I'm as disgusted and embarrassed as anybody to have the second worst defense (ppg allowed) in the NBA. It is humiliating.
I just don't think there are very many guys who will take over and improve our situation this season. I think we should run out the string and hopefully get Thibs in a graceful change-over during the off-season (due to Karl's health - not Vivek's temper).
I just don't think there are very many guys who will take over and improve our situation this season. I think we should run out the string and hopefully get Thibs in a graceful change-over during the off-season (due to Karl's health - not Vivek's temper).
I
http://stats.nba.com/league/lineups...ason&sort=TEAM_ABBREVIATION&dir=1&PlusMinus=Y
Our best lineups feature Rondo, Gay and Cousins (Big surprise)
- What works: Either WCS, Acy or Casspi alongside Cousins
- What works: Either McLemore, Anderson, or Curry alongside Rondo
A quality lineup without Gay: Rondo, Belinelli, Casspi, Koufos, Cousins (This has size, shooting, rebounding, team players)
A quality lineup without Cousins (Not really such a thing); Collison, Belinelli, Casspi, Koufos, WCS)
It's some interesting stuff, small samples relatively because of injuries, early in the season and Karl has already played a bazillion different lineups, but they hold some weight.
What we can understand is which players work with others... WCS for example doesn't work when paired with Koufos while Rondo is on the court. However it does work for WCS when you bring in Demarcus, which can be explained by spacing and offensive threat. The Rondo-McLemore-Gay-Koufos-WCS lineup is simply terrible whereas the Rondo-McLemore-Gay-Cousins-WCS lineup is superb in comparison. Also the Collison-Belinelli-Casspi-Koufos-WCS lineup has been decent. From this I think we can conclude that WCS needs to play alongside another big body up front, and depending on the amount of shooting and spacing, he can be paired with either PGs. The Collison-Belinelli-Casspi-Koufos-WCS should be our staple go-to bench lineup... We get the best balance of size, rebounding, defense, shooting and scoring inside and out.
What clearly doesn't work:
Rondo and Collison
WCS with a small PF
I think we could get away with a WCS small-ball lineup against some teams, but not most.
Haven't really said anything that we don't already know, but it's nice to get some numbers behind it. Interesting to see the Curry lineup stats. I think we'll find he can work with Rondo
Our best lineups feature Rondo, Gay and Cousins (Big surprise)
- What works: Either WCS, Acy or Casspi alongside Cousins
- What works: Either McLemore, Anderson, or Curry alongside Rondo
A quality lineup without Gay: Rondo, Belinelli, Casspi, Koufos, Cousins (This has size, shooting, rebounding, team players)
A quality lineup without Cousins (Not really such a thing); Collison, Belinelli, Casspi, Koufos, WCS)
It's some interesting stuff, small samples relatively because of injuries, early in the season and Karl has already played a bazillion different lineups, but they hold some weight.
What we can understand is which players work with others... WCS for example doesn't work when paired with Koufos while Rondo is on the court. However it does work for WCS when you bring in Demarcus, which can be explained by spacing and offensive threat. The Rondo-McLemore-Gay-Koufos-WCS lineup is simply terrible whereas the Rondo-McLemore-Gay-Cousins-WCS lineup is superb in comparison. Also the Collison-Belinelli-Casspi-Koufos-WCS lineup has been decent. From this I think we can conclude that WCS needs to play alongside another big body up front, and depending on the amount of shooting and spacing, he can be paired with either PGs. The Collison-Belinelli-Casspi-Koufos-WCS should be our staple go-to bench lineup... We get the best balance of size, rebounding, defense, shooting and scoring inside and out.
What clearly doesn't work:
Rondo and Collison
WCS with a small PF
I think we could get away with a WCS small-ball lineup against some teams, but not most.
Haven't really said anything that we don't already know, but it's nice to get some numbers behind it. Interesting to see the Curry lineup stats. I think we'll find he can work with Rondo
For all of you who are still holding a torch for Coach Mike Malone, Denver is mired in an ugly 7 game losing streak right now.
There were also reports of some in-game argument with Malone and star rookie Mudiay a few games back.
If things continue to be ugly in Denver, Malone may soon be available to be Kings coach again.
There were also reports of some in-game argument with Malone and star rookie Mudiay a few games back.
