George Karl’s seat cushion is cooling off.
All signs pointed to the Sacramento Kings firing him not 48 hours ago. Now, the Kings are Kings-ing, changing their minds in true Kings fashion. Per ESPN.com’s Marc Stein (h/t ProBasketballTalk):
ESPN sources say that the Sacramento Kings, in a dramatic about-face, have decided to keep George Karl in place as coach .
— Marc Stein (@ESPNSteinLine) February 9, 2016
The Kings scrapped plans to fire George Karl after lengthy meeting Tuesday in Philly between Karl and GM Vlade Divac, sources told ESPN
— Marc Stein (@ESPNSteinLine) February 9, 2016
In a statement to ESPN, Kings GM Vlade Divac said: "George is our coach and we're collectively working through our issues."
— Marc Stein (@ESPNSteinLine) February 9, 2016
Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical painted a slightly different picture:
Kings never decided to fire Karl, which is why…they didn't fire him. Ranadive leaned toward dismissal, but Divac talked him out of it.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojVerticalNBA) February 9, 2016
Either way, the Kings are rolling with George Karl as their head honcho for now. Maybe they don’t want to eat the rest of his contract, or maybe they realize a midseason sideline change won’t trigger a playoff push, or maybe they honestly and truthfully want this marriage, unlike their other coaching nuptials, to work.
In order to do that, though, it seems as if DeMarcus Cousins will have to go. There is no coming back from this, a tweet in reference to Karl apparently wanting to trade the franchise cornerstone:
???
— DeMarcus Cousins (@boogiecousins) June 23, 2015
That this is still up speaks volumes. We aren’t behind closed doors, and there have been miniature steps of public progress in the past, but it’s become overwhelmingly clear that the Karl-Cousins relationship isn’t working, that it’s fractured past repair.
It seems like only a matter of time before one of them is handed walking papers in favor of the other. But we’d be remiss to guess which one.
After all, these are the Kings, champions of unpredictability.
