Anatomy of a Stalled Rebuild: Which Kings Team Was Better?

[Bricklayer]

I thought I would ask an interesting little question here. Its been 8 years since we last made the playoffs. Its widely expected this will be year 9. Its an obscenely long period out of the postseason -- if it does stretch 9 years it will match the Sacto era record 9 season dry spell from 1986-1995. It doesn't take normal teams this long to rebuild. You have to either have some real terrible luck or flat be doing something wrong.

So I thought I would take a look at three nicely spaced teams from the era, and specifically the Cousins era. If you count the 17 win year in 2008-09 when Petrie finally gave up and blew up the fugly Bibby/Miller/Salmons etc. nonsense midseason as the sign that we were trying to tank and rebuild, then the Reke draft becomes the first true rebuilding year. So I thought I'd ask this question. How would you rank the following 3 teams from the rebuilding years in terms of TALENT (and hence potential). The three teams will be the teams during the 2nd year (2010-11, Reke's 2nd year/Cuz's rookie year), 4th year (2012-13, last Maloof year), and now 6th year (2014-15, current squad) since we started trying to bounce back (and 1st/3rd/5th of the Cousins era).

Here are the rosters:

2010-11
DeMarcus Cousins
Samuel Dalembert
Hassan Whiteside
Jason Thompson
Carl Landry
Darnell Jackson
Donte Greene
Francisco Garcia
Jermaine Taylor
Antoine Wright
Marcus Thornton
Tyreke Evans
Luther Head
Beno Udrih
Pooh Jeter

2012-13
DeMarcus Cousins
Cole Aldrich
Chuck Hayes
Jason Thompson
Patrick Patterson
Thomas Robinson
James Johnson
Travis Outlaw
Tyler Honeycutt
John Salmons
Francisco Garcia
Marcus Thornton
Tyreke Evans
Jimmer Fredette
Toney Douglas
Aaron Brooks
Isaiah Thomas

2014-15
DeMarcus Cousins
Ryan Hollins
Jason Thompson
Reggie Evans
Eric Moreland
Carl Landry
Derrick Williams
Rudy Gay
Omri Casspi
Ben McLemore
Nik Stauskas
Ray McCallum
Ramon Sessions
Darren Collison


Logically the goal in any rebuild is to eventually get better. Have we?

 

[jcwkings]

I think 12-13 had better fitting pieces that should have been kept together. Cousins is twice the player he was then. IT is much improved as he was a sophmore then, but now is scratching his prime. Tyreke slightly better when healthy. Paterson was a good fit, though he probably shouldnt start. I would be much more optimistic if 14-15 roster had a base of

Cousins
Evans
IT
Collison
Pattersom
Stauskas
JT(cant be traded)

With good coaching this team could be competitive. Even a guy like James Johnson could play a role. Our problem is that we dont have roles for anyone, we just play like a pickup team, and have for practically all the Cousins era. Im really starting to question Malone, PDA lost me a while ago. Vivek only speaks in cliches and I just get a bad vibe from him.
Cuz, Gay, IT core with better fitting pieces would also have been better.

 

[hrdboild]

I still remember how much hope we all had going into that 2010/2011 season. Tyreke had won ROY and then we subsequently traded Hawes for Dalembert and drafted a guy some of us believed was going to be the best player in the draft. Whiteside in the second round as a potential defensive force was a nice bonus. That team lacked a SF (which set up the disastrous Salmons/Fredette trade at the end of the year) but was solid pretty much everywhere else. But then Cousins clashed with Coach Westphal, Tyreke got injured over the summer and never found the explosiveness going to the basket he had the year before. We also nabbed Marcus Thornton at the trade deadline and he put up All-Star numbers for the last month and a half, which was pretty encouraging for a 23 year old in his second season.

The complete dearth of talent at the forward positions made me rank 2012-2013 lower than this season. 2/3 of that roster was just painful to watch that year. Everybody regressed or played well below their talent level especially DeMarcus who got to watch from the paint while a revolving door of undersized SGs attempted to run Keith Smart's "offense". Nothing more needs to be said about Tyreke at SF. This is the season that led to new management considering Evans expendable. A decision which has doomed us to two more seasons (and counting) of treading water.

