Sacramento Kings coach George Karl's job is in jeopardy

Sam Amick | USA TODAY Sports

Show Caption Hide Caption For Kings, same problems still haunt them USA TODAY Sports' Sam Amick talks about Sacramento Kings' saga between coach and players.

George Karl is in trouble.

Even those closest to him are willing to admit that much.

The Sacramento Kings coach who came to town nine months ago, who was given a $15 million contract ($11.5 million guaranteed) that doesn’t expire until the summer of 2018, and whose sterling record of success has been tainted by way of the 12-26 record ever since, isn’t seen internally as their coach for the long-haul anymore. Barring a shocking turnaround – and by that, we’re talking a 40-plus win season that seems unlikely – that much has become increasingly clear.

If the Kings’ 1-7 record that prompted a team meeting on Tuesday gets even worse, his dismissal could come this week. Wednesday, the Kings – as irony would have it – face the same Detroit Pistons team that beat them last Dec. 13 and inspired the firing of coach Michael Malone. Or, should the early-season bleeding subside enough to calm the waters, Karl's firing could come in the summer.

But Karl, whose hiring had as much to do with the Kings’ business situation as it did basketball, is going to be just fine no matter what happens. It’s the Kings and their fanbase who have every reason to be worried.

As organization building goes, Vivek Ranadive’s run has been as rough as they come. Since leading the ownership group which bought the team for a league record $535 million and kept it from being relocated to Seattle in May of 2013, he has already had three head coaching changes (Keith Smart to Michael Malone to Tyrone Corbin to Karl) and two front-office makeovers (longtime general manager Geoff Petrie was let go, former general manager Pete D’Alessandro left amid much tension for the Denver Nuggets after Vlade Divac was brought in take on his role).

As has been the case in this stretch, even the moves that made sense at the time are eventually seen differently because of the changes that ensued thereafter. Karl was the right hire post-Malone – even with the strong protests that were coming from DeMarcus Cousins’ representatives – and should have been brought on immediately so that Corbin could have been spared the two months of nonsense in between.

This made sense in ways that the Malone firing did not, and not just because of the business boon that came with it (fans were clamoring for Karl, meaning a spike in season ticket sales as the Kings neared the 2016-17 opening of their downtown arena). The sixth-winningest coach in NBA history would join his former Denver Nuggets colleague in D’Alessandro, and the Kings would send a strong message to the Cousins camp that they were confident and united. Stability. Synergy between management and the coaching staff. Novel concepts indeed.

For a minute there, you almost thought this might work.

But this all became untenable when – yet again – a front-office change meant the coach was working with a general manager who had nothing to do with his hiring. Divac, the beloved former King whose hiring had a business component of its own, arrived less than a month after Karl came aboard and instantly inspired the sort of trust from Ranadive that D’Alessandro had lost. D’Alessandro – who drew Ranadive’s ire, in part, because of the Malone firing blame game that went on internally – was back with the Nuggets by June. Thus, this nearly-impossible dynamic that all organizations try to avoid was back in place.

Karl’s end-of-season slip-up played a part, when he told reporters in mid-April that every NBA player – Cousins included – was tradable. It was a public showing of what so many folks around the NBA already knew, that Karl had serious reservations about Cousins. And while Karl would later apologize to Cousins for the statement, the truth is that players aren’t stupid. They know that Divac didn’t hire Karl, and that the pro-Cousins Ranadive will listen to the gripes that have grown so loud of late. What’s more, Kings players aren’t the only ones sharing their angst.

According to a person with knowledge of the situation, the level of frustration with Ranadive among some Kings minority owners is at an all-time high. Specifically, his track record of making significant decisions without truly consulting them is a source of significant irritation. The person spoke to USA TODAY Sports on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the situation.

There’s no way to know what happens from here, but this is about as bad a run-up to the arena opening season as the Kings could have imagined. All those offseason moves to make this roster meant they simply had to get off to a decent start, but the combination of Cousins’ unexpected absence (four games with an Achilles strain) and poor play have put them in this early season pit. Add in the fact that Ranadive responded to a six-game losing streak by parading his friend/rapper Drake throughout the frustrated Kings locker room after a 106-88 loss to San Antonio on Tuesday night, and you get the sense that the silliness won't stop anytime soon.

Now comes this familiar quandary: thanks to Petrie’s June 2011 trade with the Cleveland Cavaliers that landed them J.J. Hickson, the Kings will lose their 2016 first-round pick unless they lose their way into the top 10 (it would go to Chicago if it’s outside the top 10, as the Bulls received it from the Cavs as part of the Jan. 2014 Andrew Bynum trade). And with the Western Conference so stacked and so little reason to believe this team can be anything more than mediocre (at best) from here on out, losing big might be the way to go – again.

It’s been nearly a decade since the Kings last made the playoffs, and seven seasons since they even won 30-plus games. Ranadive has only been responsible since 2013 but that combined regular season record of 58-114 since he took over is far worse than anyone could have imagined when he helped save the city’s only professional sports team.

This mess, make no mistake, is a whole lot bigger than George Karl.