Well I'm done defending IT, imo he does much more good for us than bad(and really how many players on our roster can we say that about). My question is who do you guys want as an upgrade at PG? I would love to get Rondo, but that is unlikely. Who else out there do you consider an upgrade? Do you want to draft someone and hope he develops in 3 years? Aren't Cuz and Gay ready to win now? Do you re sign IT and start a more conventional cheaper guard? All I hear is get rid of him but no solutions to replacing our 3rd best player.
What is our PG worth? SI takes a stab at it.
- Thread starter Chubbs
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Many pgs are good at it and the argument he always ignores is that IT isn't really good at any kind of defense. Yes, dribble penetration is difficult to stop but it isn't impossible and it doesn't mean you just quit on plays every time someone gets by you, or that you're screened, or that you don't feel like rotating, etc. He's a bad defender. That's a fact and trying to pretend it doesn't matter is silly.
Add to that his skills and preference to score vs pass when we have a team with 2 guys that are our main scorers, and that is why people would prefer to keep IT at the right price in a super 6th man role.
Add to that his skills and preference to score vs pass when we have a team with 2 guys that are our main scorers, and that is why people would prefer to keep IT at the right price in a super 6th man role.
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Exum is an extremely fluid athlete with immense talent. He could even go top 3 in the draft because of his tremendous upside but also he's already very close to being NBA ready despite just coming out of high school. The game comes intrinsically for him.
He's one of the few players in the upcoming draft that I can see for sure making at least a great career in the NBA if all goes wrong (bar injury or some tragic emotional trauma).
He doesn't even need to develop his outside shot to be great in the league because of the way he is able to stride to the basket and his incredible burst from standstill position.
He's a more athletic version of Tony Parker. TP is a hall of famer so that tells you what you need to know about him.
Smart is a taller and stronger version of Ty Lawson or MCW just less athletic than the latter.
I think the draft is a very good place to pick-up lottery point guards.
This is the one year where trading away a potential lottery draft pick is extremely stupid. You are practically giving up the rights to a potential superstar and by potential I mean very good chance.
He's one of the few players in the upcoming draft that I can see for sure making at least a great career in the NBA if all goes wrong (bar injury or some tragic emotional trauma).
He doesn't even need to develop his outside shot to be great in the league because of the way he is able to stride to the basket and his incredible burst from standstill position.
He's a more athletic version of Tony Parker. TP is a hall of famer so that tells you what you need to know about him.
Smart is a taller and stronger version of Ty Lawson or MCW just less athletic than the latter.
I think the draft is a very good place to pick-up lottery point guards.
This is the one year where trading away a potential lottery draft pick is extremely stupid. You are practically giving up the rights to a potential superstar and by potential I mean very good chance.
Thats exactly the issue, Cousins has emerged as the best center in the league, Gay is in his prime playing great for us, we don't have time to draft another 20 year old and wait 3 or 4 seasons for them to emerge. We need a guy that can produce now, Rondo would be amazing, I like Lowry but there have always been off court issues with him(theres a reason he has been traded more than once). IT is a guy that is producing at a high level now, you don't trade that for picks in the hopes we get someone down the line when Gay and Cousins are chomping at the bit. You only trade IT for an upgrade that produces now.
And I would like to add that anyone who thinks Tony Parker is a me-first lead guard hasn't watched him or the Spurs play at all. Maybe he was referring to Smush Parker? If Tony Parker played the way Isaiah Thomas did we'd probably find him taped up in a chair outside the Spurs practice facility once Pop was done with him.
It could be. I think the key question is going to be: is anybody out there going to throw a big long term contract at a 5'9" PG to be their longterm starter? If so, your numbers would not surprise me at all. If teams are primarily trying to sign him as a 6th man/reserve, then maybe less. I just don't have a feel for the market for a guy like that. My suspicion is that at least one team will go there, but I don't know who. Nate Robinson's experience last summer is still fresh in the mind, but Isaiah is younger and has less warts than Nate, and he still has his hype bubble about him. Don't remember whether Nate first hit free agency before the bloom was off his rose or not back in his early career.