I don't think any of these teams are dramatically better in terms of talent or potential. There was a perception in 2010-2011 that we had turned a corner and that made it feel like the team had more potential. This current team skews a little more toward mid-career veterans so there's less (unrealistic?) projections for upward trajectory. Really what we're seeing here is a prolonged rebuild sabotaged by broke owners and then a shift in management philosophies which has essentially re-set the clock on the rebuild. We also had several very poor drafts in a row. At least 2, maybe more depending on how you feel about McLemore or Stauskas. So we've let drafted talent leave with no return (Evans, Jimmer, Robinson, Thomas) while failing to replenish that talent with our new picks. Rudy could leave for nothing at the end of this season as well. All of this could change pretty quickly with a good draft and a successful trade. Right now there's no clear path to the playoffs though. Which is pretty frustrating for as long as we've been residing in lottery hell.

 

[kingsboi]

This has to be the 2012-2013 team...you had Cousins, IT, Reke, Brooks, Patterson, Vasquez, Thornton while that may be a lot of guards the players that aren't here anymore are contributing on other teams. At some point you have to look at our drafts, some of the drafts just held us back and I mean BIG time, that is no guarantee that the players would of panned out differently but as the draft suggested to us, we had no direction and kept drafting BPA when in hindsight, it's never BPA, you draft for who YOU like...not what the consensus is.

 

[HighFlyingMonkey]

I really do wonder what would have happened if we had rolled with the 2012/2013 core with better roleplayers. D'Alessandro committed to completely overhauling the roster and in the meantime dumped some pieces that I think should have been part of our core. We could have had:

IT/Collison
Evans/Stauskas
3+D SF?/Salmons
Cousins/Patterson
Steven Adams(Instead of Ben?)/JT

PDA may have thrown the baby out with the bathwater in a rush to tear up the roster.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

10-11, without question. I look at that frontcourt rotation, and then I look at that backcourt rotation, and I still can't believe we ruined it; that should have been a playoff team.

 

[gunks]

Between his iffy drafting, iffy free agent signings, iffy trades, and iffy talent bleeds....I'm starting to lose what confidence I had in PDA.

J/K....I never had confidence in PDA!!

 

[rainmaker]

Yeah, we screwed up what we had with that 10-11 squad. If we had kept Reke/Cuz/Dally/JT together and drafted either Klay or Leonard, that would have been a pretty decent core group. A Reke/Klay backcourt would have been fun to watch and a helluva defensive combo. Leonard would have plugged the SF hole. We'd have been able to bring IT along as a 6th man too.

Aside from draft screw ups, I still say the decision which will haunt this franchise for years is not keeping Reke. Right now he's largely considered the 2nd best player on a team much better than ours and his coach is having him run point-forward as, get this, Reke is considered the best passer and playmaker on NO, pairs well with Davis and Holiday is taking a back seat to him. Is he better than the #2 guy on our team, who might bolt for nothing this summer? Given we barely got anything of note for either Reke or IT, I'm not all that confident we'll handle the Rudy situation all that well. PDA has to know whether or not Rudy will be re-signing come the deadline. Can't play russian roulette with him like he did with IT and see him walk for nothing.

Still pisses me off we were so damn close to having a Reke/Klay pairing with Cuz down low and IT locked in as a 6th man. Damnit! I've been pretty high on Klay all along though and can't say I'd have picked Leonard instead.

If this thing goes south, we could end up with a worse team than all of the above next year. Think about that. Could be just Cuz and the hope Nik takes the next step. We're balancing on a seesaw right now and this really could go either way.

 

[King Baller]

That was a rough opening game!

