By Stephen Tetsu, kingsfans.com Game Thread Writer and All-Around Good Guy
Back and Boogier than ever...
Hello hello hello and welcome to another exciting season of Sacramento Kings basketball ball. As with the past several seasons, my name is Stephen Tetsu and I'll the host of your Kingsfans.com pre-game/whenever festivities for the duration of the season (this of course means that I'm going to get into a fiery car wreck next week and miss out on most of the year). 82 games is a long time (but still only half as long as the baseball season) so let's buckle in, get our poo buckets ready, and ride out the 2014-2015 season together, shall we?
Since we've seen quite a few new members join our ranks over the past few months (no doubt a result of Moreland-Mania), I guess I should give a bit of a reminder on how these bad boys typically go: Once a Kings game is over, I lock myself in my apartment after I get home from work (I live in Japan) and slavishly type up my banal thoughts of the game. Meanwhile, a state of the art internet robot compiles information from the previous game's game threads, thus giving us the "Post of the Game" (the post in the previous game thread with the most likes) and the "We're All Gonna DIEEEEEEEEEEEE Pessimism of the Game" (the post our internet robot deems to be the most fatalistic and irrationally negative post of the previous game thread).
Meanwhile meanwhile, our esteemed panel of judges and know-it-alls diligently look over every second of the game, breaking down tape, and making notations regarding the standout performances of the night, until coming to a decision on the "KINGSFANS.COM GAME AWARDS OF THE GAME!" awards (trademark pending).
But since this is the first game of the season (screw the preseason!), the robot is still in cotton balls in the attic while I find AA batteries, and the awards council is still on vacation in the Maldives.
Which brings us to my next point:
The awards are super-duper out of date. As last recorded, here are the bad boys we hand out on a nightly basis...
Tony Delk Memorial Award (named after a dude who torched us for 50 points 14 years ago)
Before B-Jax, there was Tony Delk.
Pictured: Reef at his introductory press conference.
Not even a mask could make Luke Walton into an interesting player.
A little less flash, a little more not sucking.
The only thing worse than the gold jerseys? When Jason Hart was wearing them.
At one point, Geoff Petrie was convinced this man was our future.
While all of these awards certainly have sentimental value for those of us long-haulers out there, we have to remember that there is going to be a good chunk of Kings fandom that was too young to even remember seeing these guys play and the less we remember about Jason Hart, the better. So over the next several weeks, I shall be soliciting your suggestions in regards to newer more relevant names for each award in turn. Out with the old, in with the new (and also crappy).
And now, moving on...
Post of the Game
Presenting the post from the last game thread that garnered the most likes over the course of the night.
We’re All Gonna DIEEEEEEEEEEEE Pessimism of the (Preseason) Game
Your daily dose of unrelenting pessimism presented without comment from the preseason game thread…
Stephen's Basic Grammar Tip of the Year
Lots of youth no doubt, but they have good drafting capability and having (insert player here) would of been nice to have here
Lots of youth no doubt, but they have good drafting capability and having (insert player here) sure would have been nice to have here
I know that when you speak English would have (or the more commonly used would've) sounds a bit like would of (In the same sense that jump! sounds like Walk as slow as humanly possible) but we're writing English here, not speaking it. If we wrote English like we spoke it, normal sentences would look like illegible jumbles of random consonants and stops.
It may seem like I'm picking at nits here but this is possibly the most common mistake I see in posts here and it's slowly driving me crazy.
have not of.
It's not rocket surgery.
The Oddest Odd Couple in the History of Odd Couples
In case you slept through the preseason (I wouldn't blame you), the Kings spent a good week of October wandering around China in a two exhibition game series against the Brooklyn Nets, which I personally found odd in that neither team has ever had a (good) Chinese player on their rosters and neither team is located in any location of particular relevance to China abroad. (Well, that's not entirely true because the Nets are in New York but I rest my case. In case you were wondering -and you probably weren't- Sacramento probably has had traditionally stronger Japanese ties than Chinese ties.)
Anyways, since this trip was undoubtably going to be a big deal in China, Vivek decided to bring Shaq along, making for what I can only assume was a comical plane ride in which Shaq had to sit in a seat three sizes too small for a man of his stature over the course of 18 hours.
Upon landing, the pair of Kings owners were greeted by Yao Ming and Sim Bhullar, leading to great photo ops featuring two of the handful of people in the world bigger than the Big Doctor or whatever his nickname is these days.
But more importantly, Vlade and Peja made a token cameo appearance, fresh on the heels of the Peja jersey retirement announcement, leading to an overwhelming wave of painful nostalgia for this Kings fan and an undying urge to mail Kobe a rotten hamburger. (PS, the Lakers might actually be worse than the Sixers this year.)
