To anyone who follows the Sacramento Kings, it seems odd that they've let Doug Christie stay on as head coach when they fired Mike Brown for much, much less. The simple reason for that is the need for consistency at such a key position, which will only keep Christie safe for so long.
It's honestly hard to describe how badly this season is going for the Kings. Frankly, it's actually kind of epic, if you're into horrifying failures. They have the worst record in the entire league while riding a 14-game losing streak and could easily lose the last 26 games of the season.
When things get this bad in the NBA, it's usually the head coaches who take the blame. That was what happened to former Kings' head coach Mike Brown. Despite coaching Sacramento to their first playoffs in 16 years, he was turfed by the ownership as soon as things got a little rough.
What's interesting is that the situation under current head coach Doug Christie is so much worse than it was under Brown. Yet, the front office and management continue to support him. The reason that's happening is consistency, and the desperate need for it in the franchise.
The Kings have long had a revolving door at head coach
Since the year 2000, Sacramento has had 14 different head coaches, which is nuts. Rick Adelman, who held the position from 1998 to 2006, was the last head coach to stay in the role for a truly significant period of time. The average run for a Kings' head coach after Adelman is 1.4 seasons.
No one has lasted longer than three seasons since 2006, a trend that continued even after Vivek Ranadive became co-owner in 2013. The complete lack of consistency in such a key position is a huge part of the reason the Kings cannot get anything going.
Despite winning the NBA Coach of the Year award while with the Kings, Brown was still fired early in his third season and was replaced by Christie. Sacramento remains publicly supportive of Christie even though the Kings are worse than ever. It's all because they need to stop the revolving door.
Without stability at head coach, any efforts to fix the franchise are doomed to failure. That doesn't mean Christie is the right head coach for the Kings, just that they're going to stick with him as long as possible, and likely longer than it makes sense to anyone looking in from the outside.