 

[Big Cuz 15]

I really do wonder what would have happened if we had rolled with the 2012/2013 core with better roleplayers. D'Alessandro committed to completely overhauling the roster and in the meantime dumped some pieces that I think should have been part of our core. We could have had:

IT/Collison
Evans/Stauskas
3+D SF?/Salmons
Cousins/Patterson
Steven Adams(Instead of Ben?)/JT

PDA has thrown the baby out with the bathwater in a rush to tear up the roster.

correction

 

[Big Cuz 15]

Yeah, we screwed up what we had with that 10-11 squad. If we had kept Reke/Cuz/Dally/JT together and drafted either Klay or Leonard, that would have been a pretty decent core group. A Reke/Klay backcourt would have been fun to watch and a helluva defensive combo. Leonard would have plugged the SF hole. We'd have been able to bring IT along as a 6th man too.

Aside from draft screw ups, I still say the decision which will haunt this franchise for years is not keeping Reke. Right now he's largely considered the 2nd best player on a team much better than ours and his coach is having him run point-forward as, get this, Reke is considered the best passer and playmaker on NO, pairs well with Davis and Holiday is taking a back seat to him. Is he better than the #2 guy on our team, who might bolt for nothing this summer? Given we barely got anything of note for either Reke or IT, I'm not all that confident we'll handle the Rudy situation all that well. PDA has to know whether or not Rudy will be re-signing come the deadline. Can't play russian roulette with him like he did with IT and see him walk for nothing.

Still pisses me off we were so damn close to having a Reke/Klay pairing with Cuz down low and IT locked in as a 6th man. Damnit! I've been pretty high on Klay all along though and can't say I'd have picked Leonard instead.

If this thing goes south, we could end up with a worse team than all of the above next year. Think about that. Could be just Cuz and the hope Nik takes the next step. We're balancing on a seesaw right now and this really could go either way.

look on the bright side. rudy played PF in the summer. we definitely have positionless basketball going.

giving away reke then getting absolutely NOTHING in return. followed that amateur gm move by spending it on ****ing luc richard mbah moute and landry really set it off for me.

he better pull off some miracle moves now that he's cleared the canvas.

 

[Big Cuz 15]

Between his iffy drafting, iffy free agent signings, iffy trades, and iffy talent bleeds....I'm starting to lose what confidence I had in PDA.

J/K....I never had confidence in PDA!!

he's gerbil until he proves he deserves the title PDA

 

[mac]

2010-11 was definitely a better team, and even showed more potential. I'm one of the few here who thinks that Westphal wasn't that bad a coach, clashes with Cousins aside. Cousins has also matured and come a long way since then. We actually had pretty decent offensive sets under Westphal that we used to run with Beno/Cousins/Evans. That Cousins/ Daly front court was also pretty effective. The lockout was bad for our team and Westphal came back with his read and react offense due to a lack of extended training camp.

Everything went south when we failed to patch the SF hole that offseason, lost Daly and got Chuck Hayes instead and traded Beno for Salmons. Oh, and handing the reins over to Keith Smart.

 

[ESP47]

2010-2011. Dalembert was solid. Cousins was showing flashes of potential. Reke took a step back but Thornton came in and played out of his mind. Carl Landry and Beno were in their primes. If we had Thornton all year we possibly could have been knocking on the door of the 8th seed. We had some seriously exciting games to close out that year with Thornton hitting every clutch shot possible. Half the roster was talented, the other half was not at all. This year the roster is more balanced top to bottom talent wise but much less balanced as far as players fitting together.

 

[King Baller]

Are we really rating this years squad with only one regular season game played? While the the previous seasons have a whole 82 games season of work? Seems a tad bit premature to me

 

[pdxKingsFan]

Are we really rating this years squad with only one regular season game played? While the the previous seasons have a whole 82 games season of work? Seems a tad bit premature to me

Felt like I was taking crazy pills seeing some of the posts the last 24 hours. Glad I'm not alone.

 

[mac]

Are we really rating this years squad with only one regular season game played? While the the previous seasons have a whole 82 games season of work? Seems a tad bit premature to me

Mm this thread at least should be based on talent on paper + reasonable projection of performance based on last year. We could have not played a single game and still be able to make the same rankings.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

Yes, but "on paper", Reke never got injured, blossomed into a perrenial All-Star and re-signed with the Kings for a max contract. In some other fantasy land people live in, IT was a threat to score 30 a night and drop 10+ assists.