If things continue to be ugly in Denver, Malone may soon be available to be Kings coach again.
tell that to gregg popovich, perhaps the most adaptable coach across the league, who has pivoted away from pace and space almost entirely this season. the spurs are playing big and slow, they're playing defense-first, and they're taking a not-so-analytics-friendly share of midrange jumpers. oh, and they have the nba's second best record. pop just maximizes the talent on his roster. he's never married himself to a single style of play, and he has no interest in being trendy. a win is a win, after all. you can get a win playing small/fast. you can get a win playing big/slow. mostly, though, your personnel should dictate how your team plays. it hardly strikes me as unreasonable to suggest that a core of demarcus cousins, rajon rondo, and rudy gay is best-suited to play a more patient and measured half court style...
I'm glad you can spout off whatever nonsense you get fed by the hype machine, but some of us actually watch the league, and Tyreke was perhaps THE key to that Pelicans team last year (other than Davis).
He would also, ironically enough, be very well suited for a spread everybody take turns driving to the hoop offense. Lethal in fact.
He would also, ironically enough, be very well suited for a spread everybody take turns driving to the hoop offense. Lethal in fact.
Playing time of Kings` full 5 mans is so small, I'm afraid it could not be actually used to draw meaningfull conclusions.
The most used lineup WCS - Cousins - Gay - McLemore - Rondo played only 49 minutes till now, and there're only 10 lineups which were on court for more than 20 minutes.
So, I think it will be better to look on partial lineups. Let's first look at NetRtg (pts scroed per 100 possessions - pts allowed per 100 possessions) for 2 man pairing with additional filter of at least 100 min, together on court.
The best pair is Cousins - Casspi (150 min, +17.7), followed by Cousins- Gay (226 min, +11.7) and WCS - Cousins (107 min, +11.0). The best 2-man without Cousins (note: it doesn't mean Cousins is not playing all this time) is Gay - Casspi (222 min, +8.0)
So Karl is right, Gay and Casspi are good together...
But mostly it means that both traditional frontcourt WCS - DMC- Gay (WCS - DMC- Casspi was almost never used) and small-ball DMC + Gay + Casspi are playing well. In the list there wasn't at all pair Cousins - Koufos. I've checked it - they played only 95 minutes together and it doesn't fares well - NetRtg is -9.2.
But it's long way from the worst rating. And... Yes, out guess is correct the very worst 100-min+ pair is Rondo - Collison (194 min, -20.3).
The 2 PG line-up is clearly not working at all for now on both ends (very bad DefRtg of 118.2, not good OffRtg of 97.8).
Otherwise Koufos is the "star" of worst pairs list (you can find him there with Rondo, Collison and Belinelli) which is mostly just because he's DMC backup and not playing much (also as we see not playing particulary well) with the best player of the team.
Now let's look a little bit at 3-man lineups with more that 50 minutes together.
As we can already guess, the best two are Cousins - Gay - Casspi (61 min, +31.3) and WCS - DMC - Gay (74 min, + 28.1)... A bit more suprisingly Gay - Casspi - Collison is also very successfull (82 min, +28.1) being very good offencevily (OffRtg is 126.5).
At the buttom there's no surpise. The dead last is Koufos - Collison - Rondo (87 min, -30.2 - auwful defence at 122.8 DefRtg and almost equally auwful offence at 92.6 OffRtg... just never to be placed at court together). WSC - Collison - Rondo is not much better (68 min, -26.6). Also Belinelli could be found in several least succesfull 3-man combinations. Some of them because of bad defence, especially Belinelli - Collison - Rondo (Bellineli at SF and 2 smaller guards defencively too vulnerable: 102 min, -20.0, DefRtg is 119.4), sometimes because offence is stalled (which probably causes Belinelli to brick bad jumpers).
Last let's take short look at 4-man lineups with more that 30 minutes together - just in order to see what small change in lineup can do... It would certainly be better to look at full lineups, but as explained before - too small sample sizes.
Some changes impact is obvious: WCS - Cousins - Gay - Rondo doing well with NetRtg +28.1. Replace Cousins with Koufas and it becames really bad with NetRtg -25.2 (sorry, Kosta)... Others are much more difficult to decipher. Cousins - Casspi - Belinelli - Rondo is not bad at all with NetRtg +20.8, while Cousins - Gay- Belinelli - Rondo is one of worst featuring DMC with NetRtg -17.4. Is it because of stagnant offence not providing ball to DMC with Gay instead of Casspi? Or is it just different structure of lineup - Bellineli is playing more as SF with Gay than with Casspi? Maybe both, but the second reason is probably more important.
Here we also can see explanation to some of previously found facts... As it was seen before that Cousins - Koufos is not good pairing? But is it inherent here? Probably not. Koufos - Cousins - Casspi - Belinelli is quite good with NetRtg +18.9 and Koufos - Cousins - Casspi - Rondo has ok NetRtg +7.9, but Koufos - Cousins - Gay - Rondo is not good at all - NetRtg -11.2. What doesn it probably mean? Koufos - Cousins - Gay is not working, with Casspi there's more floor spacing and posting ball to bigs. On other side, you just can't find any lineup with Collison and Rondo having positive NetRtg...