As we all know, Vlade and Shaq both don't lack in size and personality, and some PR guy for the Kings apparently didn't forget either, which led to this awkward appearance at an Adidas store in Beijing
Featured in that span of one and a half minutes: A half dozen jokes about flopping and fouling, Shaq randomly shouting at the camera, both dudes being really, really tall, and Vlade generally looking bewildered in the background while he wonders what Lawrence Funderburke is up to in his retired life.
See? Aren't things sooo much better now that Shaq and the Kings are on the same team? (Answer: No, not really) If anything, I was just starting to get over the fact that one of the three guys we have been conditioned to hate unconditionally over the period of the previous 15 years literally owns a portion of our beloved team when seeing Vlade and Shaq together opened up that whole can of worms all over again. It's a brave new world guys, one full of "positionless" basketball, Shaq doing Kings PR, and Chris Webber trying to buy the Hawks. I can hardly believe it myself.
The View from the Other Side
This is where I typically present a collection of posts and thoughts from an opposing team's fanbase about the previous game. Since this is game one, no dice.
Even Steph's high fives are dead on.
As the schedule gods continue their crusade against the Kings, our beloved purple monarchs start things off with a home opener against the Golden State Warriors, a team led of course by the Splash Brothers and new head coach Steve Kerr. Coming off of the wild success of two seasons ago, the wheels pretty much fell off the bus for the Warriors down the stretch last year, with Andrew Bogut having his yearly big injury and Mark Jackson alienating anyone in the building that wasn't on the gameday roster.
But this is a new year and hope runs high in the Bay Area and despite a series of failed trade attempts to land Kevin Love, the Warriors have high expectations come April and May whether warranted or not.
Meanwhile, the Kings come off of a shaky preseason which either means everything or nothing, depending upon who you ask. After losing Isaiah Thomas over the offseason, the Kings signed the new PG tandem of Darren Collison and Ramon Sessions, which has either worked out amazingly or awfully depending on who you ask. Meanwhile Rudy Gay is also either a good number two option or a gigantic waste of space depending on who you ask and Nik Stauskas is either a future all-star or another colossal draft bust depending on who you ask.
In other words, we're either going to be a surprise success story or be the worst team in the NBA (something that I think will actually be impossible so long as the Sixers remain in the league this season). So same old, same old.
Matchups
Tonight we face off against one of the few big men who still gives Demarcus some trouble in the hard-nosed bruiser Andrew Bogut, who, when not injured, is one of the better defensive bigs in the league. Elsewhere Klay Thompson faces off against our comparatively hapless McLemore/Stuaskas duo and Steph Curry faces a pair of PGs who might at least try to make him work for his thirty points a game.
Demarcus v. Bogut: Boogie versus the Bogey. Terrible 80s dancing versus the thing you secretly eat when no one's watching (or maybe that's just me). Either way, Demarcus getting over his weakness against the Aussie to start off the season will put the rest of the NBA on notice.
Platoon of PFs v. Lavid Dee: I’m not expecting much from either side, to tell you the truth. The fact that the Warriors have seemingly been doing everything in their power to trade the man doesn’t exactly do much to instill confidence in regards to his role on the team going forward. Meanwhile, we have like 47 power forwards and 48 minutes in which to use them.
Klay v. Ben and Nik: This has the potential to get really ugly (unless Ben has one of his lucky "I'm good at basketball, see???" games).
Iggy v. Gay: Rudy faces one of the better swing defenders in the NBA and plus we're all apparently supposed to hate him now or something.
Steph Curry v. Darren Collison/Ramon Sessions: On the plus side, two PGs who don't suck. On the negative side, they have to debut against one of the best scorers in the NBA. Also, neither of them is capable of dribbling around the top of the key for 15 seconds of the 24 second shot clock.
Our Bench versus their bench: On the plus side, we have more big man depth than they do. On the negative side, that doesn't mean any of them are that good. Plus the game isn't going to be decided by the third string PG matchup (even if Ray Mac would totally win it).
Vivek Ranadive versus himself: Thanks for saving the Kings but, for the love of god, stop saying utterly stupid things and trying to pass them off as "innovations". Playing 4 on 5 isn't an advantage, it's the freaking Sacramento Kings when Derrick Williams is on the floor. Stick to the off-the-floor stuff and let your coaches and front office do their jobs in peace.
The Kings versus Positionless Basketball: If this is "the future of basketball" then get me a freaking time machine.
Predictions and Final Thoughts
Some people like to be negative. I'm not one of them.
I think the Kings will come out strong behind Demarcus Cousins and a great homecrowd and put together a 106-102 win to get the year started off right.
Go Kings!
PS: Just wanted to remind you that the Warriors are responsible for the current sleeved jersey atrocity taking the NBA by storm. So eff them!
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