with the exception of the Philadelphia 76ers) can start fresh, with the sky being the limit for a new season of basketball.

But for the Sacramento Kings, every day that passes moves them close to a seemingly inevitable clash between head coach and franchise star.

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It’s not that George Karl is overrated as a head coach; the man has the sixth most regular season wins in NBA history. It’s not that DeMarcus Cousins is overrated as a superstar either; per Basketball-Reference, he joined Hakeem Olajuwon, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kevin Garnett, David Robinson and Bob McAdoo last season as the only players in NBA history to ever post a 24-12-3-1-1 stat line.

The problem is when you have one of the greatest regular season coaches in NBA history, a 64-year-old man who’s set in his ways, and an embattled franchise player, one of the league’s best centers who had to watch the only coach he’s ever liked get fired last year, that’s not a recipe for success.

And that’s before we even talk about Karl’s reported power play this summer to try and get the organization to trade Boogie, a move that prompted Cousins to call the situation what it was:

https://twitter.com/boogiecousins/status/613225835365949440?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

For those not literate in the language of emoji, Cousins’ tweet roughly translates to that old adage about snakes in the grass.

This might seem like an exaggerated take on a situation that could easily be resolved with a face-to-face conversation. But Karl has a history of trying to run his star players out of town, and his players have a history of responding in all-too-familiar fashion:

Were all of these tweets directed at Karl? Maybe, maybe not. But with Karl having called former players moles (Iguodala) or questioning their ability to win (Melo), it’s hard to give him the benefit of the doubt. And in any case, all that matters is that SACRAMENTO’S HEAD COACH WAS LOBBYING FOR THE TEAM TO TRADE ITS BEST PLAYER, AND THEN THAT PLAYER FOUND OUT ABOUT IT.

In what universe is that A) acceptable or B) going to result in a happy ending?

To be fair, Boogie knows the organization stands behind him (for now). Both owner Vivek Ranadive and new vice president of basketball operations Vlade Divac have publicly stated their support for Cousins and even went as far as trying to sweep the whole issue under the rug:

Then, Cousins even posted a photo of himself, Karl, Ranadive and Divac all arm in arm. Isn’t that sweet? NOTHING TO SEE HERE, WE’RE ALL FAMILY NOW!

https://instagram.com/p/5-c6LVgHEt/

Hey look, there’s Karl wearing a Cousins jersey at a fundraiser! CLEARLY they’ve buried the hatchet, right?

Except that’s not how it works. This kind of thing can’t just be swept under the rug with a couple of happy tweets and a few Insta photos.

Just a few months after being hired, Karl had referred to his relationship with Boogie as a work in progress. After it came out that Karl was trying to trade Boogie, multiple reports emerged that Ranadive was not happy with him for meddling in personnel affairs. Divac later said the relationship “wasn’t pretty” on the Jim Rome Show.

But surely Karl and Cousins have talked it out and settled their differences man to man, right? Don’t be so sure about that (and don’t call me Shirley):

"“We have a lot of time to get back on the same page,” Karl told Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe. “Summer talk and summer drama, I’ve always thought, is hype and so much of it is untrue. I’m not going to get into it but Cous and I have to work together to get back together, and we will.”"

Uh, okay, George, except you reportedly tried to trade the guy and still haven’t come out and officially set the record straight. Does that sound like an outright denial? Of course not. All this sounds like is someone who’s saying the bare minimum with the mindset that it’ll be Cousins, not him, who has to bend in order to make this relationship work.

And for the record, we haven’t even mentioned how the addition of a notorious coach confronter like Rajon Rondo will impact this potentially explosive chemical reaction.

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With Boogie signed on until 2018, Karl’s right; in a perfect world, they have plenty of time to work out their relationship. Except disgruntled star players don’t tend to stick around in toxic environments where they’re unhappy, and even more importantly, if Cousins deems that he can’t make this relationship work, it’ll be Karl’s head — not his — on the chopping block.

Bearing all this in mind, it’s hard to ignore how warm it’s starting to feel in George Karl’s seat.

The Kings could use a coach like Karl to jumpstart the offense. Even if the roster in Sacramento doesn’t compare to what he had to work with in Denver or Seattle, Karl could very easily make the Kings a better team with enough time. But if he’s already clashing with the team’s best player and he hasn’t even served a full season there yet, that’s not an encouraging sign.

To be perfectly honest, the Kings should have fired Karl the moment he started stirring all this drama up. Would it have been embarrassing to fire the team’s third head coach in less than a year? Sure. But when it comes down to star vs. coach, it’s usually the star that has to win for the good of the franchise. It’s not rocket science:

You can’t even make the argument that the ensuing search for a replacement would’ve been a long and painful process, especially when Tom Thibodeau is still sitting up late at night watching game film, just waiting for his phone to ring. Don’t forget, Thibodeau serves as an assistant for Team USA Basketball, which has been credited with Cousins’ improved attitude last year.

Ask any Kings fan whether they’d rather have this uncomfortable tension between Cousins and Karl or whether they’d rather have a puncher’s chance at Thibodeau. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

This is not to cast complete doom and gloom over Sacramento’s 2014-15 season. Perhaps something beautiful and strong will be forged out of these fires of chaos.

But for a dysfunctional organization that’s been the laughingstock of the league for years now, this feud is still dangerous as it lies dormant, seemingly biding its time and lying in wait for the perfect time to bubble up and waste another year of Cousins’ prime.

If the Kings are smart, or at the very least, if they want to try and overcome their track record of making terrible personnel decisions, they’ll choose Boogie over Karl when the time comes.

Next: NBA: Complete Offseason Grades For All 30 Teams

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