A Poll: 10 Reasons to Fire Westphal

#1. The team simply isn’t improving. That’s all that matters.

or the individual players. As TZ writes in his hook this morning, Tyreke was best early on in his rookie season. JT hasn’t really changed much. Spencer never really changed much under his tutelage. Casspi never became anything. DeMarcus has been rather inefficient. With a young team like this, the way to improve the team is to get them to work together and develop together. They haven’t managed to do either and in fact seem to be getting worse.

but I voted for “all of the above”. Not only the team isn’t improving, he threw a lot of his players under the bus, generating bad comments from many guys, from the marginal Udoka and Casspi to starters and team stars like Reke, DMC, Landry and Dalembert. All of this in 2 seasons….he simply isn’t good enough to coach in the NBA, and coaching a bad team is already harder than coaching a good one.

The sad thing is that many good coaches that were available in this 2 seasons found a job on other teams, so we basically lost the opportunity to interview and try to sell the job to excellent guys like Thibodeau, Adelman and Lawrence Frank.

I voted for #8. I know that my emotions may be running high at the moment, and that leveling all blame at PW’s feet is a little too easy, but at the moment, he has done nothing to make me feel better about him.

I had no problems with him, indeed was supportive of the idea of him finishing this year, and possibly with a good enough record, letting him extend his stay — but the timing of his spat with DMC could not have been any worse.

It was New Years Day (or the 2nd in my time zone) and to wake up to him publicly destroying someone I consider to be an extremely talented, if young and volatile, player is not the sign of a man who conducts himself in a gentlemanly manner.

It is not a sign of a man who indeed, acts like a man. You have a problem with somebody, you try to solve it with the individual, not whine about it to all & sundry. If you can’t solve it with that person, you deal with it via a third, hopefully impartial party, not air your dirty laundry to all your neighbors. At least, that’s what I was raised to believe.

If players are considered to be role models to us and/or our kids, shouldn’t coaches prove to be role models to players themselves? Their words and behavior as both NBA vets and coaches should be an example to the young men under their charge.

Instead, PW going off on DMC brought to light all of PW’s failings at the other aspects of the game, and this latest incident showed to me that he was incapable of solving those failings. Because to solve one’s failings (and here I’m talking about DMC too), one must first admit what that failure is.

If PW does not own up to his own failings / accountability, isn’t he, as the coach & veteran presence of this young team, passing that on to DMC?

I’m not against firing him, but I would either want a significant upgrade at the head coach position (I do not see Keith Smart as a “significant” upgrade), or I would have to see that Westphal has lost the team (this may or may not be happening – too soon to tell).

Westphal has his shortcomings, but he is “blessed” with a roster where his two highest paid players are John Salmons and Francisco Garcia. Chuck Hayes should be a super 3rd big man, not your best overall big man. The balance of the roster is still largely unproven.

The bottom line is that firing Westphal changes little, unless you’re bringing in a crapload more talent somewhere/somehow, whether it is at the coach or player level.

Hey here’s an Idea, If KJ somehow loses his Mayoral Re-election, bring him in as your new Sacramento Kings head coach..If he can deal with Sheedy, i am sure DMC would be no problem!

Results are dramatically different from results of this poll.

In this poll, 84% of respondents are in favor of firing Paul Westphal for one or more reasons, while only 11% are not in favor of firing him, and 5% don’t like his beard.

In the SacBee poll, posted today, currently 42% are in favor of Westphal over 23% in favor of Cousins, while 35% are split on the issue.

I would infer that the SacBee respondents are giving their endorsement to Paul Westphal, while the StR respondents clearly are not, although the polls questions are not the same.