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Exum may drop as low as #7 depending on how the draft works out. So, yes, we have a good chance of getting him still as does anyone really who is not a playoff team currently.
6th worst record is the average in the last 10 or so years of what ended up being the #1 draft pick
Meaning, the 6th worst team in the league consistently got the #1 draft pick after each season. It is a rare feat for the worst team in the league to get the #1 pick. Bucks will most likely not get the #1 pick if we go according to statistics.
Here and there the 8th and 9th worst team got it too.
So, I like our chances of a top 5 pick
6th worst record is the average in the last 10 or so years of what ended up being the #1 draft pick
Meaning, the 6th worst team in the league consistently got the #1 draft pick after each season. It is a rare feat for the worst team in the league to get the #1 pick. Bucks will most likely not get the #1 pick if we go according to statistics.
Here and there the 8th and 9th worst team got it too.
So, I like our chances of a top 5 pick
Basketball is a really funny thing.
At the end of the day you win by scoring more points than the other team.
But scoring is literally the only thing that you can "have too much of" and it be a bad thing.
You can never have too much rebounding, defense, assisting, off-ball movement, screen-setting, hustle, or shooting ability. If you have 5 guys on the floor who are the absolute elite in the league in those things it will never hurt your team....and you'll be in every game that you play.
But if you have 5 guys on the floor who are all elite scorers with defensive issues...even though the point of the game is to score, well...that is a bad thing because the game is not conducive to allowing so many scorers on the court because there is just one ball to be shared...and the lack of ability in the other areas (rebounding, defense, assisting, ect.) will manifest itself and ultimately prevent winning at a high level.
Anyway who says that IT is not playing at a high level is not watching these games. He is playing at a high level.
The issue is completely about who else is on the team and how IT's 'high level play' manifests itself on the court.
IT's high level of play is mostly about scoring. Since we already have two high level scorers on the team, the team would be better served if the starting PG had high level play in the form of defense, team facilitation, and clock management, especially when the latter two are critical for the point guard position.
Here is the funny thing. Let's say that IT was in reality 6'5 and played the SG position. (We'll call him James Harden)
Even if we replaced IT with James Harden, I don't think having Rudy and Cousins starting next to him would make the most sense in the world, even if you had a non-scoring PG & non-scoring PF. You would probably be better off starting a defensive 3andD SG to put in 15-20 minutes a game and let Harden run the show off the bench while still getting his starters minutes. You could run Rudy off the bench instead, but since he wouldn't be as much of a facilitator might not work as well...but that could be the way to go instead.
And come to think of it, playing someone like Harden off the bench that is exactly what OKC did when they had success, and it's what Pop has been doing with Manu for years.
Good teams become good teams when they maximize the talent they have, and most all good teams have come to realize that having 3 players in the starting line-up all scoring 20 points a game usually indicates an imbalance in the team that will prevent winning, and that's simply because it actually is possible to "have too much scoring". Doesn't make sense, but it seems to be a basketball truth.
We don't have any guards that excel in all the other things in such a way to supplant IT as our starting PG. So starting IT is the only option right now, but the better option would be to bring in a guy who does excel at the other things and then let IT run the show from the bench when Cousins or Rudy are not in the game.
But I'm afraid I do agree with many posters here that IT has probably priced himself out of a contract with the Kings, if the Kings intentions are to use him as a phenomenal spark-plug off the bench. And because of that, I do expect that they will want to get value for him and will ultimately decide to trade him before they have to make any tough decisions regarding his next contract or see him walk for nothing.
At the end of the day you win by scoring more points than the other team.
But scoring is literally the only thing that you can "have too much of" and it be a bad thing.
You can never have too much rebounding, defense, assisting, off-ball movement, screen-setting, hustle, or shooting ability. If you have 5 guys on the floor who are the absolute elite in the league in those things it will never hurt your team....and you'll be in every game that you play.