The most used lineup WCS - Cousins - Gay - McLemore - Rondo played only 49 minutes till now, and there're only 10 lineups which were on court for more than 20 minutes.
So, I think it will be better to look on partial lineups. Let's first look at NetRtg (pts scroed per 100 possessions - pts allowed per 100 possessions) for 2 man pairing with additional filter of at least 100 min, together on court.
The best pair is Cousins - Casspi (150 min, +17.7), followed by Cousins- Gay (226 min, +11.7) and WCS - Cousins (107 min, +11.0). The best 2-man without Cousins (note: it doesn't mean Cousins is not playing all this time) is Gay - Casspi (222 min, +8.0)
So Karl is right, Gay and Casspi are good together...
But mostly it means that both traditional frontcourt WCS - DMC- Gay (WCS - DMC- Casspi was almost never used) and small-ball DMC + Gay + Casspi are playing well. In the list there wasn't at all pair Cousins - Koufos. I've checked it - they played only 95 minutes together and it doesn't fares well - NetRtg is -9.2.
But it's long way from the worst rating. And... Yes, out guess is correct the very worst 100-min+ pair is Rondo - Collison (194 min, -20.3).
The 2 PG line-up is clearly not working at all for now on both ends (very bad DefRtg of 118.2, not good OffRtg of 97.8).
Otherwise Koufos is the "star" of worst pairs list (you can find him there with Rondo, Collison and Belinelli) which is mostly just because he's DMC backup and not playing much (also as we see not playing particulary well) with the best player of the team.
Now let's look a little bit at 3-man lineups with more that 50 minutes together.
As we can already guess, the best two are Cousins - Gay - Casspi (61 min, +31.3) and WCS - DMC - Gay (74 min, + 28.1)... A bit more suprisingly Gay - Casspi - Collison is also very successfull (82 min, +28.1) being very good offencevily (OffRtg is 126.5).
At the buttom there's no surpise. The dead last is Koufos - Collison - Rondo (87 min, -30.2 - auwful defence at 122.8 DefRtg and almost equally auwful offence at 92.6 OffRtg... just never to be placed at court together). WSC - Collison - Rondo is not much better (68 min, -26.6). Also Belinelli could be found in several least succesfull 3-man combinations. Some of them because of bad defence, especially Belinelli - Collison - Rondo (Bellineli at SF and 2 smaller guards defencively too vulnerable: 102 min, -20.0, DefRtg is 119.4), sometimes because offence is stalled (which probably causes Belinelli to brick bad jumpers).
Last let's take short look at 4-man lineups with more that 30 minutes together - just in order to see what small change in lineup can do... It would certainly be better to look at full lineups, but as explained before - too small sample sizes.
Some changes impact is obvious: WCS - Cousins - Gay - Rondo doing well with NetRtg +28.1. Replace Cousins with Koufas and it becames really bad with NetRtg -25.2 (sorry, Kosta)... Others are much more difficult to decipher. Cousins - Casspi - Belinelli - Rondo is not bad at all with NetRtg +20.8, while Cousins - Gay- Belinelli - Rondo is one of worst featuring DMC with NetRtg -17.4. Is it because of stagnant offence not providing ball to DMC with Gay instead of Casspi? Or is it just different structure of lineup - Bellineli is playing more as SF with Gay than with Casspi? Maybe both, but the second reason is probably more important.
Here we also can see explanation to some of previously found facts... As it was seen before that Cousins - Koufos is not good pairing? But is it inherent here? Probably not. Koufos - Cousins - Casspi - Belinelli is quite good with NetRtg +18.9 and Koufos - Cousins - Casspi - Rondo has ok NetRtg +7.9, but Koufos - Cousins - Gay - Rondo is not good at all - NetRtg -11.2. What doesn it probably mean? Koufos - Cousins - Gay is not working, with Casspi there's more floor spacing and posting ball to bigs. On other side, you just can't find any lineup with Collison and Rondo having positive NetRtg...
The Spurs example is so far off as the Grizzlies example was last season, to describe a playstyle, that fits the Kings roster.
1. The Spurs have great floor spacing even when playing "big". We don't have that.
2. Every player on the Spurs roster with the exception of Marjanovic is a scoring threat, that needs to be respected by the opponent. We have Rondo, Koufos and Willie as three key contributors, that a competent defense will dare to shoot from certain spots on the floor most of the time.
