Kings to make qualifying offer to IT?

[hrdboild]

The key about losing Gay or IT isn't in losing those players, its in losing the TALENT those players represent. You might be able to recover some of it with an S&T. But S&T's rarely involve equal assets -- just look what happened with Reke last year.

Having them both walk for nothing in return would be disastrous. That would complete any "oh we got back Greivis, and he was part of the Rudy trade" thing too.

Here's what losing those two players with no return would mean -- we would have lost:
Rudy Gay
Isaiah Thomas
Tyreke Evans
our 2012 lottery pick (#5)
our 2011 lottery pick (#7)

in the space of a year and a half. And have NOTHING, not one player, NOTHING, to show for it. You could hardly have a bigger disaster than if the team plane went down.

I think you're stacking the deck to make your point, but it's subjective anyway and it's always going to be subjective when you're talking about future potential. Obviously I hated that we let Tyreke go so I'm not even trying to defend that one but Jimmer/Salmons was a Petrie move (with the stink of Maloof all over it) and the same is true of losing the 2012 pick only more so. This is more of a perception issue though than anything else. At least it is for me. Most of us I think would agree that Thomas is not as good as his numbers this season indicate. If you really want to keep him you have to pay to keep him. I don't think taking a flyer on a player with the last pick in the draft requires us to commit the next four years to said player unless we really like the way he fits into our team. And Rudy Gay is a big-time scorer who demands a healthy chunk of your offense to be effective. If you're 100% in favor of what Rudy Gay does offensively, by all means pay the man and keep him in town. I think he brings as many negatives as positives so it's kindof a shrug for me if he's gone. Might even be addition by subtraction (hey, it was for Memphis and Toronto so there's precedent even).

Obviously losing these guys looks bad. They have recognizable names and our front office has been pushing both as face of the franchise types since we really didn't have a lot else out there to sell. But winning cures everything right? If we're a winning team in a couple years nobody is even going to remember Rudy and IT were here. All that matters here is the path which takes us to being a winning team. You can sit and fret over short-term gains and losses if you want but it's the big picture that matters.

 

[jcwkings]

What I don't get is that the Gay, IT, Cousins trio thrown together on a whim with no time to gel and no supporting cast played near .500 ball. At the very least the FO should be intrigued with the thought of keeping those three together with better pieces around them and a full training camp with the coach. This is not even taking into account that Cousins could take another nice leap next year, and IT still has room to grow as well.

We aren't signing a big time free agent so at best we will replace Gay/IT with a few Landry type players. The only thing I can see is us swinging for the fences on a Rondo trade on draft day.

 

[funkykingston]

If both IT and Rudy walk and we get nothing for either of them, that makes the decision to not match on Reke look even worse.

To me the decision to not match on Reke looked awful the moment the team inked Landry and worse when they traded for Mbah a Moute for a 2016 2nd round pick meaning they took on Luc's salary outright.

I've said it before but it bears repeating. The Kings could have matched on Reke for just slightly more than what Landry and Mbah a Moute cost and about $300,000 LESS than what the Kings are paying Landry and Williams. And since Reke's contract goes DOWN next season and Williams' goes UP, the Kings will be paying over $2 million MORE for Landry/Williams than they would have for Evans.

And the Kings still could have made the Gay trade by substituting Jimmer for Vasquez which would have actually saved a bit more money.

Evans, McLemore, Gay, Thompson/Evans and Cousins with IT as the sixth man. Yeah, that lineup lacks shooting but it also would be a matchup nightmare.

Here's why I keep hammering this point: The Kings let Tyreke walk and then turned around and used that cap room to lure Carl freaking Landry after having Iguodala AND Jose Calderon turn them down. This team has been terrible for a long time and will always have the struggle of being a small market franchise. Cap room is an illusion for the Kings because you still have to convince good players to take it as opposed to overpaying for mediocre ones.

If the Kings had kept Tyreke they might have been able to pay IT sixth man money and keep him. Trade for Larry Sanders and draft another wing shooter and all of a sudden you've got a (admittedly very expensive) dangerous team with all the key pieces locked in for several years other than Gay who I'd guess would agree to re-sign to what would be a team on the upswing instead of continually in flux.

I'm trying to be optimistic but I have to admit I have a growing sense of trepidation about this offseason.