But if you have 5 guys on the floor who are all elite scorers with defensive issues...even though the point of the game is to score, well...that is a bad thing because the game is not conducive to allowing so many scorers on the court because there is just one ball to be shared...and the lack of ability in the other areas (rebounding, defense, assisting, ect.) will manifest itself and ultimately prevent winning at a high level.
Anyway who says that IT is not playing at a high level is not watching these games. He is playing at a high level.
The issue is completely about who else is on the team and how IT's 'high level play' manifests itself on the court.
IT's high level of play is mostly about scoring. Since we already have two high level scorers on the team, the team would be better served if the starting PG had high level play in the form of defense, team facilitation, and clock management, especially when the latter two are critical for the point guard position.
Here is the funny thing. Let's say that IT was in reality 6'5 and played the SG position. (We'll call him James Harden)
Even if we replaced IT with James Harden, I don't think having Rudy and Cousins starting next to him would make the most sense in the world, even if you had a non-scoring PG & non-scoring PF. You would probably be better off starting a defensive 3andD SG to put in 15-20 minutes a game and let Harden run the show off the bench while still getting his starters minutes. You could run Rudy off the bench instead, but since he wouldn't be as much of a facilitator might not work as well...but that could be the way to go instead.
And come to think of it, playing someone like Harden off the bench that is exactly what OKC did when they had success, and it's what Pop has been doing with Manu for years.
Good teams become good teams when they maximize the talent they have, and most all good teams have come to realize that having 3 players in the starting line-up all scoring 20 points a game usually indicates an imbalance in the team that will prevent winning, and that's simply because it actually is possible to "have too much scoring". Doesn't make sense, but it seems to be a basketball truth.
We don't have any guards that excel in all the other things in such a way to supplant IT as our starting PG. So starting IT is the only option right now, but the better option would be to bring in a guy who does excel at the other things and then let IT run the show from the bench when Cousins or Rudy are not in the game.
But I'm afraid I do agree with many posters here that IT has probably priced himself out of a contract with the Kings, if the Kings intentions are to use him as a phenomenal spark-plug off the bench. And because of that, I do expect that they will want to get value for him and will ultimately decide to trade him before they have to make any tough decisions regarding his next contract or see him walk for nothing.
This statement has always annoyed me. It's true, as far as it goes, but its converse is also true: you also win by preventing the other team from scoring as many points as you do. Yeah, if you score 110 and the other guys score 105, you win. But, hey, if you only score 95, but you hold the other guys to 92, guess what... you still win!
Whenever I read people hollering about how we "need" scoring, it makes me want to throw sharp objects at them.
Whenever I read people hollering about how we "need" scoring, it makes me want to throw sharp objects at them.
As far as I see it, there are two camps of thought with regards to IT for us:
1. Open to moving IT off the starting spot only if the defensive upgrade is a net positive from the offensive loss. Rondo, Lowry, etc.
2. IT is a super 6th man and should be moved to the bench for any defensive-minded PG, or someone who stays out of the way on offense. Preferably, the PG has both attributes.
1. Open to moving IT off the starting spot only if the defensive upgrade is a net positive from the offensive loss. Rondo, Lowry, etc.
2. IT is a super 6th man and should be moved to the bench for any defensive-minded PG, or someone who stays out of the way on offense. Preferably, the PG has both attributes.
this seems an accurate evaluation of the overall argument. the problem is that a ton of gray area exists between these two camps because of the issue of thomas' expiring contract. he's gonna get paid this summer. it's likely that he's gonna get paid well. i pretty much fall into the second camp, but i'm also very open to the idea of trading thomas before the deadline because i'd rather not see the kings overpay an undersized gunner to start at PG or come off the bench as a sixth man. i see it as too much of a risk to lose thomas for nothing, because you just know that somebody out there will be drooling over the advanced statistics enough to throw big money at him...
