Goodbye, Luc...we hardly knew ye.
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Kings need scoring from a 3 or 4. Luc was everything except a scorer. Sure he could do some but a 3 needs to be a 15+ pts/nite. Outlaw does that 1 out of 4 or 5 games. At 6-8 and 240 if Williams can score outside, inside and in-between, maybe getting a fresh start will rejuvenate him. Plus he is only 23 and has his college degree I believe. I will mis Luc for sure. His defense is top tier but if Kings embrace the team defense culture then they need scorers and all Kings 3's and 4's are not scorers on a consistent basis. So as Elmer had written on his fingers LOVE and HATE, we'll see how much of the L word we can end up with.
I hope inside negotiations by FO are revealed when this trade is made official - so far only AP sourced story. I assumed that JT would be one to go for D. Williams since Minny likely would have nothing to do with Fish or MT. Luc fills big defensive specialist need for any team he's on and with him plus superstar K. Love together it's two UCLA Bruin good friends reunited. D-Will at just 23 years of age has tremendous (you'd think) upside but who knows if he'll ever live up to #2 overall draft pick, flourish now that he is out of Minny as he wanted to become Kings long-lost missing SF piece. Fingers crossed...
I have a feeling that MT will be traded soon. My hope is Houston for Omer Asik for MT and PPAt.
Why the kings do it? They get a defensive and rebounding big net to DMC.
Why the Rockets do it? They get a 3rd guard to give them scoring off the bench when Harden is out or injured and the get their stretch 4 back in PPat, who would fit nicely next to Dwight Howard, unlike Asik. Also, Houston gets out of the $15 million cap hit Asik will cost them next year.
Why the kings do it? They get a defensive and rebounding big net to DMC.
Why the Rockets do it? They get a 3rd guard to give them scoring off the bench when Harden is out or injured and the get their stretch 4 back in PPat, who would fit nicely next to Dwight Howard, unlike Asik. Also, Houston gets out of the $15 million cap hit Asik will cost them next year.
There's almost certainly an element of "Luc Richard and Kevin Love were teammates at UCLA, so bringing him in might make Love more likely to stay" at play here for Minnesota. In fact, I wonder if there might have been a different trade set up at some point and then somebody asked Kevin about it and he mentioned his old teammate. I've been a fan of Mbah A Moute since college, even though he played for UCLA and I'm an 'SC guy. He barely had much of a tenure with the Kings, but I'll continue to enjoy watching him play basketball the way it should be played whenever I get the chance. Farewell sweet prince!
C
Their d has been really bad the last 4, 5 games. Pekovic: poor defender. Love: poor defender. Brewer: okay on-ball defender but not a lockdown guy by any means. They badly needed that one lockdown defender to throw on the opposing best perimeter scorer. Luc might have slipped a bit and not on the level of Toney Allen, Iggy, Kawhi, or paul george defensively but he's top 10 when healthy IMO.
I'd say that Pek is alright defensively, he's just not a rim protector by any means, which is what they need more than perimeter help, imo. and yeah, maybe they've struggled lately, can't pretend that I've paid attention to them that closely. just wanted to point out that they've been fairly strong on defense early on, especially relative to their offensive performance, which struck me as weird, considering the rep of the guys involved.
I think I said somewhere else on this board, don't go falling in love with any player right now.
This is a trade down in the sense that it likely makes us worse right now, with a hope and a prayer it turns out in the long run.
Short run, this is about a draft pick. That culture change goes by the name of Parker/wiggins/randle/insert name.
Expect more vets out the door for picks and/or unproven youth as the season goes on.
PDA turned two second round picks into the #2 pick from 2011. It's hard to be too disappointed. Those are the chances they have to take.
This is a trade down in the sense that it likely makes us worse right now, with a hope and a prayer it turns out in the long run.
Short run, this is about a draft pick. That culture change goes by the name of Parker/wiggins/randle/insert name.
Expect more vets out the door for picks and/or unproven youth as the season goes on.
PDA turned two second round picks into the #2 pick from 2011. It's hard to be too disappointed. Those are the chances they have to take.
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He's a lot better than that.
More significantly the new front office has taken just about the worst defensive team in the league, and systematically eliminated every single piece of defensive hope that It might have had over the past 4 months. I can justify this move, I can't ignore the larger trend. It puts such tremendous pressure on the coach to have to try to wring blood out of a stone every night, and I have no idea at all what sort of message it sends.
More significantly the new front office has taken just about the worst defensive team in the league, and systematically eliminated every single piece of defensive hope that It might have had over the past 4 months. I can justify this move, I can't ignore the larger trend. It puts such tremendous pressure on the coach to have to try to wring blood out of a stone every night, and I have no idea at all what sort of message it sends.
I haven't seen Williams much in the NBA, the odd Timberwolves game here and there. I find it hard to believe that an athletic kid with a good mind for the game would have trouble breaking the rotation in an Adelman system. If you're saying that his BBIQ is higher than T-Rob, you may well be right, but that's not exactly a high bar.
The rebounding numbers are a cause for concern. There are lots of 6'8" tweener forwards in the league (and on our team, sigh), but only a few of them manage to rebound at a decent rate. Leonard, Carmelo, Milsap, maybe a couple of others. I'm hoping that this is the first in a series of trades, because we seriously need someone other than Cousins and Thompson who can average more than 7 rebounds per 36.
The rebounding numbers are a cause for concern. There are lots of 6'8" tweener forwards in the league (and on our team, sigh), but only a few of them manage to rebound at a decent rate. Leonard, Carmelo, Milsap, maybe a couple of others. I'm hoping that this is the first in a series of trades, because we seriously need someone other than Cousins and Thompson who can average more than 7 rebounds per 36.
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