In reality, those teams all sucked. This team has played one game, in which they clearly had a number of players play beneath their even marginal abilities. I think it is widely acknowledged that while McLemore struggled offensively he played sound defense and Stauskas should be more consistent as he grows into the league. Other role players may or may not step into their roles. Can't we at least give 10 games to see what we've got?

 

[randymoss1881]

What really screwed us is the TRob pick that will haunt us for a while. You pick either Drummond or lillard and there's no way even PDA can screw that up.

 

[hrdboild]

Yes, but "on paper", Reke never got injured, blossomed into a perrenial All-Star and re-signed with the Kings for a max contract. In some other fantasy land people live in, IT was a threat to score 30 a night and drop 10+ assists.

In reality, those teams all sucked. This team has played one game, in which they clearly had a number of players play beneath their even marginal abilities. I think it is widely acknowledged that while McLemore struggled offensively he played sound defense and Stauskas should be more consistent as he grows into the league. Other role players may or may not step into their roles. Can't we at least give 10 games to see what we've got?

It's not about actual performance. That 2010-2011 team won 24 games. 2012-2013 won 28 games. The question is about going back to the start of 2010 or the start of 2012 and comparing those situations to now. A re-building team has already bottomed out and dumped all their aging talent and presumably that means you are going to slowly add pieces year to year which will eventually get you back to the playoffs. If you look at the roster 4 years ago and the talent level of the team today is either the same or worse, than what have we been doing all this time? It's a subjective question of course, everyone judges talent differently. And it does involve a good deal of revisionist thinking. We know who Tyreke is now -- a talented player, but not an All-NBA guy who can carry a team. Like I said before, I think there are understandable reasons why the rebuild has actually become a no-build. But my assessment is not a reaction to one game, it's a reaction to everything we currently know about these players, their contract situations, and my opinion of how they might perform this season.

 

[VF21]

What really screwed us is the TRob pick that will haunt us for a while. You pick either Drummond or lillard and there's no way even PDA can screw that up.

You know what really screwed us up? We the fans thought the front office wanted to win, while all the while the Maloofs were doing Maloofian things that would have made Rachel Phelps green with envy.

It's hard to assess the talent level of a team when you're not sure why they were put together.

 

[kingsnation]

I'm of the mindset that a Cousins, Dalembert, Reke, Beno core is a great start to building a decent little team.

The Kings felt different.

 

[Padrino]

vivek ranadive's interview with grant and jerry during the home opener was a fairly empty exercise, but there was one moment worth noting: unprompted, vivek brought up the fact that only two players from the maloof era remain (cousins, thompson) since the new regime took over. it seems a rather strange point to emphasize, as if simply clearing out the old guard is some kind of accomplishment. however, the replacements that PDA has thus far gathered in sacramento hardly constitute a functional team. rather, they are an ill-fitting collection of everybody else's cast-offs. i'd hardly be one to celebrate the likes of marcus thornton or travis outlaw, but tyreke evans and isaiah thomas are legitimate young talents who were shown the door without a clear plan to replace their talent level...

PDA bought low on rudy gay, which was prudent, but it smacked of desperation after the kings struck out on andre iguodala during that offseason. and while i'm fine with an interim platoon of darren collison and ramon sessions at the PG position, and while i was also never IT's biggest fan, he is clearly the more talented player. and once again, kings fans watched a good one walk out the door and kept waiting all offseason for the front office to make a big move, saying things like, "i'm sure that's not all PDA has up his sleeve." last year carl landry was the only thing tucked up there. this year it's darren collison and ramon sessions. at a certain point, the talent bleed will leave this team dry of assets. rudy may very well look for greener pastures, and big cuz is sure to follow if he's not delivered an adequate supporting cast...

 

[Iced Espresso]

Makes me sad to think about.

