George Karl's Wild Ride

[206Fan]

Who's we? Vlade's never fired a coach. Coaching candidates would be aware of the new FO and new regime. You appear to think candidates couldn't separate PDA/Mullin and Vlade. Karl simply isn't Vlade's guy, never was. A candidate would understand that, that he'd be the first coach Vlade is actually picking.



No it doesn't. DC or no DC has little impact on the system/philosophy the players and fans alike are questioning. It's not like if you have a healthy DC, everything else is fixed. That's foolish.

You appear to think the players are so incompetent they can't recognize the difference between the systematic issues and losing DC to a hamstring injury.

Vlade is a rookie GM who made a foolish trade. Everyone in the NBA knows he gave up way too much.

Vivek still has the sign of meddling owner.

Honestly, why would someone like Thibbs be willing to work here if he knew that someone like Malone was fired because Cousins was out and our record went down? Or how about 7-8 games in for one of the most respected coaches in the NBA?

Why would Thibbs want to join this mess?

If we start the season 0-15 with him, with Cuz out for half of those games, would we fire Thibbs too?

 

[The_Jamal]

Who's we? Vlade's never fired a coach. Coaching candidates would be aware of the new FO and new regime. You appear to think candidates couldn't separate PDA/Mullin and Vlade. Karl simply isn't Vlade's guy, never was. A candidate would understand that, that he'd be the first coach Vlade is actually picking.



No it doesn't. DC or no DC has little impact on the system/philosophy the players and fans alike are questioning. It's not like if you have a healthy DC, everything else is fixed. That's foolish.

You appear to think the players are so incompetent they can't recognize the difference between the systematic issues and losing DC to a hamstring injury.

Bull. Vlade cleaned this team out and he had every opportunity to "go get his guy" at coach. He even had built-in excuses too with all the rumors surrounding us this offseason. It would have continued the narrative of how big of a joke we are as a franchise, but people would have understood it at least. When that didn't happen, Karl became Vlade's guy.

I appear to think this team hasn't been at full strength ever under Karl, we're really 8 games into the Karl era as this team is entirely different than what he coached last season and we just got done playing 5 of our 8 games against teams who can win a championship this season. I just choose to properly assign blame to everyone involved and not just scapegoat one person.

 

[Iced Espresso]

Vlade is a rookie GM who made a foolish trade. Everyone in the NBA knows he gave up way too much.

Vivek still has the sign of meddling owner.

Honestly, why would someone like Thibbs be willing to work here if he knew that someone like Malone was fired because Cousins was out and our record went down? Or how about 7-8 games in for one of the most respected coaches in the NBA?

Why would Thibbs want to join this mess?

If we start the season 0-15 with him, with Cuz out for half of those games, would we fire Thibbs too?

How can you say he gave up too much?

That was the price to offload terrible contracts right at the start of free agency.

You can say it was a bad choice, you can say it may not be working out so far....

But that was the price, take it or leave it.

And if Philly wasn't some sort of bizarre circus environment of tanking and not spending, it would of cost even more or not have been possible.

 

[Bricklayer]

Vlade is a rookie GM who made a foolish trade. Everyone in the NBA knows he gave up way too much.

Vivek still has the sign of meddling owner.

Honestly, why would someone like Thibbs be willing to work here if he knew that someone like Malone was fired because Cousins was out and our record went down? Or how about 7-8 games in for one of the most respected coaches in the NBA?

Why would Thibbs want to join this mess?

If we start the season 0-15 with him, with Cuz out for half of those games, would we fire Thibbs too?

Thibs has friends on the roster, most notably its biggest stars. He's won an NBA title with Rondo in Boston. He has won internationally with Cuz and Gay. Belinelli was a part time starter for him 3 years ago. That helps.

 

[Merdiesel]

So what happens if we do fire Karl and bring in a Thibs or Brooks (very unlikely, considering how we treat coaches) and nothing changes? Do you fire them as well? When is the onus finally put on the players to start performing?

If Vlade didn't want Karl, he should have fired him in the offseason, plain and simple. But he didn't and he all we heard is how everyone loves everyone and people are on the same page. If you fire Karl at the first sign of a struggle, we just aren't getting any name head coach here again. Why would they?

This tweet by Deuce sums up the situation perfectly:

Deuce Mason ‏@DeuceMason 55m55 minutes ago
Karl has coached 38 games with the Kings. Collison has missed 32 of those games, Cousins-15 of those games and Rudy-10 of those games.

