Sam Amick

USA TODAY Sports

The Sacramento Kings fired Michael Malone on Sunday after a 11-13 start that did not live up to expectations of ownership and because of philosophical differences between the second-year head coach and management, two people with knowledge of the situation told USA TODAY Sports.

The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because the firing had not been announced as of late Sunday. Assistant coach Tyrone Corbin will be the interim coach and is expected to have a chance to succeed in the job, but the people with knowledge of the situation said the Kings are expected to eventually hire a new replacement. Longtime head coach George Karl is expected to be a serious candidate for the position, as Kings general manager Pete D'Alessandro worked with him during his days with the Denver Nuggets and is known to be extremely fond of his style.

The firing was an absolute stunner on its surface, as the Kings have won just 28 games in each of the last two campaigns yet were on pace to win 38 games this season. What's more, their recent struggles – seven losses in their last nine games – were easily explained considering franchise centerpiece DeMarcus Cousins had been out since Nov. 26 with a brutal case of viral meningitis. With Cousins, the Kings had gone 9-6 and looked every bit like a team that was capable of competing for a playoff spot in the Western Conference.

But the inherent nature of the coaching and management situation made the Kings' inner workings difficult from the start, as owner Vivek Ranadive had made the extremely unconventional decision to hire his coach before his general manager in the summer of 2013 and in doing so set the stage for the sorts of stylistic disagreements that predictably ensued. Before Ranadive headed the group that bought the Kings in May 2013 and kept them from moving to Seattle in the process, he was a minority owner of the Golden State Warriors who decided back then that Malone – who was then an assistant coach under then-Warriors head coach Mark Jackson – would be the coach of the team he was hoping to buy. When Malone was given a four-year deal worth approximately $9 million (including a fourth year team option that had not been picked up) to coach the Kings, Ranadive called him "one of the best and most talented coaches in the game."

But Malone was widely known to be a defense-first coach, someone who had helped LeBron James make strides on that end during his time as a Cleveland Cavaliers assistant coach under Mike Brown and who ran the Warriors' defensive unit when it improved during his time there as well. D'Alessandro, meanwhile, spent the majority of his front-office tenure with the offensive-minded Karl in Denver and offensive wizard Don Nelson when he was with the Warriors.

The impactful Kings' hiring of former Warriors legend Chris Mullin as an "advisor to the chairman" in Sept. 2013 only added to the conflicting nature of their internal dynamic, as he was a longtime friend and colleague of D'Alessandro's who has a significant voice in all personnel matters. Mullin, like D'Alessandro, favors a coach with a more sophisticated offensive style and was widely known to be critical of the way the offense was run. The Kings were ranked 20th in offensive rating last season (102.9 points per 100 possessions) and 16th this season (103.6). The Kings' pace, which was always a topic of discussion in the team's management circles during the Malone era, was 14th in the NBA last season (96.7 possessions per 48 minutes) and 16th this season (95.7 possessions per).

The differing views of these two sides were the proverbial elephant in the Kings' room that eventually created a difficult dynamic, one that was doomed from the start because of the unorthodox way their front office-coaching staff structure had been built. It only grew more apparent during the summer, when - despite the fact that Cousins and Kings small forward Rudy Gay both played on the Team USA squad that won a gold medal in the FIBA World Cup in Spain - Malone and D'Alessandro were known to have had very little communication during the offseason. Malone was clearly determined to stick to his style, and the tension relating to that situation had grown during their time together. If nothing else, Corbin's willingness to play the style that management would prefer was enough to put him at the helm.

Yahoo Sports first reported Malone's firing.