Karl starts his latest rebuilding project

George Karl poses for a photo at the Sacramento Kings practice facility after he was introduced as the teams new head coach at a news conference in Sacramento, Calif., Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2015.  Karl becomes the team's third head coach this season, replacing Tyrone Corbin who took over the team after Michael Malone was fired last December.
George Karl poses for a photo at the Sacramento Kings practice facility after he was introduced as the teams new head coach at a news conference in Sacramento, Calif., Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2015. Karl becomes the team's third head coach this season, replacing Tyrone Corbin who took over the team after Michael Malone was fired last December.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- After more than 1,100 victories, a trip to the NBA Finals and a Coach of the Year award in his final season in Denver, George Karl still feels he has some unfinished business in the NBA.

So Karl left a cushy job as a television analyst to take over one of the league's least successful teams when he was introduced Tuesday as the new coach of a Sacramento Kings team that has lost the second-most games in the NBA over the past nine seasons.

"I've missed the gym, and I love the game," Karl said. "I wanted one more shot to try to win a championship."

He is joining a team that is far from that level, having not made the playoffs nor had a winning record since the 2005-06 season. Karl is the third coach this season for the Kings, taking over for Tyrone Corbin, who lasted just two months after replacing the fired Michael Malone.

The second in-season change comes after General Manager Pete D'Alessandro committed to Corbin for the rest of the season. But after watching the team go 7-21 under Corbin following an 11-13 start under Malone, D'Alessandro decided to make another change to a coach he was familiar with from his time in the front office in Denver when Karl was on the sideline.

"You get to the point where you say I know who I want to coach the team and he's available," D'Alessandro said. "Sometimes, you have to acknowledge what we've done is wrong."

Karl had been watching the Kings closely in his job as an analyst at ESPN and said he saw a team that lost confidence in recent weeks. He wants to spend the final 30 games trying to build that back up and figure out what kind of players he has heading into the offseason.

"I think there's enough talent on this team to win games, enough talent to come back and connect with one another in a way that you can be a solid to good basketball team night in and night out," Karl said. "It will take some time."

Karl, 63, last coached in the 2012-13 season, when he won NBA Coach of the Year with the Nuggets before being fired following a first-round playoff loss to the Warriors.

The Nuggets made the postseason all nine years under Karl. They advanced past the first round only once during his tenure, losing to the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2009 Western Conference finals.

"I never really totally understood what happened in Denver," Karl said. "I knew that how we were playing I had to do it again because I thought there were things happening there that were really good but could be better."

Karl, a two-time cancer survivor, is one of nine coaches in league history to surpass 1,000 victories. He has 1,131 victories as a head coach with stops in Cleveland, Golden State, Seattle and Milwaukee, earning a reputation for turning around teams.

Sacramento certainly presents another one of those challenges.

The Kings are headed for a ninth consecutive losing season and are trying to rebuild around DeMarcus Cousins, who has a history of clashing with coaches but was close with Malone.

Karl called Cousins the most skilled big man in the league. Karl said Cousins has the physical skills of former Seattle star Shawn Kemp, whom Karl coached, and the emotional fire of another former SuperSonics player in guard Gary Payton.

"To have the skills and the size that he has is going to be something that will motivate me to figure out ways to use him and motivate him and get him at a higher level than he even is now," Karl said.

Sports on 02/18/2015

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