Instability Continues To Weigh Down The Sacramento Kings

The Sacramento Kings continue to falter, year after year, thanks to being the most unstable franchise in the entire NBA.

It’s hard not to feel bad for DeMarcus Cousins sometimes. Cousins–affectionately known as Boogie–has spent his entire career with the Sacramento Kings.

Sacramento is a fine city, in a beautiful state, home to the most unstable basketball team in the NBA. The Kings have somehow managed to win just 152 of their 446 games since Boogie was drafted way back in 2010.

It’s pretty unbelievable that a team who’s had one of the best centers in the NBA for six years now has won just 34 percent of their games over that span. It’s even more unbelievable that the Kings haven’t made the playoffs–or won 30 games (!)–in a season since they acquired Cousins.

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The Kings were on pace to finally make that last sentence obsolete, getting all the way up to the seventh spot in the Western Conference in early 2016. Then something happened that has been happening in Sacramento for years–things fell apart.

Chemistry issues were expected all season. They briefly flared up early on and nearly cost George Karl his job back in November, and later resurfaced again in February. Karl was almost fired, again.

At this point, it just seems like a foregone conclusion that Karl has to go, right? After being a thread away from termination so many times, after alienating Boogie in the offseason, after his team slumped and dropped down to 10th in the Western Conference, it’s time for a fresh start.

Or not.

OK, I suppose that makes sense. After all, Kings GM Vlade Divac and Karl had a nice talk and decided they could work through their issues. That is the only reason Karl is still around, right?

Nope.

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This tweet sums up the problems in Sacramento pretty sufficiently. The great organizations in the NBA (the Miami Heat, San Antonio Spurs and others) have one unified voice that runs through the entire franchise.

The Kings have several. They have Vivek Ranadive, the majority owner of the team. They have Divac, the general manager. They have Karl, the head coach. They have many minority shareholders, who apparently want Vivek out.

These voices may agree with each other on some things, but they certainly don’t speak in unison. Until they do, this will be the fate of the Kings every single season.

It’s impossible to move forward while being pulled in every direction. How Cousins continues to be loyal to Sacramento after all of this is nearly incomprehensible. Make no mistake, if a star player wants a trade, he can definitely get one.

Boogie has been staunchly against that happening for more than half a decade now, but it’s unclear how much more he’s willing to put up with. His camp never wanted Karl, and after seeing him nearly get fired only to be kept on at least twice it would be understandable for Cousins to question the organization’s loyalty to him.

It would also be understandable for Cousins to question the organization in general. Everybody else around the NBA certainly does. And this is the one thing that the Kings have yet to muck up.

They’ve wasted six years of his career, but somehow Cousins remains a King through it all. If they lose him, they’re back to square one, if not square zero. Imagine just how awful Sacramento would be without Boogie, given their record with him.

Kings fans surely don’t want to even consider that, but the way this franchise has conducted business leaves it as a legitimate possibility in the coming week and a half before the trade deadline.

This summer would be a more likely time for Cousins to depart, though, because then he’ll get to see if Sacramento can rebound and save its season.

The Kings are currently 21-31, still on pace to hit 30 wins but no longer a playoff team. That 30-win mark could end up out of reach soon if Sacramento keeps up its current pace.

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After an impressive five-game winning streak in late January that included wins over the Atlanta Hawks, Utah Jazz and Los Angeles Clippers, the Kings have dropped eight of their last nine games. Their sole win came over the Milwaukee Bucks, who have also been a disaster in the past few weeks.

Sacramento needs to win just nine games out of its last 30 to finally record a 30-win season with Cousins. If they fall below that mark yet again this season, it’s hard to imagine Boogie sticking around.

Even if they do win 30 games, it’s not like that’s a major accomplishment. This is the weakest the middle of the Western Conference has been in years, and it still looks like the Kings will miss out on the postseason for the 10th straight season.

The last time Sacramento appeared in the postseason, Cousins was a freshman in high school. He’s currently 25 years old. It’s been quite a while.

That streak is only going to end if the Sacramento Kings can get their act together. Literally, they need to pull all those conflicting voices together and present a unified message.

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Until that happens the indecisiveness, unhappiness, and most importantly the losing will continue.