 

[jcwkings]

I think you're stacking the deck to make your point, but it's subjective anyway and it's always going to be subjective when you're talking about future potential. Obviously I hated that we let Tyreke go so I'm not even trying to defend that one but Jimmer/Salmons was a Petrie move (with the stink of Maloof all over it) and the same is true of losing the 2012 pick only more so. This is more of a perception issue though than anything else. At least it is for me. Most of us I think would agree that Thomas is not as good as his numbers this season indicate. If you really want to keep him you have to pay to keep him. I don't think taking a flyer on a player with the last pick in the draft requires us to commit the next four years to said player unless we really like the way he fits into our team. And Rudy Gay is a big-time scorer who demands a healthy chunk of your offense to be effective. If you're 100% in favor of what Rudy Gay does offensively, by all means pay the man and keep him in town. I think he brings as many negatives as positives so it's kindof a shrug for me if he's gone. Might even be addition by subtraction (hey, it was for Memphis and Toronto so there's precedent even).

Obviously losing these guys looks bad. They have recognizable names and our front office has been pushing both as face of the franchise types since we really didn't have a lot else out there to sell. But winning cures everything right? If we're a winning team in a couple years nobody is even going to remember Rudy and IT were here. All that matters here is the path which takes us to being a winning team. You can sit and fret over short-term gains and losses if you want but it's the big picture that matters.

The point he is making is that the Sacramento Kings will never attract big name free agents to come here, whether you like Gay or IT is subjective, but they are pieces of value around the league. If we lose them for nothing we are left with Ben McLemore as our biggest trade asset. Think of that for a second. As a small market team we have to manage our assets with as little mistakes as possible because the only way we can realistically acquire top talent is through the draft and through trades.

 

[hrdboild]

What I don't get is that the Gay, IT, Cousins trio thrown together on a whim with no time to gel and no supporting cast played near .500 ball. At the very least the FO should be intrigued with the thought of keeping those three together with better pieces around them and a full training camp with the coach. This is not even taking into account that Cousins could take another nice leap next year, and IT still has room to grow as well.

That "almost .500 record when Cousins/IT/Gay player together" could also be described as 7-14 against playoff teams. One sounds downright optimistic, the other makes you question how much better that group can realistically get or who you can replace Ben and Jason/Reggie with that will dramatically change our winning percentage against quality teams.

The point he is making is that the Sacramento Kings will never attract big name free agents to come here, whether you like Gay or IT is subjective, but they are pieces of value around the league. If we lose them for nothing we are left with Ben McLemore as our biggest trade asset. Think of that for a second. As a small market team we have to manage our assets with as little mistakes as possible because the only way we can realistically acquire top talent is through the draft and through trades.

This sounds familiar because I've been making this same argument all season. I get it, we're not a desirable market. I guess where it adds up differently to me is that I don't see a lot of big name free agents flocking to San Antonio or Indiana either. If you make smart basketball decisions you can win regardless. The draft is about a lot more than who picks first. You can get quality players late in the draft provided you know what you're doing (Ginobili, Parker, Granger, Hibbert, Stephenson). The idea is to pick players who fit a role and then maximize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses. I'm far more concerned with getting the right types of players here and maximizing their talents than I am about simple talent bleed.

This entire time that we've been floundering in lottery hell, Petrie has been a master of swapping pieces around to avoid losing talent for nothing and what has been the result of that? A whole bunch of mediocre garbage just good enough to keep us in the mid lottery year after year. We don't need other people's castoffs. We don't need to cling to every halfway decent player we get like needy parents. We've got the best center in the league on our team. Be patient, be smart, know what you want, and manage salary cap effectively so you can overpay if you have to. That's what I want to see. 2013/2014's 28 wins minus Rudy Gay and IT looks like a disaster for 2014/2015 but the guys we replace them with between now and whenever those contracts would potentially end (2017/2018?) could easily produce a better winning percentage. Planning works out best when it's not motivated by panic.

 

[LPKingsFan]

That "almost .500 record when Cousins/IT/Gay player together" could also be described as 7-14 against playoff teams. One sounds downright optimistic, the other makes you question how much better that group can realistically get or who you can replace Ben and Jason/Reggie with that will dramatically change our winning percentage against quality teams..

I've actually wondered if the wins when that trio were healthy happened to coincide with an easier portion of the schedule or not.