 

[Chubbs]

Well, I don't know which was most talented, but they all had one thing in common. Bad coaches and front offices.

I heard the same thing from Vivek that Padrino commented on. Its one of his new "blah blah blah" talking points to show what a great leader is. Love me! I fired everyone! It's a corporate move to clear out the old, in with the new. Does it accomplish anything? Well only if the replacements are better than what you had, and what you had needed to go. They clearly thought so. To me, we seem to have just moved bodies for the sake of it and are basically in the exact same place as a year ago.

It's not a good talking point to brag how you lost tyreke and IT for essentially nothing. Spin it however you want, but that's what happened. Even IT's biggest detractors didn't want him to walk for nothing.

It's the undying arrogance of this "regime" that makes them think this team is better, seemingly only because THEY picked the players. Because clearly, THEY know better than the last guys. But you look at past rosters to now, and it's a lot of the same overall talent. And it still doesn't fit.

 

[funkykingston]

In terms of talent and potential it's the 2010-2011 team in a landslide. You had the reigning rookie of the year being joined by Cousins which was enough reason for optimism alone. Beno and JT were solid role players and trading Hawes & Nocioni for Dalembert solidified the frontcourt. That team was the last one I've been really excited about.

This year's team has a much better Boogie but beyond that where are the reasons for optimism? Not McLemore. I think Stauskas will be a solid pro for many years but he doesn't have star potential. Rudy is what he is. This team isn't talented enough to win and there aren't enough guys with growth potential to see that changing. It would take an influx of talent for real improvement.

The 2012-2013 team still had Reke and DMC but the wheels were coming off. Dalembert was gone, the team overpaid for a bench chucker in Thornton but most of all the last two first round picks were complete busts. THAT is where things came off the rails for the Reke/Cousins team. We hoped those two were the core of a contender and they weren't. Both are highly talented but also obviously flawed players. Cousins is ground bound which both stops him from being a defensive anchor and means tall, strong guys that he can't move off the block give him fits - Bogut, Pekovic, Marc Gasol etc. Tyreke has never developed a reliable jumper which means he needs shooters around him. And while Cousins runs too hot, Evans is often too passive and struggles with injuries. Point being, they were an interesting combo but they needed help. And a struggling, small market team whiffing completely in the lottery two years in a row is too much to overcome.

I was stumping for Kawhi Leonard in 2011 and Drummond in 2012. In reality, Drummond wouldn't have been a great pick. Defensive anchor and great rebounder sure, but not a great fit next to Cuz. My thought was that at the least Drummond would be somewhere along the JaVale McGee/DeAndre Jordan continuum and those guys are worth $10 million plus on the free agent market. But in terms of fit, Drummond would have clogged up the lane for both Cousins and Evans. I don't think people realize how effective Dalembert was with midrange jumpers. That's part of why he worked for us.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/d/dalemsa01/shooting/2011/
constrast that with Drummond
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/d/drumman01/shooting/2014/

In reality the best picks would have either been the Warriors (Thompson and Barnes) or Leonard and Lillard. And apparently if Petrie knew that the Maloofs would pony up to resign JT he would have drafted Lillard.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-bal...damian-lillard-order-sign-221531627--nba.html

Thompson at SG and Barnes at SF would have meant Tyreke starting at PG. Lillard at PG and Leonard at SF would've meant Tyreke at SG. Either way Dalembert should have been brought back to keep a front court of Sammy & Cuz with Isaiah Thomas (the only good draft offseason pick or move of those two summers) as a sixth man. Beno, Francisco and JT would have been solid bench contributors as well. Either of these lineups is the beginning of a playoff and eventually contending team:

Dalembert
Cousins
Barnes
Thompson
Evans
Thomas
Thompson
Garcia
Udrih

OR

Dalembert
Cousins
Leonard
Evans
Lillard
Thomas
Thompson
Garcia
Udrih

And while Dalembert would be running down about this point, an obvious replacement was available last summer. NO basically gave away Robin Lopez in the Tyreke S&T and the Kings turned around and gave him away to Portland. He isn't as good a jump shooter as Dalembert but he's more team oriented, can hit the 10-15 footer and gives you the same kind of interior defense (1.7 bpg) and rebounding (8.5 or so) as Dalembert.