Give this thing time

Rudy has missed more like 18 games if you consider how terrible he's been this season. I can handle a slump but what I'm not ok with is his selfishness.

The massive under-performance of the majority of our roster is the biggest problem here. These guys are professionals who have been completely careless with the basketball from the start.

Unforced turnovers have driven us out of games, not DMC shooting 3s.

Injuries to two of our most important players in DMC and Collison.
McLemore, Belinelli & Anderson has been awful. Worst SG rotation in the league so far.

I don't know, I'm having hard time pointing all the blame on the guy.

 

[VF21]

There is another way out of this if it becomes obvious that George Karl just cannot get the job done. Karl has had health issues. I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but he doesn't seem to have much energy on the bench. He could step down citing health issues (and it might actually be true).

 

[kingjatt]

There is another way out of this if it becomes obvious that George Karl just cannot get the job done. Karl has had health issues. I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but he doesn't seem to have much energy on the bench. He could step down citing health issues (and it might actually be true).

The other day during his end of quarter interview with ESPN Karl could barely get his voice loud enough to be heard over the crowd during a timeout health could definitely be an issue in all of this.

 

[Bricklayer]

Rudy has missed more like 18 games if you consider how terrible he's been this season. I can handle a slump but what I'm not ok with is his selfishness.

The massive under-performance of the majority of our roster is the biggest problem here. These guys are professionals who have been completely careless with the basketball from the start.

Unforced turnovers have driven us out of games, not DMC shooting 3s.

Injuries to two of our most important players in DMC and Collison.
McLemore, Belinelli & Anderson has been awful. Worst SG rotation in the league so far.

I don't know, I'm having hard time pointing all the blame on the guy.

The question would be to what degree the underperformance is Karl's fault, or the fault of the stupid offense he has instituted. Because I absolutely guarantee you you let me design an offense perfectly designed against Stephen Curry's strengths and I can make him look like trash too.

There was an issue by the end of Karl's Denver days where his interviews made him sound more like an aging hippie idealist who wanted to change the world more than he wanted to focus on practical winning. And this "dribble drive offense"...people act like that has always been Karl's thing. It has not. he's chosen to go that way this time, but what if its a real dumb idea/offense? A smart old HOFer might just jettison the system and go back to soemthing else that has worked for him in the past. A zealot wouldn't.

That's before you get to his old age fascination with Pace, still relating to the infectious Denver mess.

Or my longstanding question about what exactly he said to get hired here -- because if you wanted to impress Vivek at the height of his geek basketball dream, might you not have promised him innovation and paceliness?

There are a lot of questions here that I had hoped would just get slowly swept under the rug as an aging coach looking to pad his resume made practical decisions and slowly moved toward winning rather than pacing or proselytizing.

So many of the mistakes made and the sloppiness looks like a team unsure of what it is doing. Its extended training camp. And its misusing our best players, who have been quite successful for a long time in the league without Karl's interference. he was never the right coach to hire to coach Cousins, but dorky fans and owners wouldn't know that of course -- they'd just see career wins. I had assumed he'd adapt to some degree to try to make it work for himself as much as anyone else. So far, no. Which is odd to me. In fact up until the point the players made it clear it was odd to them, I was still willing to wait a few more games for him to make it work. But now its apparent that people a lot closer to the situation than I am are having the same questions. So now they must be addressed.

 

[kingjatt]

Or my longstanding question about what exactly he said to get hired here -- because if you wanted to impress Vivek at the height of his geek basketball dream, might you not have promised him innovation and paceliness?

Just tell him you can copy the warriors and you've got the job.

 

[k_dubb90]

Let's just wait around till all star break and we'll see. We need patience

 

[twslam07]

I want to give everyone a history lesson which will hopefully help calm everyone down.

In the 2010 offseason, there was a team known as the Miami Heat who just acquired both LeBron & Bosh. Their 3 headed monster was projected to be one of the best teams in the league the very next season. With so much talent, how could they not? However, they got off to a very surprising slow start. They started off the season 9-8 before hitting their stride. They ultimately ended the season at 58-24 despite their rocky start. I think most would argue that their slow start can be attributed to a lack of chemistry. They had 10 players added to their roster that did not play on the team last year. Sound familiar?

