It's looking like we have a new coach.

For many Kings fans, this news comes as a great relief. After firing Mike Malone in December, Karl was immediately presumed to be the frontrunner given his time in Denver with Pete D'Alessandro as well as his penchant to run the style of basketball that this front office and ownership want to see. However the Kings seemed intent on biding their time and giving Tyrone Corbin a real chance, which according to Wojnarowski's report was one of the reasons Cousins' camp was rumored to be discontent with Karl. Like others, they had thought the team would wait to conduct a full coaching search until the offseason. Unfortunately, the team has fallen off dramatically under Corbin, going just 7-19, which necessitated some sort of change. From Woj's report:

Karl is one of the winningest coaches in NBA history with a career record of 1,131-756. In 25 seasons of coaching, he's had a winning record in all but three seasons, all of which came in his first four years of coaching. Karl has had coaching stops in Cleveland, Golden State, Seattle, Milwaukee and Denver. His last year in Denver he finished 57-25 and won the NBA's Coach of the Year award before being fired that summer. Denver has not been the same since the firing, finishing 36-46 last year and are just 19-32 this year.

Coincidentally enough, Karl is one of the few coaches who has experience taking over a team in the middle of a season. His time in Denver started with him taking over a 17-25 team which he helped carry to a 32-8 record over the second half of the season.

With the hiring of Karl, the healing process can finally begin for this team and fanbase. Corbin might have had the public backing of the front office, but it seemed clear to everyone with any idea how the NBA works that he was not a long-term solution. The players now know who their coach is going forward, and that should lead to a more buy-in from everyone involved, although that might not come as easily as one would think; Jason Jones tweeted the following before getting on a plane to Chicago:

There will only be 30 games left this season when Karl takes over. He will have precious little time to hold practices given the schedule but given that there's nothing left to play for this season, these games are very important for the future growth of this team. These games are where Karl can begin to establish himself and hopefully build a foundation that the team can really build off of going into next season. There are already some nice pieces in place; DeMarcus Cousins alone is quite possibly the best big man that Karl has ever gotten to work with.

This team will now be in Karl's hands. I'm looking forward to seeing what he can do with it.