Mike Malone Fired (replaced by Corbin)

[wuck]

Sources: Kings owner seriously considering Chris Mullin for coaching vacancy

By Adrian Wojnarowski 4 hours ago Yahoo Sports

Owner Vivek Ranadive is giving serious consideration to hiring Chris Mullin to coach the Sacramento Kings, league sources told Yahoo Sports.

In the wake of Michael Malone’s firing on Sunday night, Ranadive has been soliciting counsel on Mullin’s candidacy and has grown increasingly intrigued with the kind of acumen and star power Mullin, an ownership adviser for the Kings, could bring to the franchise, sources said

“All [Mullin] has to decide is that's what he wants and the job is his,” an NBA general manager told Yahoo Sports on Monday.

The Kings will keep Tyrone Corbin as the interim coach for the near future, but haven’t ruled out the hiring of a full-time coach sometime this season. George Karl has a strong history with general manager Pete D’Alessandro and began campaigning for the job on Monday within hours of Malone’s firing. For now, Karl’s a secondary candidate until Ranadive considers the possibility of Mullin.

Ranadive’s reference point on the NBA has often been the Golden State Warriors, with whom he had been a minority owner, and he’s been enthralled with the success of Steve Kerr. Like Kerr, Mullin would be an ex-player with a GM background making the move to coaching. Mullin is an NBA Hall of Famer who played the prime of his career in the ’80s and ’90s in Northern California with the Warriors.

Mullin hasn’t come close to committing to the coaching idea, but there’s support in ownership and in the front office for him to give it significant thought, sources said.

Karl is a strong candidate among D’Alessandro and assistant GM Mike Bratz, who worked with Karl as part of the Denver Nuggets organization. Nevertheless, Ranadive is far more intrigued with the possibility of making a splashy hire, and D’Alessandro supports the idea of Mullin if he decides he wants to commit himself to coaching, sources said. Ranadive is working to construct a new arena in Sacramento and has craved star power with the Kings.

 

[Jack Brickman]

Seattle deserves a basketball team, and Sacramento is the only logical team to move there.

I think Atlanta is actually the most logical team to move there. They are one of the biggest markets in the NBA, have been pretty consistently good for a decade, and yet they still are always in the bottom ten in attendance. If you suck and you can't fill up your arena, that's normal. If you're good and you still can't, your fans suck and the team should go to a fan base that cares.

No one in Atlanta cares about the Hawks.

Charlotte would probably be a good choice as well if they weren't owned by Michael Jordan, who isn't going to move a team from his home state out to Washington. New Orleans would have worked too if they hadn't been bought by the Saints owner.

I just think Sacramento has too good a fan base to move their team. The fans stopped going to games because they had the second worst ownership group in the NBA (next to Sterling) who went out of their way to kill basketball in Sacramento and were too cheap to spend any money. Their new owner is a dumbass, but at least he cares.

 

[randymoss1881]

Sacramento is fucked
Our gm was on the radio and the host asks if cousins doesn't get hurt and we are 16-9 is malone fired.
This ass said they would still fire him under any circumstance. It's not about wins/loses but style if play.

 

[killerkev369]

Sacramento is fucked
Our gm was on the radio and the host asks if cousins doesn't get hurt and we are 16-9 is malone fired.
This ass said they would still fire him under any circumstance. It's not about wins/loses but style if play.

I wouldn't expect him not to defend his (their) decision. It is just sad to see that Sacramento has a circus going on behind the scenes, because I clearly saw a light at the end of the tunnel earlier this season. Now, I'm not so sure.

 

[Anglefan]

So are we seeing this 4 on 5 tonight or what?

 

[Triumph36]

So are we seeing this 4 on 5 tonight or what?

i'd guess not quite yet, need some time to practice it.

that said, the 4 on 5 watch is definitely on!

 

[Anglefan]

i'd guess not quite yet, need some time to practice it.

that said, the 4 on 5 watch is definitely on!

Well then what the hell did they do yesterday?? They had all day to practice it!

Were they all so pissed that Cavs fans were calling their owner incompetent that they just couldn't concentrate?? I mean, THE HYPOCRISY!!!!!!!

 

[KI4MVP]

As stated above: Dan Gilbert was passing notes to Paul Silas with what he should do. How is this any different than Vivek floating suggestions no matter how stupid or great they sound?

no he wasn't, at least not according to Silas.

Gilbert would sometimes have notes delivered to Silas on the bench during games. “It was about what he felt the players should be doing,” Silas said. “Not X’s and O’s so much, [but] wanting to know how I felt about situations. I can’t remember exactly what the notes were about. I would just go see him or write him back and let him know what he wanted to know.”

A brand new NBA owner with questions about his team. The same team was in the NBA finals two years after he bought them.

 

[KI4MVP]

I respect Coach Nick, but does he really think it's going to change the game?

The idea behind it only works in theory, not in practice. If you can't defend and get stops, you'll never win a basketball game. That's pretty simple. I don't care how many easy baskets you can cherry pick. If the opponent can score just as easily going 5 on 4, they won't stand a chance.

I don't respect coach Nick at all. He is a failed high school coach who acts like he knows more than successful NBA coaches. He cherry picks plays where the execution is poor to "prove" his point. I'm not surprised at all he's pushing for an NBA team to use a 12 year old girls league strategy.

