Who Goes? Who Stays?

Kingster

Kingster

Hall of Famer
#121
#121
bajaden said:
I'll tell you one of the problems with the Kings. Stability!!!!! They haven't had any, and if what I'm hearing on this thread has any validity, a lot of you don't want any. Some of you are actually calling for a new coach. Really! I would think that by now you'd be tired of watching one coach after another go in one door and out the other. Watching players go in one door and out the other. As long as we keep doing that, this team will never be any good. Yeah, the Spurs doubled our win total! Guess what, the core of that team has been together for 10 years, and they've had the same coach for the last 10 years. There's a reason the Spurs are good that goes beyond talent.

There aren't any quick fixes. Look at the Knicks and all the money they spend. They keep signing one star after another, but the team never stays together long enough to develop any chemistry. All the Kings have proven this year is that having three 20 point scorers in your lineup isn't necessarily a formula for success. It takes more than that. It takes a team! And right now, we don't have one. We just have parts of one. The rest of the pieces are just spare parts. It's easy to be critical of Malone for poor defense, but last time I looked, I didn't see him out on the floor. Truth is, he can scream and yell all he wants, but if the players don't perform, there's not much he can do.

Oh, he could replace IT with McCallum, and that would improve the defense, but then you'd have Kingster and other IT supporters (you'll note I didn't call them lovers) screaming to high heaven. So apparently they don't regard defense as highly as others among you. Malone doesn't have a lot of options. You don't like the way Gay plays defense, then what, you replace him with Outlaw? After Thornton left, who do you replace McLemore with defensively? Oh, I forgot, we have as much talent as the Bulls and Charlotte. Right! So there must be someone on the team that just bristles with defense.

Good defense is a team effort. But if you don't have players with the ability and the desire to play defense, nothing else matters. All you can do is replace those players. One way is to draft young players and develop them. But that takes time, and there doesn't seem to be much patience around here. Obviously the other way is to sign a freeagent, or make a trade. Of course the moment you get into trading, everything gets more complicated. You need two willing partners and they may not be willing to part with what you want. Point being, that its not as simple as just saying we should do this or do that. I for one, am going to wait and see what PDA gets done in the draft and during the rest of the summer. While I was willing to give him a pass last year since he didn't take over the team until two weeks before the draft, there are no excuses this time around.
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I think DA is up against the wall pretty good. He's got no control over the Gay situation, which indirectly could cause him to lose IT for nothing or peanuts. If he comes out of that dilemma with a status quo, you'd have to give him a victory. But if goes out the door with less talent than when he entered, it ain't good for him. Now if he really is a genius and he comes out of it with more talent than what he had previously, we will all be saying, "In DA We Trust."

.
 
Spike

Spike

Subsidiary Intermediary
Staff member
#122
#122
Kingster said:
Not a better point guard. That's for damned sure. It's not even arguable. That's why he lost his starting job to IT, and that's probably why DA didn't match.
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Sigh. It's absolutely arguable, but I'm almost tired of rehashing the Smart Era. Cliff Notes: our defense was better, we beat SA AND OKC and looked good doing it, but, gosh, we didn't score as many points. I actually had faith in Smart for a nanosecond. Then he thought point we're more important than wins.

But I know that doesn't fit your narrative.

All I will agree to is that PDA had a number in his mind, and did not budge from it. Malone seemed pretty excited to have an Evans/McLemore backcourt, which spoke to his intentions vs. the gerbil's, but, c'est la vie.

Maybe I'll tire of this debate soon, but Evans as the primary ballhandler was not the failure that you want to make it. If you really want to pick a nit, we had the same record with a better Cousins, Gay AND the same IT running the show. If Evans running the point was the issue, why didn't we win more over the 1.5 yrs with IT at the point?
 
Kingster

Kingster

Hall of Famer
#123
#123
mac said:
Was it? Well even if it was I wouldn't be surprised. Despite my disdain for IT, the fact is that he is a talented scorer, and certainly far far more of an offensive threat than McCallum. Well I'm no expert, but I do think that when you don't have spacing (poor shooters), already don't have a motion offense with your regular unit, and then take away your second/third biggest scoring threat you would end up with an inefficient offense that isn't getting guys open looks. Because then the defense doesn't need to rotate at all, they can just focus on whoever has the ball because that's likely the biggest scoring threat. And I have personally maintained that I don't think Malone has the offensive creativity to get a bunch of "scrubs" playing beautiful basketball .. definitely not with the current roster.
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Did I say inefficient? If so, I meant to say, ISO. Which I would agree is inefficient.
 
rainmaker

rainmaker

Hall of Famer
#125
#125
Kingster said:
I think DA is up against the wall pretty good. He's got no control over the Gay situation, which indirectly could cause him to lose IT for nothing or peanuts. If he comes out of that dilemma with a status quo, you'd have to give him a victory. But if goes out the door with less talent than when he entered, it ain't good for him. Now if he really is a genius and he comes out of it with more talent than what he had previously, we will all be saying, "In DA We Trust."

