Kings select for the 8th pick - Nik Stauskas

We picked #8.... there weren't a lot of possibilities going in. You have a big board with your top 8 guys... put x's thru the ones that are picked. Take the highest remaining player at #8. Not too hard.... it's our pick, Vivek makes a show for the camera. Pete tries his best to play along. Done deal.
I've said my peace. I've had a week to complain. I'm on board now and ready to see what Nik has got.
 

VF21

Super Moderator Emeritus
SME
It seems the further we get from the draft the more people are starting to see the potential in Stauskas. Of course at this point it's all potential but the kid seems to have a high basketball IQ and a natural "swagger" and strong work ethic. Usually when you combine all of those things together you end up with at least a pretty good player. He doesn't have huge upside but perhaps more importantly he has low downside. At worst he looks like a solid rotation player and at best possible #3 scorer on a good team.

The Kings don't need Stauskas to be a star player. They don't even need him to be a #2 player. That's not what they drafted him for. What they need from him is to make big shots, make plays, spread the floor thus making everybody else better, and eventually become a solid team defender that doesn't hurt you on the defensive end.

I have a feeling that Stauskas is going to make "Gerbil" (as so many call him) actually look like he knows what he is doing. And hell who knows maybe just maybe he does know what he is doing......
Totally agree.

And for the record? Not everyone calls PDA "gerbil"... ;)
 
Never had a problem with the pick. Very excited by this kid.

The more video you see, you can see he works his ass off. Might not translate but gives him a chance that's all that matters.

In last years draft the Ben interest kinda came out of the blue didn't it. I wonder if Ben was viveks guy and pulled rank. I was all in for CJ McCollum personally and that was the name that was coming out a lot.
 

Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Never had a problem with the pick. Very excited by this kid.

The more video you see, you can see he works his ass off. Might not translate but gives him a chance that's all that matters.

In last years draft the Ben interest kinda came out of the blue didn't it. I wonder if Ben was viveks guy and pulled rank. I was all in for CJ McCollum personally and that was the name that was coming out a lot.
Ben had been talked about as a possible #1 pick last year. Interest wouldn't have been out of the blue. Seeing our front office dance around like idiots on draft day when they drafted him was, but otherwise it was similar to the TRob situation -- athlete lacking in game sophistication comes out of Kansas, other teams catch a whiff of uhoh and back off, he slides, we scoop up the slider and think we were oh so clever.
 

Capt. Factorial

trifolium contra tempestatem subrigere certum est
Staff member
Here is a great video of nik working out after the draft in toronto
Gotta admit, the shooting in an empty gym is impressive, even if it is an empty gym. Showing the full session, including the misses, gives you an idea of how many hits he had. The interesting drill was the around-the-world drill where at each location he shot a three, then a long two, then a 12-15 foot floater. He hit every single one of the floaters, all of them well outside of the lane. I don't think I'd ever seen him take a floater at Michigan, but if he can get into the lane and has that as a weapon too...nice.
 
Gotta admit, the shooting in an empty gym is impressive, even if it is an empty gym. Showing the full session, including the misses, gives you an idea of how many hits he had. The interesting drill was the around-the-world drill where at each location he shot a three, then a long two, then a 12-15 foot floater. He hit every single one of the floaters, all of them well outside of the lane. I don't think I'd ever seen him take a floater at Michigan, but if he can get into the lane and has that as a weapon too...nice.
I don't know. I've seen every Michigan game he's played in and I don't remember a single one. Maybe it's new to his game.
 
Gotta admit, the shooting in an empty gym is impressive, even if it is an empty gym. Showing the full session, including the misses, gives you an idea of how many hits he had. The interesting drill was the around-the-world drill where at each location he shot a three, then a long two, then a 12-15 foot floater. He hit every single one of the floaters, all of them well outside of the lane. I don't think I'd ever seen him take a floater at Michigan, but if he can get into the lane and has that as a weapon too...nice.
I didn't want to comment on this until I got my scouting video up...but in those 8 games that I broke down there wasn't a single floater.
There were a couple of scoop shots...but that is it.

