Report: Rick Pitino interested in Kings job

Last night was full of rumors about UofL. First, there was a press conference that was supposed to happen at 11 am this morning which was going to announce either Tom Jurich’s or Rick Pitino’s departure. It turned out there were no legs to that speculation,

In the end though, the “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” adage held true, as Adrian Wojnarowski reported late that there is mutual interest between the Sacramento Kings and Rick Pitino regarding their head coaching position:

Rick Pitino has emerged as a candidate for the Sacramento Kings’ coaching job, multiple sources told Yahoo! Sports.

Pitino has communicated his interest in a possible NBA return to Kings ownership, sources say, and one league official describes the Maloof family as “intrigued.”

It is believed that Pitino intermediaries initiated the contact. No Kings offer is imminent and so far conversations have been exploratory in nature.

Sources caution that there are significant hurdles that need to be cleared before Pitino could become Sacramento’s coach, but say for a variety of reasons Pitino is feeling the pull of the pros again.

We’ll see if this ends up going anywhere, but regardless, it is a symptom of the fact that Rick Pitino might not want to be in Louisville anymore. Like the report says, there are a variety of reasons for this, but most obvious among them is the very high profile legal issue between Pitino and Karen Sypher. Pitino is likely not in any trouble legally, but in terms of public relations, that’s a different story. Anything that can keep Rick Pitino from going to Churchill Downs for the Kentucky Derby has to be pretty serious in his eyes.