3. With Leonard and Green the Spurs have two upper tier wing defenders. And their interior D is not bad. We have no average wing defender up to this point.
4. Aldridge and West will punish smaller opponents on the glass
4. and let's not forget about the fact, that the Spurs core can create a shot with pick&rolls and ball movement every time it's needed and therefore has no trouble at all to score even against a tough half court defense. We on the other hand seem to struggle once our first screens or set plays fail, resulting in contested jumpers by Rondo, Gay or Belli pretty often.
With all due respect to your opinion, but I don't think that slowing it down at all costs, will resolve the issues the Kings are facing right now.
We yet have to find a balance, between offense and defense. That's the major problem.
From my point of view the most balanced lineup we have right now is Cuz, Gay, Casspi, Ben, Rondo because we have the space to play Cuz inside, can score in transition and are mobile enough to play defense against most teams with less physical PF's.
I would love to play bigger and add a true rim protector to that lineup for Gay or Casspi, but right now this would mean less space for Cousins, who is our main weapon.
As long as CUz is able to hit 3's, the spacing issue is not that big. But when his jumpshot is off, we run into trouble while playing big.
And I don't think, that our questionable perimeter defense is perfectly fitted for a playstyle, that relies on beating the opponent with D and an inefficient offense, which would be the case, when you try to feed Cuz close to the basket with bad spacing.
In the offseason I hoped the Kings would somehow manage to add a solid wing defender and that Willie would be able to shoot the ball in games, like he did in the video clip posted here a while ago.
But sadly none of this happened and Karl seems to struggle to get things working, because of this.
At least I think he struggles because of this and not because he is stubborn and wants to run at all costs no matter which roster he is actually coaching.
But I'm in the minortiy with this line of thought on KF.com.
1. The Spurs have great floor spacing even when playing "big". We don't have that.
2. Every player on the Spurs roster with the exception of Marjanovic is a scoring threat, that needs to be respected by the opponent. We have Rondo, Koufos and Willie as three key contributors, that a competent defense will dare to shoot from certain spots on the floor most of the time.
3. With Leonard and Green the Spurs have two upper tier wing defenders. And their interior D is not bad. We have no average wing defender up to this point.
4. Aldridge and West will punish smaller opponents on the glass
4. and let's not forget about the fact, that the Spurs core can create a shot with pick&rolls and ball movement every time it's needed and therefore has no trouble at all to score even against a tough half court defense. We on the other hand seem to struggle once our first screens or set plays fail, resulting in contested jumpers by Rondo, Gay or Belli pretty often.
With all due respect to your opinion, but I don't think that slowing it down at all costs, will resolve the issues the Kings are facing right now.
We yet have to find a balance, between offense and defense. That's the major problem.
From my point of view the most balanced lineup we have right now is Cuz, Gay, Casspi, Ben, Rondo because we have the space to play Cuz inside, can score in transition and are mobile enough to play defense against most teams with less physical PF's.
I would love to play bigger and add a true rim protector to that lineup for Gay or Casspi, but right now this would mean less space for Cousins, who is our main weapon.
As long as CUz is able to hit 3's, the spacing issue is not that big. But when his jumpshot is off, we run into trouble while playing big.
And I don't think, that our questionable perimeter defense is perfectly fitted for a playstyle, that relies on beating the opponent with D and an inefficient offense, which would be the case, when you try to feed Cuz close to the basket with bad spacing.
In the offseason I hoped the Kings would somehow manage to add a solid wing defender and that Willie would be able to shoot the ball in games, like he did in the video clip posted here a while ago.
But sadly none of this happened and Karl seems to struggle to get things working, because of this.
At least I think he struggles because of this and not because he is stubborn and wants to run at all costs no matter which roster he is actually coaching.
But I'm in the minortiy with this line of thought on KF.com.
I
Fantastic post. I really do believe in this team and despite our up and down start, fate would have the west leave the door for the playoffs wide open. I'd never celebrate a players injury, but I'd be lying if Gobert's injury doesn't help our cause. This isn't the same old Sacramento. The talent is there, which your data has clearly shown... Let's hope Karl plays the right lineups. Curry is the intrigue for me. He might be the key to Karl's dual PG lineups.
I'm not sure Seth is really PG... He's much more of SG in PG body. He had 24.3 PPG but only 2.4 APG in summer league. And in his best year in Duke it was 17.5 PPG, 2.5 APG... But with Belinelli not shooting particularly well (35.4% 3Pt, 38.7% FG) and Collison not pairing well with Rondo... he should get his chance.