 

[peacelate]

I've said it before but it bears repeating. The Kings could have matched on Reke for just slightly more than what Landry and Mbah a Moute cost and about $300,000 LESS than what the Kings are paying Landry and Williams. And since Reke's contract goes DOWN next season and Williams' goes UP, the Kings will be paying over $2 million MORE for Landry/Williams than they would have for Evans.

The thing is that they had already drafted McLemore when the decision to trade Reke happened. McLemore plays the same position as Tyreke and unless you plan to play Tyreke at PG, I'm not sure how a backcourt of IT, Mclemore and Tyreke would work. Despite Tyreke's terrific play near the end of the season, he still hasn't legitimately shown he can run an offense at a playoff caliber level. At the time of the Williams' trade, the Kings desperately needed a small forward as they were trotting out the likes of John Salmons and LMAM. It seems as though they were high on McLemore and instead wanted to invest at a position of need rather than re-sign Tyreke.

And the Kings still could have made the Gay trade by substituting Jimmer for Vasquez which would have actually saved a bit more money.

I have seen no indication Toronto would have taken either Jimmer over Vasquez. It's easy to say substitute player X for player Y, but it takes two teams to make a trade.

Evans, McLemore, Gay, Thompson/Evans and Cousins with IT as the sixth man. Yeah, that lineup lacks shooting but it also would be a matchup nightmare.

Vasquez was acquired in the Tyreke trade, so the team wouldn't have Gay unless they could have substituted in another player Toronto wanted.

 

[HighFlyingMonkey]

Napier said yesterday that he thinks Gay walks and IT isn't resigned. He said that the Kings don't sound very motivated about IT, based on recent statements. Just a guess at this point.

Kings are also talking to teams that have multiple second round draft picks in this draft.

Well lets hope he's wrong. Letting one of the two go would be a setback. Losing both would be unmitigated disaster.

 

[JLoss22]

If we lose both guys we better have secret plan in place where Bledsoe refuses to play for Phoenix so he can be with his buddy Cuz.

 

[funkykingston]

The thing is that they had already drafted McLemore when the decision to trade Reke happened. McLemore plays the same position as Tyreke and unless you plan to play Tyreke at PG, I'm not sure how a backcourt of IT, Mclemore and Tyreke would work. Despite Tyreke's terrific play near the end of the season, he still hasn't legitimately shown he can run an offense at a playoff caliber level. At the time of the Williams' trade, the Kings desperately needed a small forward as they were trotting out the likes of John Salmons and LMAM. It seems as though they were high on McLemore and instead wanted to invest at a position of need rather than re-sign Tyreke.



I have seen no indication Toronto would have taken either Jimmer over Vasquez. It's easy to say substitute player X for player Y, but it takes two teams to make a trade.



Vasquez was acquired in the Tyreke trade, so the team wouldn't have Gay unless they could have substituted in another player Toronto wanted.

Yes, I would have played Tyreke at PG. But even if you don't you still have a 3 guard rotation to eat up all the backcourt minutes as you could have any combination of Thomas, McLemore and Evans on the court at any time and it would work.

As for the Gay trade, I can't believe that the players offered actually mattered to Ujiri. That trade was about jettisoning Rudy and his bloated contract and inefficient offense for cap relief. And considering the Kings got hammered and the Raptors lauded for a deal that was essentially Gay for spare parts.

I have a hard time believing that the Raps would have balked at taking Jimmers ending contract instead of Vasquez's.

 

[Big Cuz 15]

I generally agree, Brick, but let's not forget Gay was acquired for Vasquez/Salmons/Hayes. No one would complain if we had simply let those guys walk

Being mostly flip, of course, and that list represents why the Kings have floundered in lotterydom rather than taken the leap that most teams have.

that was a "hook up" deal between former co workers just like mchale and ainge when they swapped KG for AL J n scrubs.

i fear this gerbil doesn't know how to evaluate talent and put together a team that fits the coaches vision or needs.

 

[Big Cuz 15]

What I don't get is that the Gay, IT, Cousins trio thrown together on a whim with no time to gel and no supporting cast played near .500 ball. At the very least the FO should be intrigued with the thought of keeping those three together with better pieces around them and a full training camp with the coach. This is not even taking into account that Cousins could take another nice leap next year, and IT still has room to grow as well.

