Kings v. Nuggets - 2/23/17 - POSTGAME THREAD

[Larry89]

I will have this as a temporary Grades/Postgame thread until some of the management comes back Feel free to add your thoughts or comments.

Team - A

Crowd - A

Grant - F

Note and Thoughts from the game.

Energy: Team looked quite energetic, good team defense and PLAYED HARD AND HUSTLED the entire game.

Guard Play: Guard depth suddenly looks very good with Hield/Lawson/Ben (Still playing great)/Collison/Tyreke , Now we have a few consistent threats who can get to the rim and shoot. Return of Tyreke will be huge. Tyreke still a solid defender and great at cutting and getting to the rim still! People forget he is only 27. I am very happy and was surprised how effective our guard play was, it has been quite a while since we have hard above average guard play. Barnes isn't here anymore so we don't have to worry about the fullcourt pass turnovers anymore, the good thing is this opens up more minutes for better offensive players. Bad is, we lose a bit of grit and defensive effort (until Temple Comes back). Malachai is also injured and looks like Afflalo will be forced out of the rotation.

Willie Cauley-Stein: Looks like a completely different player out there, high energy, good pick and roll defense and defensive presence. Athletic plays, looks very similar to a young Kevin Garnett up there in size,impact and play. Showing signs of an improved jumpshot and offensive and defensive aggressiveness. Altering shots by pure hustle sometimes alone.

Hield: Looks to be a good player going into the future, very comfortable offensively, picks and chooses his spots, shows adeptness at getting to the rim. Older rookie but looks to be a good player. Great shooting touch and shows decent ball handling which should improve.

Skal Labissiere: Oh boy, looks like we have found a Diamond in the rough, still a rookie and very young. Look very comfortable out there, showing VERY polished offensive game and comfort as a rookie in limited minutes. Legit 6'11 although only 220-225LBS has a good frame and length and body w/ a 35!!! Measured max vertical. GOOD HANDS. Looks to be getting backup PF minutes with Barnes gone.
Good at being in right spots, quick moves, surprisingly good footwork for a 20 year old rookie. Left hand or right hand hook shots/finishes. Left or right shoulder pivots, shows sign of patience in paint. Quite mobile too. Excited to see Skal and WCS play together as they develop. Showed signs of not being strong enough yet, but he is only a 20 year old rookie!

Other Random Thoughts:

Aaron should've been traded as well during this deadline, feel bad for him, looks to be forced out of the lineup with development of the Kids and Addition of Tyreke and Hield and Ben still playing great.

Our (what is looking like) most talented players in development are 23 (Hield), 23 (WCS), Skal (20), are also producing quite a bit in their minutes! (I know it was only one game, but we did play a decent team).

Pick and roll play is much improved, BETTER SOLID SCREENS and SPACING/MOVEMENT.

Grant yelling the entire time was getting tiring to listen to, sounded the most excited he has been in a long time. Still don't like him.

Entire team hustled the entire game.


I tried my best, I'm no Bricklayer, but I do have experience of being around here... We just needed somewhere to discuss.

 

[Bosnian Diehard]

I was at work and missed the game. Nonetheless, just reading about it gets me very excited. Can we play this well and develop youngs and retain that top 10 pick please?

 

[steelevt]

this game reminded me why many of us were so upset when we traded away tyreke evans. yeah he is not a great shooter but he gets to the basket so effortlessly. i really wish we could have seen what would have happened with a trio of dmc tyreke and IT under malone.

 

[Krunker]

Well it's just one game, but looks promising! Arron is officially listed as having a sore hamstring. I don't think he will be out of the rotation since Joerger seems to like him. Great for the rookies to get time and show what they can do. Don't know where the WCS was hiding. Hopefully Tyreke's knees hold out, the guy can still play.

Totally agree on the Grant score, I almost switched to the Nuggets feed because of him.

 

[John Galt]

I went to the game and I'm so glad I did. I upgraded my seat and was right in front of Sign Lady, and about 10' from Vlade.

The atmosphere around Vlade was insane. He has in intense emotional rapport with the players and exchanged a lot of eye contact and gestures with the team - Garrett Temple in particular.

I know this team will struggle to win games against some teams (indeed I would love to have them finish precisely 10th from the bottom), but they positively ran the Nuggets out of the gym and it was a thrill.

It is amazing to think that WCS was lamented as a bust by a very large percentage of fans only weeks ago. Today he was beasting. I shudder to think if we had swapped him out in a trade and then he showed what he showed tonight.. for someone else.

Heald looked like a really smooth player too, and Tyreke flashed a lot of "old Tyreke" bullying to the rim.

The crowd looked small to me but those who did show up were rewarded - it was an exceedingly fun evening.

Skal is scrappy and scrawny but if he can put on 20-30lb of muscle then look out. Like one guy tweeted - we had the winning "Kentucky Frontcourt" tonight. Freaking surreal.

