The Sacramento Kings hiring Mark Jackson as their next coach would be the NBA equivalent of lighting a cigarette at a gas station. For the franchise with the longest playoff drought in NBA history and consistent organizational drama, pairing up with Jackson would have serious disaster potential.

The Golden State Warriors’ coach from 2011 to 2014, Jackson, is reportedly the leading candidate for Sacramento’s head coaching job, according to Jake Fischer of Bleacher Report. According to Fischer and NBA insider Marc Stein, Jackson, at this stage, is considered the favorite because he is Vivek Ranadive’s preferred candidate for the job.

In that same story by Fischer, he said that fellow head coaching candidate Mike Brown is the favorite of General Manager Monte McNair and the rest of the Kings’ front office.

If that’s the case, then Brown should be the guy for the job without any questions.

The same Ranadive, who is hiring the franchise’s seventh coach in his nine years as general manager, just doesn’t seem to learn. After all of these years of failure and incompetence, it is befuddling that he thinks this is how the franchise should operate.

Sacramento needs a steady hand, not someone who has the behind-the-scenes baggage of Jackson. While you could argue that Jackson played a role in the Warriors’ eventual ascent to championship winners, that team had significantly more talent than Sacramento does currently.

Today, Mark Jackson interviews to become head coach of the New York #Knicks. You should not want this. Here is a thread about why.

RT this to the moon and make sure to tag @scmills and @boxand21 so they know what’s up.#NeverMarkJackson

— Alex Wolfe (@thealexwolfe) April 18, 2018

This Kings team is miles behind that Warriors team talent-wise. Expecting Jackson, who hasn’t sat on an NBA bench in eight years, to make a similar impact is foolish.

Ranadive has long been fascinated with Jackson and all things relating to the Warriors since he left their ownership group in 2013 to become the owner of the Kings.

While it is unclear if Sacramento ever formally interviewed him before now, they spoke to him in 2014 for the head coaching role during the season, according to Sam Amick of The Athletic.

What does it say about Jackson that he hasn’t held a coaching job since the 2013-14 season, and the closest he has been to landing one is now that the most dysfunctional team in the NBA wants to hire him?

Could Jackson be the coach Sacramento needs to take the next step? It’s possible, but given the past of Jackson and the history of the Kings under Ranadive, it is much easier to envision continued organizational dysfunction. Jackson could have changed as a person in the time since he last coached in the NBA, but Sacramento is not the place to find that out.