Fans will be crossing their fingers that their team can win this year's lottery. But, it becomes even more unlikely the longer the Kings remain with the league's worst record.
Ideally, Thibodeau can leave Boston after winning another championship. But, I prefer not to see him go. Still, he probably deserves a head coaching job.
The gossip around the league is that Eddie Jordan or Tom Thibodeau (New York assistant Phil Weber is among the long shots) could land in this job over the summer, though the Sacramento Bee reported on Friday that John Whisenant, the general manager and former coach of the WNBA's Sacramento Monarchs, would be "the unofficial front-runner" if the job were to come open, just as he was in 2006 when Eric Musselman was hired instead.
In any case, whoever is hired would become the fourth head coach Sacramento has had since Rick Adelman was let go in 2006. It wouldn't hurt Jordan's candidacy that the Kings are feeling all nostalgic these days, what with the lovefest they gave Vlade Divac on Tuesday, and Sacramento fans still remember that Jordan got his first head coaching gig at the end of the 1996-97 season when he was the replacement for the fired Garry St. Jean.
On the flip side, the Kings' economic situation is not a pretty picture, and the Maloofs (whose family fortune is closely tied to the fortunes of Wells Fargo, another bank receiving TARP funds) are still paying Musselman and Reggie Theus to sit home and watch games from their recliners. (They have a $1.5 million option on Natt for next season that can be exercised by early May.)
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