Now, I think most of us would agree that this Kings team is not as talented as the 2010-11 Heat, so it seems logical that we would get off to an even slower start than the 2010-2011 Heat.

Not to mention, if you factor in the strength of schedule, we probably were projected to get off to an even worse start. During the Heat's first 17 games when they recorded a 9-8 record, those opponents ended up with a winning percentage of 49% that year. When you compare that to records of the teams that the Kings have played thus far (using the record they had last year), their average opponent has a winning percentage of 62%. Looking at the Heat's first 17 games, they only won 1 game against a team that finished above .500. The Kings have played 75% of their games against teams that fit that description.

Lastly, the Kings have had their best player (their all-star) out for 4 of the 8 games they have played thus far, and they have had Collison out for 2 of those 8 games.

Let me stop here to recap...we are less talented than the 2010-11 Heat, had a much tougher schedule, & got hit with an injury bug which resulted in our best player being sideline for half of the games played thus far. To me, it's not too surprising where we are right now.

I will say that I do not like what Karl has been doing with the team. I am very worried abut how we are going to turn our team around, but even one of the more talented teams assembled struggled in the beginning and they had much more going for them (talent, schedule, injuries).

Let's give it some more time.

 

[ShastaKingsFan]

Let's just wait around till all star break and we'll see. We need patience

or better yet,...lets just give it a couple seasons to come around

 

[ForlornKing]

Dribble Drive offense only works if you have shooters

 

[kingjatt]

Some of us might be willing to wait but people closer to the situation (players) don't seem to have the same mindset. Time is precious.

 

[Livinthedream]

Let's just wait around till all star break and we'll see. We need patience

Normally I would agree with this. However, when every player on your roster is underperforming, then I would say it's not the player's fault and something needs to be done immediately.

 

[Section 101]

Dribble Drive offense only works if you have shooters

More importantly more than just a pg who can dribble.

 

[Padrino]

Dribble Drive offense only works if you have shooters

and if you have... ya know... dribblers. the kings' roster simply isn't chock full of quality ball handlers. demarcus cousins, rudy gay, and rajon rondo represent the kings' "core," and each of those players has made a career out of patiently probing on offense. they're not well-suited to a rather frenetic style of play that requires speed and precision in equal measure. darren collison is likely the kings' strongest ball-handler and fastest player, but he's their sixth man. the starting unit just doesn't have the tools to execute a dribble drive offense without turning the ball over on a consistent basis. square pegs: meet round holes. it's the same old story. and i really have no idea why it's so hard for the kings to hire a coaching staff that's prepared to maximize the talents of the players they have, rather than the players they wish they had...

 

[VF21]

Some of us might be willing to wait but people closer to the situation (players) don't seem to have the same mindset. Time is precious.

We can arguably make that conclusion, but nobody outside the locker room knows for sure. My personal thought is that DMC is more concerned about the lack of focus and effort by some players and their failure to commit to defense. I think we'll learn more by watching tomorrow night's game than we'll ever figure out by listening to rumors.

 

[Bricklayer]

and i really have no idea why it's so hard for the kings to hire a coaching staff that's prepared to maximize the talents of the players they have, rather than the players they wish they had...

Well that's the key there. And the "wish we hadding" has infected everything up to the GM and even the owner. It has been an organization at war with itself for so long its silly.

 

[CuzistanKing]

We can arguably make that conclusion, but nobody outside the locker room knows for sure. My personal thought is that DMC is more concerned about the lack of focus and effort by some players and their failure to commit to defense. I think we'll learn more by watching tomorrow night's game than we'll ever figure out by listening to rumors.

I would love to be wrong, but seeing as how Cuz was one of the worst offenders himself last night, I fear it has more to do with Karl losing the locker room than anything else. DMC wears his heart on the sleeve, so all of this internal frustration produces on-court symptoms that are easy to see for those who know where to look. However, this is when bringing in Caron Butler and other vets should pay off - calm the situation down and produce a rational plan of action, rather than simply tune the coach out and flush another season down the toilet.

 

[Draft2007]

I would love to be wrong, but seeing as how Cuz was one of the worst offenders himself last night, I fear it has more to do with Karl losing the locker room than anything else. DMC wears his heart on the sleeve, so all of this internal frustration produces on-court symptoms that are easy to see for those who know where to look. However, this is when bringing in Caron Butler and other vets should pay off - calm the situation down and produce a rational plan of action, rather than simply tune the coach out and flush another season down the toilet.

