For anyone wondering, I believe the drawing to determine the tie breaker between tied teams for the NBA draft will occur on Friday afternoon.
This will be huge for the kings.
We can pick between #8-10. If they get 8 or 9, our pick should be safe. If we lose the tie breaker and drop to 10, we will be in danger of losing our pick, if someone behind us wins a top 3 spot in the lotto.
Let's all cross our fingers for the #8 or #9 in the tiebreaker!
This is what we get for beating the Suns. Consider it a parting gift from Karl. If he plays Duje 25 minutes, and why not, and Moreland 20 minutes, and why not, then we probably lose by 10-15 points. But Karl was not about to ride shotgun in Vlade's tank mobile. His final win total in way is all he has to hold onto as his last gig in the NBA and that was more important to him going off into the sunset than leaving team in a better place this summer.
I can't say I blame him and at same time think he could have rewarded the kids who watched all season. Stubborn until the end. That's our George.
I said last week Karl had to be fired the day after the season ended so we could get a head start on teams potentially looking to fill vacancies, instead of dragging out the inevitable, so glad common sense and consensus prevailed. The next point is: This is Day 1 of the coaching search but only officially. Vlade knew he was getting rid of this guy for weeks if not months. So he should have given this a fair amount of thought about course of action to take and preliminary work independent of reaching out to guys directly. I wish I could say I had confidence in Vlade but answers like this this don't inspire confidence:
Q: Is there a type of philosophy (you want in a new coach)?
A: Not really. Today you can see how the teams play. Very similar. (He then when on to say a coach should adopt his philosophy to personnel but like all his answers there is little substance.)
Then there was this....
Q: Does this mean you are not going to trade Cousins?
A: I said we are not going to talk about players because our focus is to find a new coach.
Interesting he did not assert they were building around Boogie. He had chance to shut down trade rumors but chose not to. To me it is telling following the one game suspension that his sentiment maybe has shifted.
I also think what Vlade does with Rondo is going to determine what kind of GM he is going to be. Rondo was a guy who made sense last summer on team that had worst assist rate in NBA and to pair with Boogie for easy scores. It worked okay to pretty good but ultimately it failed. The ball dominance with which Rondo plays is contrary to the best teams Vlade played on as a King. So if he is interested in returning to those glory days of past with a new collection of guys who pass and shoot and back door opponents to death.....Rondo does NOT fit.
Because Rondo passes when it leads to a basket. He doesn't want a hockey assist. I think Danny Ainge saw this and knew his guys need their touches to feel involved and that proved to be a bold stroke, landing them Jae Crowder IIRC. Where Rondo would have made more sense going forward is if his presence elevated Boogie's efficiency to 56% to 58% TS with a PG getting his 3-4 easy scores per game. That happened to degree but Cousins scoring efficiency actually regressed.
It is a little unfair because Boogie was on pretty good roll to end the season, before all the "rest" games, but he finished at 53.8% TS. which is 0.7% worse than without Rondo two seasons ago. Boogie became a better player this season with Karl opening up his game and varying his point of high attack with pick and roll and early offense, but it did NOT translate to better efficiency.
I go back and forth on Ben and I do the same with Rondo. Where I am at now is that Ben deserves one more summer to get his strength were he needs it to be to hold his position on the floor, then maybe he finally turns a corner, and besides Ben has minimal trade value (9 PER)....and it is probably best to wish Rondo well and move on. I am certainly not comfortable paying him money that could be used to entice Ryan Anderson. Rondo's defense isn't going to get appreciably better and he holds the ball too much with a few too many turnovers to justify holding it as much as he does. 278 turnovers was a career high for him almost 4 per game.....this number and our overall record are not mutually exclusive stats.
