Ex-Sacramento Kings sound off after their former coach leads rival to big victory

In December 2014, when the Sacramento Kings started to show flashes of the nostalgic greatness of the early 2000s, few people truly understood why the Kings fired head coach Michael Malone.

He had guided them to a 9-6 start in the 2014-15 season, but after the Kings’ star player, DeMarcus Cousins, contracted viral meningitis, a serious condition that inflames the lining of the brain and spinal cord, the team took a major slide in the standings.

Shortly afterward, the Kings fired Malone.

The very same Malone who led his Denver Nuggets to a thrilling 80-78 victory over the Utah Jazz on Tuesday night, advancing them to the second round of the NBA playoffs.

Almost six years later, some of the Kings who played for Malone in Sacramento sound off after the Nuggets victory — wondering what could have been.

Gay played for the Kings from 2013-2017 and was with the team during Malone’s firing. He’s been vocal about the coach’s sudden exit, associating it to the Kings downward spiral.

“I think (Malone leaving) was the start of it,” Gay said to Sactown Royalty in 2016 – two years after Malone had departed. “The thing with me, I try to stay out of as much as I can as far as the organization. I try to do what I can control, which is be on the basketball court, but I think at some point you’ve go to have the players, their futures and what they have at stake in mind when you make decisions and I don’t think that happened.”

Cousins agreed with his former teammate’s sentiments.

Under Malone, Cousins had been playing at an All-Star level. He was averaging 23.5 points on 51 percent shooting with 12.6 rebounds and 2.4 assists in 15 games in the beginning of the 2014-15 season. To top that off, Cousins, who has been known for his somewhat controversial locker room presence, didn’t have a “single locker room incident or on-court run-in” while Malone was in charge, SB Nation reported.

Cousins even told the Sacramento Bee that “we’re not the same team” after Malone’s firing in 2015.

Last but not least, Isaiah Thomas, former Kings guard from 2011-2014, added to the thread.

It should be noted that Thomas also played for Malone later down the line in Denver and was notably upset with Malone after the coach gradually sliced his minutes on the court before cutting him from the team’s regular rotation.

It’s clear that the former players are not finished pointing out the Kings’ front office past mistakes, and Kings fans along with the media are content with rooting them on from the Twitter sidelines.

The Kings currently are the owners of the second-longest playoff drought in NBA history, missing their 14th straight postseason after the team was eliminated during the restart in August.