When the NBA world was blindsided Sunday night with the news that Mike Malone had been fired as head coach of the Sacramento Kings, my first assumption was there had to be some ulterior explanation for the news.
Surely Malone couldn't have been fired for basketball reasons, not with Sacramento tied for its best start through 24 games in a decade despite playing more than a third of those games without star center DeMarcus Cousins. Yet apparently that's exactly what happened, with a source telling ESPN.com's Ramona Shelburne the Kings "expected more."
Expectations? In Sacramento? Certainly not from objective outside observers. My SCHOENE projection system forecasted 35 wins; a projection based on ESPN's real plus-minus pegged the Kings for a dismal 25-57 record. The ESPN Forecast panel split the difference, predicting an even 30 wins, and the Westgate SuperBook set its line for Sacramento at 30.5 wins.