THE FIRE WESTY THREAD & Your Coach ?

[dozencousins]

Alot of us seem to agree that one way or the other PW has to go .
I have a list below of alot of the top coaches that are available thoughts ? Coaches: Larry Brown, Don Chaney, Mike Dunleavy, Mike Fratello, Frank Johnson, Phil Johnson, Eddie Jordan, Sam Mitchell, Don Nelson, Jim O'Brien, Jerry Sloan, Rudy Tomjanovich, Jeff Van Gundy and Lenny Wilkens

Additionaly : K.Smart , P.Jackson & If anyone wants to add to the list feel free

I would love to get P.Jackson but I dont see him willing to coach here so my top 3 from the list would be 1. Jeff Van Gundy 2. Jerry Sloan 3. is a toss up between D.Nelson & L.Wilkins

[PaKwAn]

Jerry sloan or jeff van gundy for me!

[ADoaN17]

Jerry Sloan would be amazing. He would demand respect from the players.

[Wolfay]

Clone Rick Adelman.

[sacking123]

It all depends on Demarcus honestly. If he isn't here I would say Jerry Sloan.
If DMC is here and the Kings truly back him I would like Jeff Van Gundy.
Phil Jackson is a certainty if he was available but there is noway he risks his record with this team.

[jumpboi92]

It all depends on Demarcus honestly. If he isn't here I would say Jerry Sloan.
If DMC is here and the Kings truly back him I would like Jeff Van Gundy.
Phil Jackson is a certainty if he was available but there is noway he risks his record with this team.

If Dwight leaves the Magic, then maybe Stan would leave. Thus, having Ewing join up with Jeff here. We already saw what Ewing did with Yao(when healthy) & Dwight

[SacKingZZZ]

Eddie Jordan is the logical choice but I think Smart would get a look first. If he wants it.

[Dustin5566]

Jeff van Gundy would be amazing.

[twoolfork1]

I say we fire him mid season and let Keith Smart take over and analyze how he does. If we like it, give him a short deal and see how he does with yet another lottery pick.

At this point, there's no way Westphal gets extended after this season barring some type of miraculous turn around. Even if you love the guy, he had a fair chance and 3 straight losing seasons with little to no improvement among our young players easily justifies letting the guy go. If we just wait til his contract expires I hope we go and get a bigger name coach but if Keith Smart is our guy, I wouldn't wait til end of the season. The sooner the better.

[rpa]

Hate to be the bearer of bad news but there's next to no chance we get any of those guys midseason. I can't remember a time in the NBA where a coach was fired and one of his assistants DIDN'T finish out the season.

So, really, the question is Westphal or Keith Smart for this season.

Further, the combination of:
a) The Maloofs' cheapness
b) The lack of the Kings HC job being a high profile one
c) Our current dysfunction
d) The Maloofs' need for a "cool" or slick talking coach

Pretty much eliminates us from getting any coach that would be even remotely in demand. Phil Jackson & Jerry Sloan? Not an f'ing chance. Jeff Van Gundy is more realistic but there's still next to no chance he'd come--especially with him making good money from doing TV work. Larry Brown might be a possibility but he's such a whore and short term option (he doesn't stay anywhere for long) that he's almost a guy that you DON'T want.

[kevin44]

No great coach will come here. The owners are cheap & clueless. The state of this franchise is still unknown. Are they staying or going? The roster is not going to make any coach very excited to come here. Either keep what we have or give Smart or another young assistant a shot.

[RoyalCourtJestr]

It'll be Smart for sure, and I'm not sure that's a bad thing. He did a great job with an injured/somewhat disfunctional team last year.

Would he be a long term? I'm not sure. But no way we get a Sloan/Jackson type.

[deNIEd]

For this season or next season, we should not fire Westphal unless we have a GOOD option already in place.

The past few years have all been dysfunctional and terrible, simply because we fire our coach without having any realistic alternative so we settle for all the crap coaches we've had.

If we have an agreement with someone like Larry Brown, Sloan, Van Gundy, anyone that has a proven record of being a good coach, then fire Westphal ASAP.

But for bad as Westphal is, I think it'd be worse to fire him, and pray a better coach just falls into our lap without doing the research beforehand.