Compare his shot chart last year to what Sammy gave us in 2010.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/l/lopezro01/shooting/2014/
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/d/dalemsa01/shooting/2011/

And none of this is "pie in the sky" talk. It's just two better draft picks and hanging on to Dalembert. Any quality coach would be able to install an offense that takes advantage of Evans and Cousins with quality shooters around them.

The current regime may think that they've "changed the culture" or "cleared a way to a new Kings future" but they haven't come close to creating a team with the kind of potential that the Kings already had a few years ago. If we'd had decent ownership back then (and thus a quality coach and more freedom for Geoff to build around the Evans/Cousins core) and didn't completely blow two straight drafts then I think we're preseason darkhorses in the west this year and true championship contenders by the time the new arena opens.

The large point being - I could see how we could get there from the 2010 team. This 2014 team? I don't see a path to success. I see a long period of wheel spinning and then a forced rebuild anyway. And that's frustrating.

 

[Livinthedream]

In terms of talent and potential it's the 2010-2011 team in a landslide. You had the reigning rookie of the year being joined by Cousins which was enough reason for optimism alone. Beno and JT were solid role players and trading Hawes & Nocioni solidified the frontcourt. That team was the last one I've been really excited about.

This year's team has a much better Boogie but beyond that where are the reasons for optimism? Not McLemore. I think Stauskas will be a solid pro for many years but he doesn't have star potential. Rudy is what he is. This team isn't talented enough to win and there aren't enough guys with growth potential to see that changing. It would take an influx of talent for real improvement.

The 2012-2013 team still had Reke and DMC but the wheels were coming off. Dalembert was gone, the team overpaid for a bench chucker in Thornton but most of all the last two first round picks were complete busts. THAT is where things came off the rails for the Reke/Cousins team. We hoped those two were the core of a contender and they weren't. Both are highly talented but also obviously flawed players. Cousins is ground bound which both stops him from being a defensive anchor and means tall, strong guys that he can't move off the block give him fits - Bogut, Pekovic, Marc Gasol etc. Tyreke has never developed a reliable jumper which means he needs shooters around him. And while Cousins runs too hot, Evans is often too passive and struggles with injuries. Point being, they were an interesting combo but they needed help. And a struggling, small market team whiffing completely in the lottery two years in a row is too much to overcome.

I was stumping for Kawhi Leonard in 2011 and Drummond in 2012. In reality, Drummond wouldn't have been a great pick. Defensive anchor and great rebounder sure, but not a great fit next to Cuz. My thought was that at the least Drummond would be somewhere along the JaVale McGee/DeAndre Jordan continuum and those guys are worth $10 million plus on the free agent market. But in terms of fit, Drummond would have clogged up the lane for both Cousins and Evans. I don't think people realize how effective Dalembert was with midrange jumpers. That's part of why he worked for us.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/d/dalemsa01/shooting/2011/
constrast that with Drummond
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/d/drumman01/shooting/2014/

In reality the best picks would have either been the Warriors (Thompson and Barnes) or Leonard and Lillard. And apparently if Petrie knew that the Maloofs would pony up to resign JT he would have drafted Lillard.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-bal...damian-lillard-order-sign-221531627--nba.html

Thompson at SG and Barnes at SF would have meant Tyreke starting at PG. Lillard at PG and Leonard at SF would've meant Tyreke at SG. Either way Dalembert should have been brought back to keep a front court of Sammy & Cuz with Isaiah Thomas (the only good draft offseason pick or move of those two summers) as a sixth man. Beno, Francisco and JT would have been solid bench contributors as well. Either of these lineups is the beginning of a playoff and eventually contending team:

Dalembert
Cousins
Barnes
Thompson
Evans
Thomas
Thompson
Garcia
Udrih

OR

Dalembert
Cousins
Leonard
Evans
Lillard
Thomas
Thompson
Garcia
Udrih

And while Dalembert would be running down about this point, an obvious replacement was available last summer. NO basically gave away Robin Lopez in the Tyreke S&T and the Kings turned around and gave him away to Portland. He isn't as good a jump shooter as Dalembert but he's more team oriented, can hit the 10-15 footer and gives you the same kind of interior defense (1.7 bpg) and rebounding (8.5 or so) as Dalembert.

