Sacramento Kings: Keith Smart Deal a Wise Choice for Kings

Keith Smart took over as the Sacramento Kings' head coach yesterday and led the team to an excellent comeback victory. Seems a ringing endorsement for the newest man on the Kings' coaching carousel. 

Certainly, a one-game sample size isn't enough to sell Smart as the Kings coach of the future, even if it was an excellent 21-point comeback on the tail end of a three-games-three-nights stretch.

But Smart was the correct choice for Sacramento.

An early report from Adrian Wojnarowski at Yahoo! Sports said that the agreement with Smart was a two-year deal, which seemed an exceptional risk if Smart didn't work out early. But the Sacramento Bee's Jason Jones later reported that the contract was only guaranteed through the end of the season.

The one-year guarantee and the two-year prospect are wise moves for both Sacramento and Smart. If Smart doesn't manage to better handle this team than Westphal, the Kings can let him go this offseason and begin a more extensive search. But if Smart fares well, he can go through the season without being a complete "lame-duck" coach.

Smart did an good job in his one season with the Golden State Warriors last year, where the teams' 36-46 finish was a ten game improvement over the previous season. Despite constant injures, Smart improved the Warriors and should have gotten a second year with the team, but was let go for former NBA star/TV loudmouth Mark Jackson.

"Right now the team is dealing with an identity crisis," Smart told the Sacramento Bee. "Each guy is trying to push forward his identity... We've got to get each guy to understand, your identity will grow faster by trying to grow this team."

Longtime fans of the Kings are tired of Sacramento ownership hiring less-than-big-name coaches—since the departure of Rick Adleman, the Kings have shuffled through Eric Mussleman, Reggie Theus, Kenny Natt and now Paul Westphal.

When the news of Westphal's departure broke, perhaps Kings fans were hopeful that general manager Geoff Petrie and the owning Maloof brothers would try and go after a bigger name coach immediately. But hiring a coach from outside the organization during the season just doesn't happen—the lone recent exception was the Bobcats firing of Larry Brown for Paul Silas last season.

So the Kings were not about to call up and try and talk Jerry Sloan or Phil Jackson out of retirement—at least not midseason.

The Kings' organization was clearly happy with Smart, and you have to wonder if they hired him as an assistant under Westphal as insurance in case Westphal needed replacement.

One of the weaknesses Smart had last season was a somewhat rocky relationship with Warriors star Stephan Curry, which should set off some warning bells for Kings fans after the Westphal/DeMarcus Cousins debacle. But according to Jones, both Tyreke Evans and Cousins are already fans of Smart.

Smart says he feels the team is built for a faster run-based offense, which already gives the Kings more of an offensive gameplan than they had under Westphal. The big question is if Smart can properly motivate and fit all the players together; if he can, he could be more than a one-year coach.

If the Smart move doesn't work out, the Kings at least made the serious effort with what they had on hand. Westphal was obviously not the coach of the future, and if Smart isn't as well the Kings can go into next year and take a look at a coaching lineup that includes Sloan, Jeff Van Gundy and Larry Brown.

But this was a move that had to be done, and a pretty wise one at that.