.
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Who's DA? I don't expect David Alridge to have any control over the Rudy situation. Why would anyone?
 
Kingster

Kingster

Hall of Famer
#129
#129
Heard Malone on 1140. I don't know what DA (that's D'Alessandro for those who need help in keeping up) is thinking about Gay and IT, but Malone sure likes what he has in Gay, Thomas and Cousins.. Among other things, he talked about the fact that the Kings want to run, and in order to run, they need to play good defense and get the rebound. He said the defense has improved and the team has improved; it just isn't reflected in the win/loss column yet; there have been just a couple of blowouts this year; a lot of close games. He was asked about the offense, and he did say that the offense was the first step in defense: If you take bad shots and are inefficient, it leads to fast break opportunities; and that is one reason the Kings got hurt in transition D and 3-point D, which tend to go together. Nobody asked him about the structure of the offense and the iso ball. Malone is encouraged about the coming season.
 
Capt. Factorial

Capt. Factorial

trifolium contra tempestatem subrigere certum est
Staff member
#130
#130
Kingster said:
I don't know what DA (that's D'Alessandro for those who need help in keeping up)
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You do realize you're being ribbed for not going one extra keystroke and calling him PDA, which has clearly become the board standard and eliminates any ambiguity with the already common abbreviation DA for David Aldridge, right?
 
Kingster

Kingster

Hall of Famer
#131
#131
Capt. Factorial said:
You do realize you're being ribbed for not going one extra keystroke and calling him PDA, which has clearly become the board standard and eliminates any ambiguity with the already common abbreviation DA for David Aldridge, right?
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I'll stick with DA. I like the district attorney connotation. Public Displays of Affection just doesn't cut it, especially with our particular GM; neither does Personal Digital Assistant. I think they'll just have to use the extra brain power to figure it out.
 
R

randymoss1881

Starter
#135
#135
I hope PDA is paying attention defense wins in the playoffs and Malone knows this. We would have been off to a good start with Lopez and Mhab A Moute but we traded them for offensive players. He better hope Ben turns into a very good defender like Klay Thompson and DMC continued his rise there.
 
VF21

VF21

Super Moderator Emeritus
SME
#136
#136
LPKingsFan said:
A poll with multiple voting options would be interesting for this thread. Too late, though?
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Yeah, kinda. Maximum number of options available is also 10, I believe. I could try and do it but my luck adding polls with this new software hasn't been too good.
 
Kingster

Kingster

Hall of Famer
#137
#137
upinsmoke said:
LOL but seriously it's PDA the people have spoken.
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Well, I'm a peeps and I didn't apparently get a vote. As I recall it was a case of a few people on the board that decided for everyone else what the acronym was, as if they were the elitist ones determining the vocabulary. I think I'll just call him gerbil from now on. Apparently that is accepted and understood our GM.
 
Mike

Mike

Bench
#138
#138
Kingster said:
What's your guess on who is with the team next year? Mine is:

Who Stays:

Cousins
Thomas
McLemore
McCallum
Outlaw
Evans
Landry
Acy

Who Goes:

Gay
Thompson
D-Williams
Gray
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Next season if we can go into the draft with the following base:

PG - Thomas, McCallum
SG - McLemore
SF - Gay, Williams
PF - Landry
C - Cousins, Thompson
Bit part players - Outlaw, Evans, Acy, Gray, Terry and Cunningham (not sure which of these guys we will/should keep)​

This is the base I would build around for next season. Thomas, Gay and Cousins could be a very productive trio to build around, because the more time they get to gel, and the more they develop their games, the better they will get. Obviously we would need to sure up the defensive side, but I think building around that trio would be a good idea. That would leave the SG and PF positions. Now I do think that McLemore can develop into a decent starting SG, but equally could become an effective sixth man. We definitely need a new starting PG, and that should be filled in the draft (eg. Vonleah or Gordon). If that occurs then the starting line up of Thomas, McLemore, Gay, Vonleah/Gordon, Cousins could be quite a good starting line up going forwards.

