The Sacramento Kings Are Starting To Show Some Cracks

It’s actually surprising that it took all of eight games for the Sacramento Kings, a team that spent the offseason doing whatever it could to claim the Most Dysfunctional Franchise award, to start experiencing some internal drama. But we’re finally starting to get down into the shit, with DeMarcus Cousins talking about “issues in house” and whispers about George Karl’s job security being heard.

Cousins returned to the floor last night after missing four games with an Achilles injury, but his 21-12 wasn’t enough to keep the Kings from dropping to 1-7. After the game, a despondent Cousins had some less-than-encouraging things about the team:

Who the hell knows what specific “issues” Cousins is talking about, but him cutting off one reporter who asked if they were on-court problems with a quick “not at all” seems telling.

Which brings us to this tweet from Sacramento radio host Carmichael Dave:

Put as much stock into that as you want, but given how this offseason went, it’s hard to give the Kings the benefit of the doubt when it comes to reports about internal strife.

And even though it’s only been eight games, Karl has done some downright eyebrow-raising futzing with the rotation. He’s been yanking players in and out of the starting lineup—he started James Anderson last night but only left him on the floor for seven minutes—and hasn’t really been offering consistent minutes to anyone. Third-year shooting guard Ben McLemore, who played 32 minutes per game last season and made some real strides, has been yo-yoing between 10 and 20 minutes of run per game. Given that the Kings don’t have much in the way of future draft picks, Karl putting a leash on one of the few promising young players they do have is less than ideal.

The good news for the Kings is that Rajon Rondo hasn’t yet gotten salty about anything. Should be fun when that inevitably happens, though!

Photo via Getty