4 on 5 defense in the NBA? Seriously?

Might as well hire Coach Nick to coach the Kings, who are turning their team on the path to once again keep their draft pick as their top 10 protection was in danger. Coach Nick or Mark Jackson, either one will save them that pick.

 

[brownindian]

I dont understand the hate - If the ownership craves a different and fast paced style of play then there is no harm in them trying to go get a coach who is more in tune with that. Sure they fired a coach who is winning now, but it is only a question of time before the Kings start losing and hit the bottom feed again.

 

[Douglar]

I dont understand the hate - If the ownership craves a different and fast paced style of play then there is no harm in them trying to go get a coach who is more in tune with that.

If the owner wanted his team to run, maybe he should look at the personnel decisions, not the coach.

The team has a star (Cousins) who is definitely a 1/2 court guy. The PG & SF are pick & roll guys. The front office let their best open court guy (Isaiah Thomas) walk as a free agent in the off season.

I think you can say that Malone was just doing what coaches are supposed to do. He playing to the strength of the players that he had.

 

[TyGuy]

I don't respect coach Nick at all. He is a failed high school coach who acts like he knows more than successful NBA coaches. He cherry picks plays where the execution is poor to "prove" his point. I'm not surprised at all he's pushing for an NBA team to use a 12 year old girls league strategy.

4 on 5 defense in the NBA? Seriously?

Might as well hire Coach Nick to coach the Kings, who are turning their team on the path to once again keep their draft pick as their top 10 protection was in danger. Coach Nick or Mark Jackson, either one will save them that pick.

I don't know, posts like this come off as extremely douchey to me. Not a fan of people talking about having no respect, losing respect, never had any respect for individuals. He is still a human being, and all humans deserve some respect no matter their social or ethnic background.

With that being said, he acknowledge that it could fail, but there is no harm in experimenting. It isn't like you have to stick to this plan and never deviate even if it is failing over and over.

Furthermore, you would be hard pressed to find anybody online that does as well of a job of breaking down games. The guy puts in a ton of effort in doing what he does and has interviewed a ton of players, coaches, and even a guy who appeared to be a sports psychologist. The guy loves the game of basketball and dedicates a ton of time to it. Why does it matter that he isn't some big time coach? He clearly knows a lot about the game of basketball and is always interested in new ideas instead of just watching the game evolve around him, but continuing to teach tired, old, out dated principles.

It was pretty unnecessary and disrespectful to attack his character like that. You are a very good poster on this site, so I expected a little more respect for a guy as passionate and knowledgeable about the game as Coach Nick.

 

[randymoss1881]

I dont understand the hate - If the ownership craves a different and fast paced style of play then there is no harm in them trying to go get a coach who is more in tune with that. Sure they fired a coach who is winning now, but it is only a question of time before the Kings start losing and hit the bottom feed again.

You run the style that fit your best 2 players. You keep that style when it is working we were 9-6 with cousins playing against all playoff teams. We have the worst owner in sports and it's not debatable.

 

[Jack Brickman]

If the owner wanted his team to run, maybe he should look at the personnel decisions, not the coach.

The team has a star (Cousins) who is definitely a 1/2 court guy. The PG & SF are pick & roll guys. The front office let their best open court guy (Isaiah Thomas) walk as a free agent in the off season.

I think you can say that Malone was just doing what coaches are supposed to do. He playing to the strength of the players that he had.

Yeah, I honestly don't know how someone looks at the King's roster and thinks that they've got the makings of a good fast-paced or even a good read and react team. Malone had a nice system in place for the guys that they had, and when Cousins was healthy it was working pretty well. More importantly, he was the first coach that Cousins seemed to actually respond to and respect, which is worth more than the win/loss record right now.

I just think it was foolish to fire a guy whose team was playing poorly without their best player, but unexpectedly well when he was healthy. Most teams would play poorly without their best player, especially in the West. It would be akin to Oklahoma City firing Scott Brooks for the team's bad start this year without Durant and Westbrook.

More than likely, Malone got fired for calling out Ranadive on his dumbass ideas that he developed while coaching his daughter's team.

 

[KI4MVP]

^ I don't respect him as a "basketball guru". Is that better?

He acts like he's the next Dr Jack Ramsey, instead he's a failed high school coach. It might come off better if he didn't call himself "coach Nick" and brag that he coached the triangle in high school (where he failed as a coach).

It would also be better if his breakdowns differentiated between poor execution and poor system. My first exposure to "Coach Nick" was his ripping Mike Brown's defense last year by breaking down video where the team wasn't executing the defense properly. No system is going to work when it's not being executed properly. And Mike Brown's defense has proven time and again to be effective when it is executed properly.

My second exposure to coach Nick his him endorsing the idea of a NBA team purposely trying to defend with 4 players. Some ideas are so ridiculous that you don't even have to try them to know they will fail. playing 4 on 5 defense is one of them. It's hard enough to stop elite NBA offenses with 5 defenders.

The "adjustments" idea is absurd. The only adjustment needed is to have one guy release on defense when the offense shoots the inevitable wide open shot.