The sympathy for Corbin is simply that he had no chance, it's not that he failed, to fail implies that he had some control over the situation. The ownership fired a coach the players wanted to play for and replaced him with his assistant. It would be one thing if they replaced him for a bigger name at the time, I think things would have gone much better if they hired George Karl right away, in fact a lot of people assumed that would happen, it was the only thing that made sense. Then they told Corbin that the team needs to play at a faster pace which doesn't fit the players on this team and it doesn't fit Corbin's coaching style. Knowing that Corbin would be gone at the end of the year the players quit on him, they knew this year became a throwaway, they had nothing to play for. He just got stuck in the middle of a bad situation, hopefully he will get an assistant coaching job somewhere next year.