Sacramento Kings Have More to Figure out Than Just Their Coaching Situation

New coaches don't guarantee new horizons—not when it's the team itself that needs fixing.

Now on their third skipper since 2012, the Sacramento Kings are hoping Ty Corbin will be the first to secure a winning record with the franchise since Rick Adelman did so between 1998 and 2006.

Despite a 2-6 start after taking the helm from the dismissed Mike Malone on an interim basis earlier this month, the former assistant and head coach of the Utah Jazz revealed on Wednesday that he'd hold on to the gig for the remainder of the season.

"You need to hear it—it's done," he told reporters. "But as I said when I took over, we're here together until something changes."

Something may well change at season's end, but for now, Corbin has assumed responsibility for turning around a perpetually sinking ship that hasn't qualified for the postseason since 2006. Having twice suited up for the franchise in the 1990s, he knows a thing or two about the town.

But that doesn't mean he'll have all the answers to what ails the Kings, and it certainly doesn't mean he'll last beyond season's end.

Wednesday's 106-84 loss to the 11-18 Boston Celtics was only the latest indication that this franchise hasn't even begun to turn the corner.

While they've managed to score a few points behind DeMarcus Cousins, Rudy Gay, Darren Collison and an improved Ben McLemore, it's the other end of the floor that remains a serious problem—despite the fact that Malone was supposed to infuse some defensive pedigree into a culture that had none.

Sacramento is allowing opponents 106.3 points per 100 possessions, making it the 24th-most efficient defense in the league, according to Hollinger Team Stats. That's also the number of points this team allowed a season ago, suggesting the kind of stagnation that young talent alone won't solve. Another coach or two might not do any better, either. And whoever's running the show, one thing has become abundantly clear.

This is going to take time, as Corbin told reporters this week:

"

It has to be gradual. We don't want to confuse ourselves as we make tweaks to what we have, so it has to be a gradual thing. You can't expect them to get it overnight. I think we've (gotten) better executing on the offensive end, but defensively we've lost a step. So we've got to make sure as we try to put more time in on the offensive end, get back to putting more time in on the defensive end as well.

"

In other words, yes, this organization is still very much rebuilding. And the evolution will be as much about growing internally as acquiring new personnel. After all, getting stops has more to do with effort and focus than having all-world skills.

On paper, the Kings have some of those already. 

Through his first 20 appearances, Cousins is posting career highs of 24.7 points and 12.3 rebounds per contest. And Gay is averaging career highs of his own with 21.2 points and 4.6 assists per game. It's the kind of production that makes Sacramento one of the league's more tantalizing teams—a talented, but ever-underwhelming, franchise.

Silver bullets probably aren't in the offing, but whatever the solution, it may have to come from within, as Cousins explained to reporters on Wednesday:

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Honestly, at the end of the day, it's on us no matter who the head guy is on the bench. At the end of the day, we go out there and play the games. It's time for us to stop looking for excuses, stop trying to make excuses. We've got to man up and play basketball. We know what we need to do on a nightly basis. We know we need to defend, and we know we need to share the ball and come out and play hard. I believe with those three things that 70 percent of the job is done. It doesn't matter, we've got to go out and do our jobs.

"

At 13-18 so far this season, it's all still talk. The Kings are currently four games removed from the No. 8-seeded Phoenix Suns, and both the New Orleans Pelicans and Denver Nuggets remain in the hunt as well.

For any of those teams to even have a chance, though, the Oklahoma City Thunder—or another postseason incumbent—would have to be squeezed from playoff consideration. Though injuries to Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook decimated OKC's record in November, its recovery is well underway.

So the Kings may well be on their way to another lottery before the bigger and better things come around.

Owner Vivek Ranadive might not have it any other way. He's known for some time that this rebuild would first require some tearing down.

Ranadive told the Associated Press (via NBA.com) back in Oct. 2013:

"

When you think about how a pearl is made, it starts with an empty shell. And an impurity, or an irritant, a grain of sand, gets into the shell. And then a pearl forms around it. And so to make something of beauty and value, you often need an irritant. My role is to be like the Chief Irritant. So I'm just going around annoying people.

"

And, occasionally, firing them.

Unfortunately, he can't fire the whole team. That team has allowed at least 104 points in each of the eight games since Corbin has taken charge, including 128 points in a Dec. 22 loss to the Golden State Warriors and another 129 on Dec. 27's overtime win against the lowly New York Knicks.

Between now and February's trade deadline, general manager Peter D'Alessandro could conceivably add another difference-maker to Corbin's arsenal. But now probably isn't the time for this organization to be parting ways with assets.

It would be one thing had the club been able to maintain the momentum cultivated amid a 9-5 start, but a 4-11 December has unceremoniously changed all that. And while Sacramento could improbably extricate itself from this mess in theory, the competition out West probably won't let that happen.

So why not tread water until the right pieces come along via the draft or free agency? Unless D'Alessandro and Co. really believe another rim-protector can solve this equation in short order, a more patient—and painful—approach may be essential.

The Kings' problems are too deep-seated for anything less.