The Sacramento Kings will wrap up what has been a drama-filled 2015-16 campaign Wednesday night against the Rockets in Houston.
It’s very likely to be George Karl’s last game as the team’s head coach.
According to multiple reports surfacing on Wednesday, the embattled coach will be fired by the Kings’ brass at some point on Thursday.
The Sacramento Bee’s Jason Jones was the first to report the news, citing multiple unnamed sources.
ESPN later confirmed Jones’ report.
This can’t be especially surprising to those of us who have actually paid attention to the situation in Sacramento over the past year.
Karl’s public rift with star center DeMarcus Cousins has been the face of his tenure in California’s capital city.
Though, it became readily apparent earlier this year that the brass in Sacramento wanted Karl out. A report last month even went as far as to indicate that the Kings wanted Karl to resign in order to avoid having to pay out the remainder of his contract.
While that was always considered a long shot, it told us a story of an organization that’s been wanting Karl out for some time now.
The issues here are vast and cannot be overstated.
It was just a month ago that Cousins was suspended after getting in Karl’s face on the bench. The All-Star center would later claim that it was the head coach, not the organization, that decided to suspend him.
These issues come several months after the entire Karl-Cousins situation seemed to be coming to a head. Multiple reports during the summer suggested that the Kings were set to move on from the center, something that obviously didn’t transpire.
When it became apparent that Cousins would remain on the roster, leaks from within the organization or Cousins camp told us a story of a coach in Karl that was pushing for the team to trade the center.
Sacramento heads into the final game of the season with a 33-48 record. It will be the 10th consecutive season that the team has failed to earn a playoff spot, a span that has seen it led by eight different head coaches.