We aren't signing a big time free agent so at best we will replace Gay/IT with a few Landry type players. The only thing I can see is us swinging for the fences on a Rondo trade on draft day.

we know what IT is capable of. what other skills do you think he can grow from? defensively? a distributor? increase his rebounding? what pray tell can he grow from? he's a midget scorer and a damn good one. that's it-

we can only go up from here. hope the gerbil gives IT a landry type deal already so he can be thrown to the python already. i'm not a fan of total analytics guys and hes one of them.

 

[Bricklayer]

This entire time that we've been floundering in lottery hell, Petrie has been a master of swapping pieces around to avoid losing talent for nothing and what has been the result of that?

Wha???

No no no no NO.

Geoff Petrie was one of the absolutely WORST, most incompetent boobs in the history of the NBA when it came to maintaining a talent base. He was slow as molasses to do ANYTHING, always waited until a player's value was completely shot before moving him in desperation. We got good value back for absolutely nothing. And it was a HUGE factor in us being terrible forever. It will continue to be a huge factor in us being terrible now if it continues.

Also, people have to either quit using San Antonio as an example or that city just has to quietly sink into the sea so people will stop. San Antonio cheated to get great with Duncan/Admiral. Then they leveraged that resulting early greatness into being able to do whatever the hell they wanted for a solid decade. They drafted amazingly, but the only reason they could pull off that strategy with the patience entailed, why the system could be so steady and inviolate, was because it was sitting on the back of multiple championships won by a god emperor coach and the same franchise player they took a dive to get in the first place. We, nor basically anybody who doesn't have that background, have that kind of time or stability. You can't just skip ahead and say now we're going to be San Antonio in 2014, or even San Antonio in 2004, without first being San Antonio of 1998.

It goes back to this. We are a sucky miserable franchise. Our greatest player, with a chance to be the greatest player in the Sacto franchise's history, has experienced no success at all with us in 4 years. All his peers are on TV right now having fun and earning accolades. He is stuck home watching. Because of us. We have become the dumpy girlfriend on the arm of the hot guy. Maybe he was as scruffy as we were when we first met him, but he cleans up good, and if we don't want to get dumped we had damn well better get in shape before the local hotties take notice.

 

[Tetsujin]

i thought they should have picked steven adams over ben. he's mobile, tough and more skilled than i thought he was. some of his passes were amazing this year. he makes perkins expendable.

He's also being brought into a situation where he isn't being forced to play major minutes every night and has a lot of attention taken off of him defensively and offensively thanks to Ibaka and Durant whereas here, the second Patrick Patterson started to flounder, he would have potentially just been thrown to the wolves and forced to play thirty minutes a night

 

[hrdboild]

Wha???

No no no no NO.

Geoff Petrie was one of the absolutely WORST, most incompetent boobs in the history of the NBA when it came to maintaining a talent base. He was slow as molasses to do ANYTHING, always waited until a player's value was completely shot before moving him in desperation. We got good value back for absolutely nothing. And it was a HUGE factor in us being terrible forever. It will continue to be a huge factor in us being terrible now if it continues.

Also, people have to either quit using San Antonio as an example or that city just has to quietly sink into the sea so people will stop. San Antonio cheated to get great with Duncan/Admiral. Then they leveraged that resulting early greatness into being able to do whatever the hell they wanted for a solid decade. They drafted amazingly, but the only reason they could pull off that strategy with the patience entailed, why the system could be so steady and inviolate, was because it was sitting on the back of multiple championships won by a god emperor coach and the same franchise player they took a dive to get in the first place. We, nor basically anybody who doesn't have that background, have that kind of time or stability. You can't just skip ahead and say now we're going to be San Antonio in 2014, or even San Antonio in 2004, without first being San Antonio of 1998.

It goes back to this. We are a sucky miserable franchise. Our greatest player, with a chance to be the greatest player in the Sacto franchise's history, has experienced no success at all with us in 4 years. All his peers are on TV right now having fun and earning accolades. He is stuck home watching. Because of us. We have become the dumpy girlfriend on the arm of the hot guy. Maybe he was as scruffy as we were when we first met him, but he cleans up good, and if we don't want to get dumped we had damn well get in shape before the local hotties take notice.

