Sacramento Kings, Demarcus Cousins Will Walk Fine Line This Season

The Sacramento Kings are built for what's ahead.

Not playoff contention, not an objectively successful season and probably not even a .500 record. Those goals are well beyond the Kings' capabilities.

What they're built for is the potentially abrupt pivot, the major shakeup, the violent midstream course change that could be necessary if things go badly in the early part of the 2015-16 season. They've had enough recent practice at the knee-jerk, plan-scrapping shift to be considered experts in the field.

Over a period of just a few weeks last year, Sacramento canned Mike Malone, promoted Tyrone Corbin to the head coaching position on an interim basis, ditched Corbin's interim title (suggesting the job was his for the rest of the year) and then summarily replaced Corbin with George Karl. All this despite the fact that franchise cornerstone DeMarcus Cousins very much liked Malone and, according to various reports at the time of Karl's hire, very much disliked Karl.

Last year's coaching saga was a whiplash-inducer, but it wasn't the only instance of the Kings darting from one plan to the next. They followed it up more recently with a period of front-office turmoil that resulted in Vlade Divac (and maybe Peja Stojakovic) replacing former general manager Pete D'Alessandro and analytics legend Dean Oliver in the personnel department.

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Owner Vivek Ranadive hired Oliver to serve as the director of player personnel and head of analytics just last season. The irony of an analytics guru being judged on such a small sample size is almost too much to take.

The roster has been in recent upheaval as well, with the Kings giving away a first-round pick, a pair of future pick swaps and last year's lottery selection, Nik Stauskas, in a salary dump to the Philadelphia 76ers. Sacramento used the money it earned selling its future to sign Kosta Koufos, Marco Belinelli and Rajon Rondo—three players the Kings must believe will be helpful in the present.

From top to bottom, the Kings of the past year or so have been defined by snap decisions. And though you can certainly question the wisdom of those decisions, you at least have to be impressed (perhaps morbidly) by the speed with which they made them.

The problem underlying all of those hasty moves, of course, is that they belie a complete lack of unified vision.

Deadspin's Kevin Draper laid it out:

"

Yo-yoing from a Pete D-Alessandro/Dean Oliver front office to a Vlade Divac/Peja Stojokavic one within the span of a few months, and firing a coach his star player loves and hiring one he does not, are clear signs that Vivek Ranadivé has no overarching organizational philosophy that guides his decisionmaking. Rather, he lurches from one sage to another in search of The Answer.

"

And now, a franchise careening between disparate philosophies and operating on whims faces a 2015-16 season with the potential to create the biggest reactionary shakeup of all.

Consider the scenario ahead: We've got plenty of information suggesting Karl and Cousins aren't on great terms, much of which is chronicled in a June breakdown from SB Nation's Tom Ziller.

Cousins' not-so-subtle shot at Karl, tweeting the snake-in-the-grass meme, was perhaps the most notable moment in their history:

And their limited interactions to this point have been, well...let's call them tepid.

USA Today's Sam Amick reports Karl and Cousins hadn't spoken during the summer before that awkward handshake, and Karl's comments on a meeting with his star player aren't exactly encouraging: 

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"Vlade and I will probably check in with each other (about a meeting with Cousins)," Karl said. "Vlade may be the arbiter on when we make those next steps, but I think both of us want to make them. ... I'd like to have that meeting. But we haven't had that meeting since we were in the season.

"

It's the offseason, and there's nothing wrong with players and coaches going their separate ways. But if Karl needs Divac to broker a meeting with Cousins, that's not a great omen.

Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports reported in June that Karl was angling for the Kings to move Cousins, though Divac later said the Kings wouldn't be bullied into trading the big man. That pair of reports features the double talk and internal conflict we've come to expect from the Kings. And they also raise the possibility of something truly dramatic happening early in the year.

Sacramento has sold out in pursuit of immediate wins. If things go badly, if Cousins can't get along with Karl, if the early losses mount, if Rondo reprises his role as Dallas Mavericks malcontent...what then?

Nothing the Kings have done lately suggests they'll stay the course or embrace a long-term process. It's just the opposite, actually. Everything they've done during Ranadive's tenure as owner indicates they'll pivot again—probably drastically.

The Kings can't trade picks to change their fortunes. They can't lean on an experienced front office to fix things with shrewd roster moves. Their recourses are severely limited.

Aaron Gash/Associated Press

Trading Cousins is Sacramento's only real option to change course, and it's a terrible one because the Kings don't attract free agents of his quality. Their recent drafting habits also don't make it seem likely they'll find a superstar replacement.

Yet trading Cousins is something Ranadive was comfortable enough with to allow talks between the player's agent, Dan Fegan, and the Los Angeles Lakers in June, according to Amick. Inadvisable as a hypothetical Cousins trade might seem, it certainly wouldn't come as a shock. 

Karl could be fired; that's another possibility. But what would that really solve? Cousins would have to play for yet another coach (he's already had five with the Kings), the roster would still be a mess and the front office would still have few assets at its disposal. If you're a Kings fan, though, you're probably hoping the more measured decision of canning Karl ends up being the play.

Measured is not a word often used to describe the Kings' actions, though.

What happens if the they get off to a 3-12 start and the trade rumblings kick in? What happens when Cousins hears about them? Heck, what if his camp is the source of them?

You don't hire Karl if you're going to build deliberately. You don't trade first-round picks and recent lottery selections if you're taking your time to construct a winner.

The Kings are operating on a short timeline, and if success doesn't arrive very early in the season, rash decisions are sure to follow.

At least they won't be a surprise.