That being said, it is possible that Thomas leaves in a similar deal to Evans last season; that Gay opts out and goes to another team; and that the team look to move Thompson. So that base would go down to:

PG - McCallum
SG - McLemore
SF - Williams
PF - Landry
C - Cousins
Bit part players - Outlaw, Evans, Acy, Gray, Terry and Cunningham (not sure which of these guys we will/should keep)​

Now it wouldn't be the end of the world if that happened. Obviously if Thomas leaves we need to find a new starting PG, and we should be in a position to take Marcus Smart around #7. Gay's departure would hurt, but Williams does have the talent to step up and be productive at SF if given the chance. In an ideal world if we could trade down with Chicago and grab their two first round picks for our own, then we could grab a PG like Tyler Ennis at #16 and a F like Jerami Grant at #19. The addition of those two guys would give us a nice rotation at PG and SF. That would still leave us with a big hole at PF, but Landry or a veteran stop gap could slot in and do a job for a season.

But to get back to who should stay and who should go. I think the players that we should keep to build around are Thomas, McCallum, McLemore, Gay, Williams, Landry and Cousins. That base has the talent to become part of a productive roster. Thompson could end up being let go to free up cap space. And any of the bit part players could be let go.
 
rainmaker

rainmaker

Hall of Famer
#143
#143
TonyTouch21 said:
I'd start Carl Landry opening day! PDA wants the squad running. Malone too.
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1) Landry isn't starting.

2) If we wanted an up and down team, Landry wouldn't fit. Doesn't help on the defensive end or on the glass which is what you need first and foremost to get out and run as you can't run without the ball, and two, he doesn't excel in the open court or finishing in transition.

So.......no.
 
K

KingMilz

Guest
#145
#145
I wonder with the Knicks if Melo leaves we could offer them Thompson and Williams (try sell them on his potential when given time) for Tyson Chandler than I actually would not mind if Rudy stay and we replace IT with someone like Livingston/Sessions or any decent cheaper PG.
 
Hadlowe

Hadlowe

Starter
#146
#146
andremiller07 said:
I wonder with the Knicks if Melo leaves we could offer them Thompson and Williams (try sell them on his potential when given time) for Tyson Chandler than I actually would not mind if Rudy stay and we replace IT with someone like Livingston/Sessions or any decent cheaper PG.
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I think Livingston is going to get paid somewhere this offseason. It wouldn't surprise me at all if his play in the postseason lands him a bigger contract than IT. Not a lot of 6'7" point guards out there.
 
hrdboild

hrdboild

Moloch in whom I dream Angels!
Staff member
#148
#148
andremiller07 said:
I wonder with the Knicks if Melo leaves we could offer them Thompson and Williams (try sell them on his potential when given time) for Tyson Chandler than I actually would not mind if Rudy stay and we replace IT with someone like Livingston/Sessions or any decent cheaper PG.
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I think Chandler only has a couple more years in him. He looks like he's breaking down physically. Sure he's only 31 but next year will be his 14th season in the NBA and he's reached 70 games played just once in the last 6 seasons. I don't know that it's worth buying into the downward slope of his career and/or possible early retirement.
 
K

KingMilz

Guest
#149
#149
hrdboild said:
I think Chandler only has a couple more years in him. He looks like he's breaking down physically. Sure he's only 31 but next year will be his 14th season in the NBA and he's reached 70 games played just once in the last 6 seasons. I don't know that it's worth buying into the downward slope of his career and/or possible early retirement.
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His contract has only one yeat left and we would only be giving up JT and DWill which are not really good pieces, plus we could somewhat finally see if a Chandler type player really works best with Cousins or not. It's not like we are giving up anything to get him if that deal went down (unless of course Williams explodes out of nowhere, but if Rudy Gay stays that no longer matters).

Even if Chandler only stays one year if he help's build a winning culture (like he did in NY) and gives us a better blueprint of what we need to do going forward than losing JT/Williams in the process is nothing.
 
hrdboild

hrdboild

Moloch in whom I dream Angels!
Staff member
#150
#150
andremiller07 said:
His contract has only one yeat left and we would only be giving up JT and DWill which are not really good pieces, plus we could somewhat finally see if a Chandler type player really works best with Cousins or not. It's not like we are giving up anything to get him if that deal went down (unless of course Williams explodes out of nowhere, but if Rudy Gay stays that no longer matters).

Even if Chandler only stays one year if he help's build a winning culture (like he did in NY) and gives us a better blueprint of what we need to do going forward than losing JT/Williams in the process is nothing.
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I still like Williams -- he's only 22 and we don't know what's happening with Rudy Gay yet (not to mention I'm already on record as not believing he's worth a big extension). We need a defensive big but I see Chandler as a short-term option not a building block. Williams may end up being more than that.
 
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