[rpa]

For this season or next season, we should not fire Westphal unless we have a GOOD option already in place.

The past few years have all been dysfunctional and terrible, simply because we fire our coach without having any realistic alternative so we settle for all the crap coaches we've had.

If we have an agreement with someone like Larry Brown, Sloan, Van Gundy, anyone that has a proven record of being a good coach, then fire Westphal ASAP.

But for bad as Westphal is, I think it'd be worse to fire him, and pray a better coach just falls into our lap without doing the research beforehand.

In general I tend to agree, but in this case I actually disagree (a lot).

If Westphal's problems were purely bad in game coaching and/or bad planning which resulted in lots of losses then I'd be fine with waiting for the end of the season. The problem is that Westphal is not only bad there but is also a horrible manager of players as well as a horrible developer of players.

Every day we keep this guy around he's alienating players on this team further (particularly Cousins). At some point Cousins is going to start permanently tying the Kings to Westphal regardless of whether we get rid of him or not. Once that happens, it's over for Cousins on the Kings.

It's looking more and more like Westphal has completely lost this team. Once that happens (and I think it already has) you HAVE to fire him as soon as possible--regardless of what the longterm plans are.

[pillwenney]

Yeah at this point, it's not really about finding a better coach per se, but a different voice. We're fortunate to have Smart waiting in the wings for that reason (although I think Smart is almost definitely also a better coach).

Anyway, we still need time for the Cousins situation to blow over. Even if we fire Westphal in a month, it'll still look like Demarcus got him fired.

[dozencousins]

I hate to sound mean towards Westy because he might be a genuinly nice guy at the end of the day though I think he is not a good NBA coach. I just think it would almost be laughable if there was a huge group of protesters with signs outside Power Balance Pavillion that were demonstrating to get him fired .

Again it sucks that we as fans are even in this position yet again . Not to mention it really sucks that because the Maloofs bad bad business decisions in some of their other businesses that we as fans may lose our team. I have to wonder if the Maloofs / franchise is sabotaging itself as well as being cheap because they are doing everything they can do to fail to make that move .

I hate to feel these ways in general as I firmly believe that when we have as many high draft picks in the last 4 years as we have in Spencer , J.T. , Tyreke ,& DMC not to mention also getting D.GREENE via trade & Casspi these were all 1st rounders most higher picks ( though a couple are no longer with the team ) Point is after a couple of seasons we should be at the very least a playoff contender . Sadly on paper you look at our team and you would think we could be at least be approaching a 6th - 8th seed playoff team but because of poor coaching , poor ownership the team & franchise is at a major low point still to this day . Hopefully the coaching move will be made right away & the Maloofs though money might be hard to come by will open their wallets as there is a saying that it takes money to make money .

[tru6playa]

I'm behind a coaching change. I feel that PW does not get the most out of his players -- I think that everyone on our team is underachieving for unknown reasons. Even a savvy veteran like Salmons has been playing terrible.

[jeffjtk1234]

at this point we don't have much to lose.

But the Cousins situation will never blow over. I assume most of you watched the game last night...the guy looked disinterested, again. I am all for holding onto highly talented players and not just jumping ship after one incident, but this hasn't been the first incident, nor will it be the last. So its either dump westphal soon, or have another terrible losing season.

[deNIEd]

In general I tend to agree, but in this case I actually disagree (a lot).

If Westphal's problems were purely bad in game coaching and/or bad planning which resulted in lots of losses then I'd be fine with waiting for the end of the season. The problem is that Westphal is not only bad there but is also a horrible manager of players as well as a horrible developer of players.

Every day we keep this guy around he's alienating players on this team further (particularly Cousins). At some point Cousins is going to start permanently tying the Kings to Westphal regardless of whether we get rid of him or not. Once that happens, it's over for Cousins on the Kings.

It's looking more and more like Westphal has completely lost this team. Once that happens (and I think it already has) you HAVE to fire him as soon as possible--regardless of what the longterm plans are.

Yeah, I can agree with this. My fear is simply we fire Westphal and end up with a coach that is even worse.

To me it has seemed almost every coach we go through, we just end up with someone that was even worse than before.

[Dehvin]

Any of coach would be an upgrade compared to Westfail! I don't know if i can take another game. This is like watching a junior high team. Mogoofs please make it stop!