Caron ButlerVerified account‏@realtuffjuice 2h2 hours ago
#100 https://instagram.com/p/96idcLgjGR/

There's no way of knowing for sure if this was Kings related but with the timing I'd bet it was.

 

[Iced Espresso]

Caron ButlerVerified account‏@realtuffjuice 2h2 hours ago
#100 https://instagram.com/p/96idcLgjGR/

There's no way of knowing for sure if this was Kings related but with the timing I'd bet it was.

He's been around long enough not to say everything he wants to at every time he wants too.

 

[CuzistanKing]

Caron ButlerVerified account‏@realtuffjuice 2h2 hours ago
#100 https://instagram.com/p/96idcLgjGR/

There's no way of knowing for sure if this was Kings related but with the timing I'd bet it was.

Awesome, I see he subscribes to Boogie's school of handling social media. Could be nothing, could be everything. Could be good, could be bad. Now we should be on a lookout for Vivek tweeting a "shaka" symbol to Thibs.

 

[PBNJ85]

Stay Calm
Karl On

 

[Elektrik]

Awesome, I see he subscribes to Boogie's school of handling social media. Could be nothing, could be everything. Could be good, could be bad. Now we should be on a lookout for Vivek tweeting a "shaka" symbol to Thibs.

How could it be good?

 

[notoriousBEN3]

Any chance of picking up Brooks as an assistant at this point in the season? Or any other defensive minded coach? Doubt Thibs would be on board with a decreased role, but Brooks with his Sac ties and being next in line if Karl gets the axe...maybe?

Karl would probably not be ok with this, but from what i've seen, the D is just non existent, and that's never been what Karl is known for. If we aren't ready to fire Karl (for obvious reasons), how about bringing in someone in addition to Karl to help bolster that end of the game? Looking on NBA.com, it appears we're ranking last in defense. That is not going to win you any ball games, and in reality, good defense leads to points off of turnovers, which would probably help put us over the top in some of these closer games.

As much as it is about intensity and passion, i have a feeling the defensive struggles have a LOT to do with Karl not implementing much of a defensive system, leading to confused and unprepared players. Between Cuz, KK, and WCS, we should at the very least have a much better defensive front court than we do. Of course it probably helps if WCS get's in the game....

 

[CuzistanKing]

How could it be good?

If it means "we all have a lot of frustration built-up, but venting in public is not the way to go; take a measured approach and speak constructively." This would be a grown-up / veteran thing to do in this situation. Again, I have no idea what it actually means, but that's how I choose to interpret it until proven otherwise.

 

[macadocious]

It does not take a basketball savant to see the system that is being run on O and D are not suited to this team. It was hidden in preseason because teams don't go all out. Well now they are and they are exposing us on D. We are switching constantly and it's obviously a plan because they keep doing it. We are also running this funky dribble drive thing having our big men on the wings and starting them in terrible position.

 

[Bricklayer]

Any chance of picking up Brooks as an assistant at this point in the season? Or any other defensive minded coach? Doubt Thibs would be on board with a decreased role, but Brooks with his Sac ties and being next in line if Karl gets the axe...maybe?

Karl would probably not be ok with this, but from what i've seen, the D is just non existent, and that's never been what Karl is known for. If we aren't ready to fire Karl (for obvious reasons), how about bringing in someone in addition to Karl to help bolster that end of the game? Looking on NBA.com, it appears we're ranking last in defense. That is not going to win you any ball games, and in reality, good defense leads to points off of turnovers, which would probably help put us over the top in some of these closer games.

As much as it is about intensity and passion, i have a feeling the defensive struggles have a LOT to do with Karl not implementing much of a defensive system, leading to confused and unprepared players. Between Cuz, KK, and WCS, we should at the very least have a much better defensive front court than we do. Of course it probably helps if WCS get's in the game....

What's Rick up to?

Rick in for a year to stabilize the offense, hire Thibs to be the defensive coordinator. At the end of the year Thibs takes over as head coach...and Vivek craps a brick when he sees us come out in his new arena strangling teams 86-83

 

[VF21]

More from Caron:

Sean Cunningham ‏@SeanCunningham 3m3 minutes ago
Caron Butler said players meeting happened. Said Kings are moving forward after airing concerns. Said coaches were in meeting

Sean Cunningham ‏@SeanCunningham 3m3 minutes ago
Caron Butler voiced team support of George Karl