With the Suns, Lakers and Clippers in action tonight, let’s take a look at some news and notes coming out of the league’s Pacific division on Monday:
- Kings GM Pete D’Alessandro told reporters, including Jason Jones of the Sacramento Bee, that it was his call to fire Michael Malone and that the decision was made over philosophical differences rather than wins and losses (Twitter link).
- While those differences are easy to point to as the main reason the Kings moved on from Malone, Scott Howard-Cooper writes that the most obvious takeaway from the situation in Sacramento is that the team should never have brought him back for this season in the first place.
- Malone’s firing is just the latest testament to the lack of job security enjoyed by the majority of NBA head coaches, writes Ethan Skolnick of Bleacher Report, who adds that unrealistic expectations from ownership tends to be a common driver to early coaching exits.
- The Lakers guaranteed half of the contract of Ronnie Price today, writes Eric Pincus of the Los Angeles Times. Price is now guaranteed $658,405 of his $1.3MM deal, with the remaining portion to be locked in if the point guard is still on the team come January 10th. It was only a few weeks ago that Price seemed to be on the chopping block, but the veteran has since supplanted Jeremy Lin as the team’s starting point guard.