Compare his shot chart last year to what Sammy gave us in 2010.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/l/lopezro01/shooting/2014/
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/d/dalemsa01/shooting/2011/

And none of this is "pie in the sky" talk. It's just two better draft picks and hanging on to Dalembert. Any quality coach would be able to install an offense that takes advantage of Evans and Cousins with quality shooters around them.

The current regime may think that they've "changed the culture" or "cleared a way to a new Kings future" but they haven't come close to creating a team with the kind of potential that the Kings already had a few years ago. If we'd had decent ownership back then (and thus a quality coach and more freedom for Geoff to build around the Evans/Cousins core) and didn't completely blow two straight drafts then I think we're preseason darkhorses in the west this year and true championship contenders by the time the new arena opens.

The large point being - I could see how we could get there from the 2010 team. This 2014 team? I don't see a path to success. I see a long period of wheel spinning and then a forced rebuild anyway. And that's frustrating.

Very well said.

 

[Kingster]

The large point being - I could see how we could get there from the 2010 team. This 2014 team? I don't see a path to success. I see a long period of wheel spinning and then a forced rebuild anyway. And that's frustrating.

I'm leaning fairly strongly in this direction. I've been thinking for a while now that this team isn't close to having an established core, that relative stability is a long way off. I don't think any differently today.

The core is currently Cousins and Gay. Assume the Kings resign Gay after this year. They add a #1 pick to the roster in the draft. If they resign Gay under that scenario I'm assuming they would presumably have had a respectable year, somewhere in the neighborhood of .500 ball. (It's hard to imagine they resign Gay if it's a distastrous year). So that means they don't have a top 5 pick, more like a pick that's #10 or greater. Where exactly does that get you? And who else do you have to trade to get better? Thompson? LOL. McLemore? LOL. How about Williams? Double LOL. I just don't see the yellow brick road with that core and with the non-assets the Kings currently have in their possession. At best I see a team wandering in the no-man's land of mediocrity for years to come, getting into the playoffs, but having no chance whatsoever of getting to the promised land.

The Kings have had bad drafts, got next to nothing for the guys they did draft correctly - Tyreke and Thomas - and now are left with a bare cupboard. It's not going to surprise me in the least if they blow it up again, including Cousins, including Gay, and start from scratch.

 

[twslam07]

Not that I'm the best eye for talent. If anything, I probably just got lucky with the guys I wanted when we were up in the draft, but these are the guys I wanted to take over the past few drafts:

2011: Leonard (It was a weak draft at the time and we still had our major whole at SF. I was hoping with Leonard on the team, we could trot out a Evans, Thornton, and Leonard lineup. Evans provides the playmaking and dribble penetration, Evans and Leonard provide the defense, and Thornton provides the shooting/floor spacing)
2012: Barnes & Drummond (If we would have taken Leonard in the previous draft, I would have wanted Drummond instead, but at the time I had Barnes ahead of Drummond.)
2013: McLemore (I actually thought McLemore was the best pick at the time. Good size shooting guard, with athleticism and a sweet stroke. He sounded like a good compliment to Evans. So far he hasn't shown much so I would have missed there)

To think our team could have been...
PG - Evans/Thomas
SG - McLemore
SF - Leonard
PF - Drummond
C - Cousins

Is very unfortunate, but we can play the "what if" game all day. It doesn't change the fact that we are what we are.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

I will agree that in 2010-2011 I felt very optimistic about the direction of the team, though the Maloofs were the wild card that trumped (ruined/Maloofed) everything.