Duncan alone doesn't keep San Antonio in the playoffs for 17 straight years. And how do you explain Indiana making the playoffs for 20 of the last 25 seasons without ever dipping below 32 wins in their down years? It's about more than one guy, it's about how you build a team. It's about how you identify talent and put those players in a position to succeed. It's sortof taken for granted that San Antonio and Indiana just magically pull above-average talent out of their low draft picks but I think it's time to take a closer look here and admit that there's more going on than that. Both of those teams are committed to winning games defensively and they seek out role-players and specialists and don't ask them to do too much.

Take a look at these franchise index pages: San Antonio ; Indiana ; Sacramento

First look at relative pace. San Antonio and Indiana are almost always below league average in terms of pace. The exception for San Antonio has been the last 4 years and the exceptions for Indiana correlate pretty well with the years that they did not make the playoffs. Now look at Sacramento -- we haven't had a below average pace rating since 1995. Now look at relative defensive rating. San Antonio has (unsurprisingly) been above average for every one of the past 17 seasons. Indiana has been below average in only 2 of the past 21 seasons. Now look at our page. The entire Sacramento era has produced only 6 seasons of above-average defense, corresponding with the peak of Adelman's tenure, his last year (Bonzi, Artest), and the Brian Grant/Michael Smith rookie year. Now look again at the playoff results. Perhaps these teams know something that we don't?

But getting back to Geoff Petrie, I don't think he's at fault for failing to predict Webber's knee exploding or failing to trade Doug Christie before a particularly bad bout of plantar fasciitis effectively forced him into an early retirement. It's true he got nothing for Brad Miller and Mike Bibby but that's not what sunk us either. Boston didn't get much for unloading Garnett and Pierce at the end of their careers. Teams usually don't get much in that situation.

The reason we never got a top 3 pick in the last 8 years is that he settled for bringing in guys like Mikki Moore, Shareef-Abdur Rahim, and John Salmons long after it was apparent that we should cut our losses and start over. Then when we finally bottomed out -- drafted Tyreke Evans, and rid ourselves of the last vestiges of that infamous "flexible pieces" trade -- he went out and celebrated the occasion by over-committing again to Marcus Thornton, Chuck Hayes, and Jason Thompson. If you want to trace a line back to why new management felt their hands were tied on a new Tyreke deal, that's it. Would it have killed us to lose Thornton and Thompson for nothing? Were Shareef, Salmons, or Hayes the difference makers we needed to push us back into contention?

I agree with your last paragraph. We need to start winning ASAP. Sorry, I don't think Rudy Gay and Isaiah Thomas are going to get us there. I think they look good from the perspective of 8 straight losing seasons. We're in pretty good shape here though. We have the franchise center. We have a solid coach who knows what defense is. We have some developing prospects who are 3 or 4 years away from entering their primes yet. And we have a relatively unencumbered salary cap (so far). I believe Vivek and Malone can sell people on a Sacramento franchise with a state-of-the-art brand new arena and Cousins as a fixture in the post. If we desperately need anything right now it's to change the perception of this team into one that plays hard-nosed defense. That's where my focus would be, not on losing a solid backup guard and an overrated volume shooter.

 

[Big Cuz 15]

if IT and Lowry are both commanding 6m/yr salaries in free agency, who would you pick at that price?

 

[LPKingsFan]

if IT and Lowry are both commanding 6m/yr salaries in free agency, who would you pick at that price?

Lowry, of course. I doubt even the most vocal of the IT supporters would say otherwise. But your premise is absurd. Lowry will make well over $6 million/year.

 

[Big Cuz 15]

Lowry, of course. I doubt even the most vocal of the IT supporters would say otherwise. But your premise is absurd. Lowry will make well over $6 million/year.

we'll see. i don't see as many crazy contracts thrown out there for 2nd tier players like before.

 

[jalfa]

we'll see. i don't see as many crazy contracts thrown out there for 2nd tier players like before.

Lowry essentially saved the Raptors season and was the main reason they made it to the playoffs. look at the party that's been their playoff run, there's basically no chance that Ujiri can let him go at this point. Lowry will come out of this offseason with an eight figure salary, I'd bet on that.

Edit: out of IT and Lowry, I'll take the latter easily and never think twice about it. he's a much better player and would fit a hell of a lot better.