So maybe it's something that he's been working on that we'll see in Summer League.
 

Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
PDA in the draft war room.


Like the picture of the board. Might be for show, not sure. But the names tossed around on it as well as the move up possibilities are about right. Of course lot of names and headings just to end up doing the same thing Petrie always did, but who knows, maybe he had a big overly ambitious board every year too.
 
PDA in the draft war room.




Wow! Great video! You could feel the tension in the room and the thoughts going through their draft process. Some observations:

1. They tried to move up to #3 for Embiid, but Phi said no.
2. Philadelphia offered #10 and 2 2nd round picks for our #8, we said no. On the marker board, they had Payton at #10. If they had really liked Payton, they would have done this deal with Phi
3. They caught rumor of Boston going with Stauskas at #6.
 
Last edited:
Here is a great video of nik working out after the draft in toronto
Thanks for posting. Yes, it's just drills, but that is pretty impressive. I like how they have him doing cardio between shots to simulate real playing conditions. This should always be done for practicing FT's too.

Hope he becomes a guy who doesn't miss when left open, that's just a killer to defending teams. Always fun on the road too when a guy like that catches fire and you can hear the crowd hold their collective breaths every time he shoots.
 

Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
I thought the rooks were the guys who had to wear backpacks.

Also, how in the heck does Cuz type on his phone with those giant baseball mitts.
 
I was pretty upset when stauskas was chosen. After Parker and wiggins, my 2 favorite players in the draft were Payton and vonleh. However after seeing all these vids of him putting in work at the gym I've started to come around. I think he can thrive next to cousins if we use him like the magic used Ryan Anderson with Howard. Spread the floor with 3s and play the inside out game to get cousins better positions. The difference there is stauskas has the ball handling and speed to create for himself off the dribble which makes him a little bit more dimensional than Anderson. Assuming his shot doesn't fall apart like mclemores did we could possibly be looking at Peja stojakovic lite.
 
I was pretty upset when stauskas was chosen. After Parker and wiggins, my 2 favorite players in the draft were Payton and vonleh. However after seeing all these vids of him putting in work at the gym I've started to come around. I think he can thrive next to cousins if we use him like the magic used Ryan Anderson with Howard. Spread the floor with 3s and play the inside out game to get cousins better positions. The difference there is stauskas has the ball handling and speed to create for himself off the dribble which makes him a little bit more dimensional than Anderson. Assuming his shot doesn't fall apart like mclemores did we could possibly be looking at Peja stojakovic lite.
indeed. funnily enough, one of the benefits of bringing in a player like nik stauskas is simply that he's a natural SG with natural SG abilities entering a league that's become rather flimsy at the position. outside shooting has spread across most every position in the contemporary nba, but "stretch 4"s like ryan anderson are most often specialists, and not terribly versatile or dynamic...
 
indeed. funnily enough, one of the benefits of bringing in a player like nik stauskas is simply that he's a natural SG with natural SG abilities entering a league that's become rather flimsy at the position. outside shooting has spread across most every position in the contemporary nba, but "stretch 4"s like ryan anderson are most often specialists, and not terribly versatile or dynamic...
 

gunks

Hall of Famer
Nik seems like a guy who is going to reach his ceiling.

Probably never an allstar, but chances are he'll be a solid starter and a great fit for a team that features a talent like Cousins. I mean, a dead eye shooter who can also run the pick and roll? No wonder Cuz is already buddy buddy with him!

Still wishing we swung for the fences with Payton, and the redundancy of picking a SG is a bit irksome (although, I think part of that is PDA may have been overconfident in his chances to move Ben on draft night), but I think Nik is going to work out for us, so at the end of the day its a win.

Of course, my opinion might change after he actually plays some NBA minutes. :p