Heart failure: the Kings lack toughness, and changing the coach might be the best way to end a run of postseason flameouts

Sporting News, The, May 31, 2004 by Sean Deveney

Chris Webber was sitting at the Target Center in Minneapolis last week, talking about those intangible elements that make up champions. "If you have a guy who has heart, he is going to go far," Webber said. "I would take a guy with heart over a guy with talent any day."

Strange, because if there's one thing that has seemed to hold back the Kings' progression into an elite team, it has been heart. That's the perception, at least, and following a third straight loss in a playoff Game 7, the perception seemed all the more real. True, the Kings have not been lucky--injuries and bad breaks have gotten in their way--but they never have shown the ability to rise above adversity in the postseason. How else can intangibles such as toughness and heart be defined?

The Kings fell to the Timberwolves last week without injured supersub Bobby Jackson and with Webber playing on a bum knee. Perhaps the Kings should be happy just to have reached a Game 7.

Or perhaps they simply don't have the heart to win a championship. They have not shown it to this point. When the Kings had the opportunity to wrap up the home-court advantage in the Western Conference this season, they lost eight of their last 12 games, including a woeful defeat against the Warriors on the season's final night. With the home-court, they probably would have gotten past the Timberwolves in the conference semifinals.

When Webber blew out his knee during the playoffs last year, the other Kings who needed to make up for his absence--Vlade Divac and Mike Bibby, especially--disappeared. And when the Kings needed to get tough against the Lakers in a Game 7 overtime two years ago, they instead missed a boatload of free throws and got a disappointing crunch-time airball from Peja Stojakovic.

Those old wounds were reopened in the latest Game 7 loss, which looked suspiciously like the loss to the Lakers. Stojakovic was nonexistent, shooting 3-for-12, and the Kings missed nine free throws in a 3-point loss. This is a team that was No. 2 in free throw shooting in the regular season. But you can throw out the regular season when the Kings get to the playoffs.

With this recent history, it's no wonder coach Rick Adelman has faced some grilling about his future. This nucleus--Doug Christie, Stojakovic, Webber and Divac--has been together four years and is beginning to decline. Bibby and Brad Miller have been added, but the Kings still have not advanced. Adelman has a great basketball mind and runs the league's most daring offense, but much of the blame must be placed on his shoulders. He never has been the type to inspire toughness in his players, as evidenced by his 1-5 career record in series-deciding Game 5s or Game 7s. Adelman is a good friend of general manager Geoff Petrie, but that should not preclude Petrie from recognizing that a new voice might be in order.

Other than changing the coach, there are no quick fixes for the Kings. Rumors of a major shake-up are overblown. Divac, 36, is a free agent and has said he would like to return--he is a positive force in the locker room, and the Kings need him. The contracts of Webber and Bibby would be very difficult to trade, and Stojakovic is one of the best bargains in the league (three years left at about $23 million). Christie has been rumored as trade bait, but he was the Kings' best player against the T-wolves.

The good news for Kings fans is that Petrie is a shrewd dealmaker. The team needs a slasher--Jackson is the only player on the roster capable of penetrating the lane, and the postseason put the Kings' lack of athleticism on stark display. Petrie can deal with the personnel gaps the team has, but it's time, too, for him to address the Kings' lack of toughness. He won't be able to do that through changes to the roster, and just hoping that everyone stays healthy next year hardly is enough. Changing the coach--even though it would mean removing a classy guy who has gone 230-98 over the past four years--looks like the Kings' best chance at toughening up.

E-mail staff writer Sean Deveney at sdeveney@sportingnews.com.