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Latest On Kings, George Karl

February 8th, 2016 at 11:55am CST by Chuck Myron

Assistant coach Corliss Williamson is more likely to be the head coach of the Kings by season’s end than George Karl is, barring a surprise, according to Chris Mannix of The Vertical on Yahoo Sports. The front office has lost nearly all confidence in Karl and players have tuned him out, Mannix hears from league sources, echoing Vertical colleague Adrian Wojnarowski’s report from Saturday that once more cast Karl’s job security into public question. Many of the Kings players have heard through their agents that the team is actively shopping them, Mannix also writes.

It’s the latest round of upheaval in Sacramento, where team’s minority-share owners have looked into ways to seize control from owner Vivek Ranadive, sources told Mannix. They nonetheless have little means to stage a coup, Mannix adds. The turmoil surrounding the Kings has made the head-coaching job unattractive to potential candidates, the Vertical scribe writes, suggesting that well-regarded assistants Kenny Atkinson of the Hawks and Jay Larranaga of the Celtics aren’t particularly anxious to take the job if it indeed comes open.

Kings players are upset with Karl about ineffciency in practices and shootarounds, and about in-game moves that haven’t worked out, as Mannix details. Kings GM Vlade Divac said in November, amid the last round of rumors surrounding Karl’s job security, that Karl would remain coach through season’s end. Former Kings GM Pete D’Alessandro said the same about interim coach Tyrone Corbin last season, but the team replaced Corbin with Karl over the 2015 All-Star break. That’s when the Kings gave Karl a contract that reportedly pays him $3.25MM this season and $5MM next season. He has a $5MM salary for 2017/18 that’s partially guaranteed for $1.5MM, as Wojnarowski also reported at the time.

The Kings have lost seven out of eight games and gave up 46 points in the first quarter Sunday in a loss to the Celtics. Sacramento is four and a half games behind the eighth-place Jazz in the Western Conference.

What’s the solution for the Kings? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.

Kings Mull Firing George Karl

February 6th, 2016 at 8:20am CST by Eddie Scarito

Kings majority owner Vivek Ranadive and team executive Vlade Divac were livid enough after the team’s 128-119 loss to the Nets on Friday night, which was the team’s sixth defeat in its last seven outings, that they are strongly weighing firing coach George Karl, Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical on Yahoo Sports reports. A league source who was involved in discussions regarding the coach’s job status described the situation as, “An overreaction to the loss,” Wojnarowski adds. The momentum to fire Karl waned enough in the hours following Friday night’s defeat that he will likely be on the sideline for Sunday’s contest in Boston against the Celtics, according to the Vertical scribe.

Regardless of whether or not Karl is calling out sets on Sunday, the issue remains that the embattled coach has lost management’s support as well as some members of the team’s locker room, sources told Wojnarowski. Center DeMarcus Cousins seemingly called out the coaching staff for the team’s continued flaws on the defensive end after the loss to the Nets, telling reporters, “I’m not going to keep blaming these guys in the locker room. Energy and effort is a huge part of the game, but I’m not going to keep blaming it on that. We got a bigger issue, and we need to figure it out as a team. I’d rather keep [problems] in house, but we definitely have a bigger issue than just energy and effort. That can’t be the excuse every night. … We’re going to work it out as a team, and hopefully we can fix this.”

It was just under a year ago that Karl was hired to replace interim coach Tyrone Corbin, who had taken over for fired coach Michael Malone in December of 2014. Things have not gone smoothly during Karl’s tenure, with the coach and Cousins seemingly at odds from the very beginning of Karl’s time with the team. The franchise reportedly considered parting ways with Karl last June, mere months after signing him to a four year deal, because of his difficulties with Cousins and Divac. Firing Karl could cause issues with Sacramento’s ownership group as Ranadive has progressively lost the support and belief of the other owners after the past few years of instability within the organization, Wojnarowski notes.

The amount of guaranteed money still owed to Karl could factor into the front office’s decision-making regarding the coach, notes Marc Stein of ESPN.com. Karl is earning $3.25MM this season and he is owed $5MM for each of the next two campaigns, though his salary for 2017/18 is only partially guaranteed for $1.5MM. If the team does make a coaching change, league sources have told Stein that assistant coach Nancy Lieberman would not be named interim coach, as had been rumored, but current assistant and former Kings player Corliss Williamson would be a possibility.

Kings Would Make Lieberman Interim Coach?

November 20th, 2015 at 1:36pm CST by Chuck Myron

1:36pm: There’s “no way” the Kings would replace Karl with Lieberman, tweets Chris Mannix of SI.com. The team isn’t going after Calipari, either, a league source insists to Sean Cunningham of KXTV-TV in Sacramento (Twitter link).

11:55pm: Kings owner Vivek Ranadive would like to make assistant coach Nancy Lieberman the interim head coach if the team elects to fire George Karl during the season, sources tell Bleacher Report’s Ric Bucher for a video report. Such a move would make Lieberman the first woman ever to serve as head coach of an NBA team. Vice president of basketball operations Vlade Divac would lean instead toward Corliss Williamson, another current Kings assistant, in the event of a Karl firing, Bucher adds, though Divac said last week that Karl would remain the coach throughout the season. Ranadive continues to eye John Calipari as a would-be long-term successor to Karl and plans to make the Kentucky coach an “offer that Calipari simply cannot refuse,” according to Bucher.

Lieberman became just the second female ever to hold a full-time assistant coaching position in the NBA when the Kings hired her over the summer. She previously served as head coach of the Mavs D-League affiliate, leading the Texas Legends to the D-League playoffs in 2010/11, the only time the team has ever made the postseason. She also served as a head coach and GM in the WNBA after a decorated playing career.

Williamson is a former Kings player and teammate of Divac who rejoined the franchise as an assistant in the summer of 2013, a few months after Ranadive bought the team. Williamson served as a head coach at the University of Central Arkansas prior to joining Sacramento’s staff.

Ranadive’s interest in Calipari has grown stronger in recent months, as Jason McIntyre of The Big Lead reported last week. The Kings denied a report this summer that they reached out to Calipari, and while the one-time Nets coach has insisted time and again that he doesn’t want to leave Kentucky, rumors that he wants back into the NBA have been persistent.

Does Lieberman deserve a shot as an NBA head coach? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.