by Charlie O Mallonee

SACRAMENTO–This past four game road trip that the Sacramento Kings have just been on back east that took them to Brooklyn, Boston, then Minnesota and Detroit they were talking about the Kings possibility about going 0-4 against the competition that they were going to face. They went 1-3 but they would have been happy to finish 2-2. In the NBA if you could go .500 on the road you’d be very successful the problem is they came home 1-3.

All you have to do is look at the score in those four games and it tells you everything you need to know they lost to Brooklyn 107-99, they lost to Boston 106-84, they beat Minnesota 110-107, but then they turned around and lost to Detroit 114-95. You just had to ask the question “where is the defense?” you cannot give up 100 plus points that consistently in the Association and expect to win basketball games right now the defense is suffering greatly for the Kings.

Right now you have to say the coaching change is not working out very well, the Kings are 3-7 since Corbin took over, that is not reflective of Corbin coaching but it’s symptomatic of the fact that the Kings management and when I say that I’m talking about Kings owner Vivek Ranadive and Kings general manager Pete Alessandro have instructed Corbin to try to get the team to play a more up tempo offense.

As far as Corbin coming in it’s very difficult to change a system on the fly, this team under former coach Michael Malone was built to play very tough defense and hold the opponent under 95 points a game and play them and play a pretty good half court offense. The Kings are trying to change that all around. In changing it around they’ve lost their defensive center.

As far as Corbin goes I feel bad for him because he’s doing the best coaching job that you could do, it’s difficult for him to do and go in a direction that can be successful. A local talk show host reported yesterday he had heard that in the locker room. Even though the Kings have said that Corbin is their coach until the end of this season the players and fans feel that Corbin is on his way out at the end of the season.

Corbin right now is struggling to find the level of respect and the ability to be the leader that you need to be of an NBA ball club because the players don’t believe he’s going to be there after the end of the season. Corbin at this time is really in a no-win, no-win situation. The Kings have indicated that their going to stand pat and stay with Corbin for the rest of the season.

Charlie O covers Kings basketball for http://www.sportsradioservice.com