Fire Westphal? Hold your water!

People are absolutely nuts. Maybe that should read fans are nuts.

I’m reading now how the Sacramento Kings should fire Paul Westphal.

This is after they go 3-3 to begin the season. Hold your water, people.

Granted, I’ve got many questions regarding what the Kings are doing and/or trying to do.

Those things I’m trying to figure out and from the looks of, so are they, coach Westphal included.

One thing I’d ask of those who believe Westphal should be fired. Did you think he should be fired when the Kings were 3-1.

If so, then OK.

If not, then shut up and quit being reactionary to a couple of losses.

One of those came against the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers. The other defeat was by a Memphis Grizzlies team one year ahead of the Kings in the growth process and definitely more athletic and talented at this point.

It doesn’t make a difference if the Grizzlies played two overtimes the night before. If it was six or seven overtimes, then OK, I’d see the point.

These are basically 22 to 30 year-old cats, who played 10 minutes longer than regulation. What? They can’t hoop two nights in a row. People, please?

Often times, I wonder if people who write some of the bizarre stuff they post ever really, truly laced up sneakers and competed. Most of the time, the answer I came up with is hell no.

Did you ever consider how pissed off, motivated and determine that team might be after just throwing away a game they'd dominated the night before? Isn’t that a factor?

You want to fire Westphal? Didn’t the Kings just hire homeboy? Can the man get more than one season and six games before kicking him to the curb?

Can he work with the same group of players for a minimum of two seasons so it’s clear to all what he’s trying to do? Or maybe it won't be clear and that'll also be a revelation.

An organization has to have stability and firing a coach every year or even every other year does not inspire stability.

There is no way a team can become a team without learning its rules and regulations and disciplines. Just because you have 12 players or 14 for that matter, doesn’t mean you have a team.

Teams go through adversity and become stronger as a result of lessons learned. What the Kings have is a nucleus that consists, in part, of Tyreke Evans (21 years old), DeMarcus Cousins (20), and Omri Casspi (22). Include Donte Greene (22, and his status is another discussion point), Hassan Whiteside (21) and there are five players, who still are shy of their 23rd birthdays. Add Darnell Jackson, who is 25 and has six games under his Sacramento belt and there is a collection of characters who don’t really know what they are doing.

They can’t because knowing what you are doing requires know-how. You know, doing it over and over again, like most of us have done in our given jobs/professions. And not when we were 20 or 21 or 22.

Just because these guys are tall and highly-paid doesn’t make them any different mentally or maturity-wise than others their age.

They have differing levels of maturity, intelligence and willingness to accept teaching or even acknowledge the need to be taught.

Westphal surely still is attempting to learn how to teach and reach these guys. The Kings have improved talent and size, but its collection by no means is so commanding that it is dominating.

OK, I could spend another four hours with the questions that surface with Westphal’s actions and decisions.

So, I’ll chill with those for the moment. Some of those might be answered, say, in the second or third weeks of the season. That was a joke for those of you taking this Kings thing a bit too seriously.

However, here’s a couple I hope to get the coach to answer by next week.

How many plays do you call a game? How many of those are pick and roll plays?

The Kings half-court offense often appears to have no direction. Is that because players fail to execute their roles? Or is it because it lacks direction.

How much time during practice does your team spend on defense? Is there a way to improve how stay in between your man and the basket? You know the basic concept of keeping one’s man in front of you?

So far, the Kings should be renamed the excavators since all they do is dig holes for themselves. That’s the most difficult way to win games.

Ahh, we'll get to Greene another day.

Sacramento Queens are no more

The Sacramento media was introduced to rookies DeMarcus Cousins and Hasaan Whiteside Saturday afternoon and there is more than one first impression.

1) Coach Paul Westphal, who along with President Geoff Petrie represented the organization at the press conference, has just become a better defensive coach.

2) These two youngsters are as baby-faced as they are long.

3) Whiteside's mother, Debbie can pass as his sister - easily.

4) If Whiteside can defend as fiercely as naturally as he can make a group laugh, there'll be many an opposing player wondering where his shot went.

Said Whiteside, who briefly worked out with Hall of Famer, Hakeem Olajuwon, "He was scoring a lot on me, but I was trying my best."

5) If Cousins is overweight, then what am I? I know he was dressed in a sweet grey suit and all, but this kid is hardly Oliver Miller. He looked svelte and well-proportioned.

And Cousins said all the right things, "I want to work on my conditioning."

From what I hear and have seen, if Cousins becomes well-conditioned, he's going wreak havoc.

6) It was good to relocate my right hand after it disappeared inside the bear claw Cousins used to shake hands. The boy has meat hooks.

7) For the Kings sake, the organization only can hope these two kids remember the darts thrown in their respective directions by untold written and verbal assassins during the entire draft process.

8) There are many different ways lives can change and Whiteside's mother spoke of a terrible incident that she believed played a major role in Hasaan's development.

"Do you remember a couple of years ago when some kids were murdered in a park in Newark (N.J.)?" she said referring to the August 2007 case that became nationally known after three college students were killed and one more was severely injured.

The students were lined up against a wall and shot execution-style. Natasha Aeriel, then 19, survived and was able to identify the assailants. Aeriel, three years later, this May graduated from Delaware State University and also testified in the trial in one of the six linked to the killings.

Mama Whiteside continued, "That was when Hassan was living in Newark and that park where the kids were killed was the one he used to play in when he was living with his father. I used to always tell him to be careful. And he would say, 'Mama, all I do is go back and forth from home to play ball and then back.'

"But I think that situation was an eye-opener for him because after that he wanted to come back to Gastonia (N.C.)."

Hasaan spent one year averaging 18 points, 10 rebounds and 5.5 blocked shots during the 2006-2007 season at East Side High School in Newark.

Then he returned to Gastonia and attended Hope Christian (Charlotte) and the Patterson School in Lenoir, N.C., where he was recruited by UConn, Louisville and West Virginia among others.

That's not the same East Side High School in nearby Paterson that became famous after the movie, 'Lean On Me,' and principal Joe Clark highlighted some of the madness that occurs in inner-city school.

Hasaan Whiteside's NBA bio explains his father, Hasaan Arbubakrr, played with the Minnesota Vikings and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Arbubakrr was a defensive end, who went to Texas Tech.

In a different situation, Hasaan Whiteside, who just turned 21 June 19, might have been a high jumper. His moves and stride scream 'smooth athleticism.'

The type of athleticism that hasn't been seen around these parts in a seven-footer - ever. Whiteside clearly is highly coordinated. He led the nation in blocked shots last season at Marshall with 5.35 per game and fouled out just once in 34 games.

At Marshall, Whiteside was schooled by assistant coach, Darren Tillis, the Boston Celtics' first-round draft choice in 1982.

Man, I'm old. I covered the 6-foot-11 Tillis in 1983-84 when he played with the Golden State Warriors.

The Kings believe Whiteside is a forward, not a center. They also believe Whiteside has quite a bit of work to do before he can play an integral role.

However, a future pairing of Cousins and Whiteside, say in two, three years when they are, 21 and 23, respectively, looms as a combination potentially lethal around the basket.

A baby-faced wall that could erase all mention of the Queens.