Paul Westphal Fired: Kings Made Right Move Siding with DeMarcus Cousins

The Sacremento Kings have fired Paul Westphal. According to the president of basketball operations, Geoffery Pietrie, the reason was "the overall performance level of the team has not approached what we felt was reasonable to expect."

I'm not ready to believe in that Pietrie dish, though. 

That it happened in short order after he sent home the Kings young center DeMarcus Cousins for not wanting to be a team player, he used an interesting choice of words.

"

This is how it should be. However, when a player continually, aggressively lets it be known that he is unwilling/unable to embrace traveling in the same direction as his team, it cannot be ignored indefinitely. 

"

Precisely what direction? Down?

The Kings are 2-5 this year. They were 24-58 the year before that. They were 25-57 the year before that. That's a decrease in winning percentage since the initial whopping seven-game improvement that came in Westphal's first year.

If Tom Thibodeau, the coach of the year, tells you to get with the program, you get with the program. If Phil Jackson, Rick Carlisle or Doc Rivers—coaches with rings—tell you to get with the program, you get with the program.

Westphal's moment in the sun set when Charles Barkley left the Suns. He's progressed form bad to worse steadily since then. 

I'm not a big fan of what Cousins did, but it reminds me of my military days, where, when I was an E-4 with three years in the Air Force, an E-5 with 12 years on the job told me "When you have this many years in the service and this many stripes, you can call the shots!" 

I couldn't help but think to myself that if I had that many stripes with that many years, I'd be ashamed to bring it up. 

When the team is being horrible, it's not the time to be inflexible, particularly when it comes to your future stars. It's a great way to lose your job.