It's ridiculous. Do people think if we lose little mans 19 ppg that just means we will score 19 less points? That's not how it works, and is the main argument against his numbers being legit. Right now, 23 teams are scoring between 95.1ppg and 105.9, with a few outliers. That's most of the league. No matter what 5 guys are on any particular team, most teams score between 95-105. This isn't baseball, where a terrible team can get shutout. Doesn't happen. The celtics, with no one of note of their team really, score a whole 7 ppg less than we do, with zero 20ppg scorers. With a bunch of no names . Every team is getting 90 ppg from somewhere. SOMEONE will score to get to those 90 ppg on every single team. The pace of the game gets you to 90. Right now, in the absence of anyone being able to get into any kind of offensive flow, our PG needs to score. Take him away, someone else will score. It really is that simple. People won't believe it, but that's ok. They would be wrong.
I guarantee you we'd score just fine without him, even with what looks like few scorers right now. But MT would come back to life, Williams would score more, Landry is coming back. I'm almost sure Jimmer would score 15-17 ppg given minutes on frankly, about the same efficiency on offense as our current guy. Almost any player getting enough shots will. It's just about opportunity. We truly don't need his scoring when 100% healthy. Scoring is the easiest thing to find out there.
This is why I thought the Landry signing was so ridiculous. He has the exact same scorer off the bench role our PG should be in. Different positions, but it's the same role. It's also the role MT should be in. Or Mclemore. The problem is, they can't all be in that role, so they're trying to turn MT in a defender, which is just absurd. Mclemore at this point seems more of a fit in that specialized role. Certainly more upside in the long term. I know, I know, our PG is so efficient, such an amazing shooter. But he's very middle of the road in the passing stats (and no, his low assist totals are not due to bad SGs), and abysmal defensively and occasionally mind numbingly dumb with time management. And 35th in the league in assist to turnover ratio, which means a LOT more than raw assist numbers, which is a function of time on the court more often than not. You get a PG that scores a little less and passes and plays D a lot more, we will be more than OK. That's not advocating an over the hill vet like Miller, beno, or the like. The point though, is that it doesn't have to the guy we have now. And if money dictates it can't be, then we have to move on.
I guarantee you we'd score just fine without him, even with what looks like few scorers right now. But MT would come back to life, Williams would score more, Landry is coming back. I'm almost sure Jimmer would score 15-17 ppg given minutes on frankly, about the same efficiency on offense as our current guy. Almost any player getting enough shots will. It's just about opportunity. We truly don't need his scoring when 100% healthy. Scoring is the easiest thing to find out there.
This is why I thought the Landry signing was so ridiculous. He has the exact same scorer off the bench role our PG should be in. Different positions, but it's the same role. It's also the role MT should be in. Or Mclemore. The problem is, they can't all be in that role, so they're trying to turn MT in a defender, which is just absurd. Mclemore at this point seems more of a fit in that specialized role. Certainly more upside in the long term. I know, I know, our PG is so efficient, such an amazing shooter. But he's very middle of the road in the passing stats (and no, his low assist totals are not due to bad SGs), and abysmal defensively and occasionally mind numbingly dumb with time management. And 35th in the league in assist to turnover ratio, which means a LOT more than raw assist numbers, which is a function of time on the court more often than not. You get a PG that scores a little less and passes and plays D a lot more, we will be more than OK. That's not advocating an over the hill vet like Miller, beno, or the like. The point though, is that it doesn't have to the guy we have now. And if money dictates it can't be, then we have to move on.
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Quoting this again because the thread seems to have diverged significantly from the subject of IT's probable payment this summer, and, while I think that's expected somewhat, I have seen an assumption that IT will make more than $7 million/year in his next deal. Personally, I'd be uncomfortable paying more than that, but, based on this analysis, we may not have to. I understand the unwillingness to face that, risk, though. And if teams would prefer him to Teague, or Lowry, then I'd happily entertain a swap...