 

[Mass]

It's one game. Every player was pumped up. They wanted to show they are still an NBA team, even if everyone's predicting they wouldn't even win 5 games. Every win this year is a win for Chicago. The only thing they can achieve by winning is losing the draft pick. Yes, it's nice to win and see improvements from young guys. Too bad they put themselves in the position where wins are worse than losses. Can't even enjoy a good W. So Kangz.

 

[theclash4u5]

It was certainly a fun to see WCS, Skal and Buddy out there, but this just proves how big of a mistake it was not to clear some more veterans off this team before the trade deadline. What do we do when Temple comes back? AA? Hield needs a guaranteed 20+ minutes a game. B-Mac has been playing well before tonight, so where does he go?

 

[Siranthony]

It's one game. But if anyone has any doubts about the new character of this team vs the old, I think we are in for a nice surprise.

 

[killer123]

Was I the only one feeling touched when I saw the standing ovation from the crowds to the team in the final moments of the game?

afterall, I guess I survive the love test and prove that I love the Kings more than Boogie!

Supporter from Hong Kong!

 

[Siranthony]

Was I the only one feeling touched when I saw the standing ovation from the crowds to the team in the final moments of the game?

afterall, I guess I survive the love test and prove that I love the Kings more than Boogie!

Supporter from Hong Kong!

I wasn't there. But hearing WCS talk to Katie about how his new skills are just coming out naturally and how the team trusts each other did impress me. Also the interview with Hield. The guy is honest from what I can see. It was nice to see Tyreke play so well also. That's coming from someone who was not a huge fan. But maybe he was being held back by someone somehow.

 

[kingjatt]

Its an odd roster and Tyreke is probably our best player right now so he gets the ball in his hands in crunch time, without a jumper though it limits things.

Skal should have been playing a long time ago. Ben Mac probably suffered the most without DMC, theres no need for double teams on anyone so its harder to get shooters open looks out of sets.

Joerger is just an amazing coach, his player development skills are showing, DC talked a little bit about the program he has with each player and how the young guys often do more work than they are asked to do. Simply amazing.

Todays win was all heart and hustle. We will struggle alot at times but it will be fun to watch some of these kids grow.


It was pretty cool to beat up on Malone after he was being pretty smug earlier today about how great of a coach he is and insinuating how big of a mess we are, I got love for him but the Kings come first.

 

[Insomniacal Fan]

 

[swisshh]

Try to get the road crew if you can. May be hard for locals. The Nuggets announcers aren't that great, but Charlotte is next and their TV crew is pretty fun. Del Curry and a strong sideline reporter. Always positive broadcast.

 

[jcwkings]

The pick and roll defense with WCS in there instead of Cousins is really night and day. Teams exclusively ran that and can pretty much get any shot they want with Cousins in there. WCS stuffs a whole bunch of it at the top and is so quick he can challenge up top and at the rim in an instant. Absolutely phenomenal. The scoring has shocked me, mainly because it looks so raw but if he keeps honing that stuff and it becomes natural we're talking about a two way monster. The next Jimmy Butler in terms of career ascension? Who knows, but I am damn excited to keep watching.

 

[andjel]

It's one game. Every player was pumped up. They wanted to show they are still an NBA team, even if everyone's predicting they wouldn't even win 5 games. Every win this year is a win for Chicago. The only thing they can achieve by winning is losing the draft pick. Yes, it's nice to win and see improvements from young guys. Too bad they put themselves in the position where wins are worse than losses. Can't even enjoy a good W. So Kangz.

And every loss is win for Philly, so no matter what Kings do they are doomed.

There is also a middle road where Kings win some, lose some and get between philly's and 11th pick.
Luckily, that one is quite probable.

 

[Noble]

I love that Tyreke is back, that guy even with bad knees can get to the rim at will. I would keep him in the rotation 15-20mins a night and just have him focus on getting healthy and resign him.

I also love the fact that we can go 15 players deep and just keep coming at you. So many different looks we can give, it really is a devastating look for us.

 

[KingsFanGER]

And every loss is win for Philly, so no matter what Kings do they are doomed.

There is also a middle road where Kings win some, lose some and get between philly's and 11th pick.
Luckily, that one is quite probable.

Uhm I may be a little confused, but why is getting between Phillys and the 11th pick better than actually swapping the pick with Philly and getting Phillys pick?
LEt's say we get the 5th pick and Philly get the 6th. Swapping will still be better, than just straight out getting the 7th and not executing the swap.
OR am I just too tired, because I stayed up all night to watch Boogie Pel's debut and the Kings game afterwards?
Best case scenario should be both teams losing as many games as possible or not?

 

[kingdivac]

Cauley-Stein had a career game - what a monster game for him. They're going to need close to that from him consistently - the pressure cooker is on, but that's the job!

 

[whozit]

Uhm I may be a little confused, but why is getting between Phillys and the 11th pick better than actually swapping the pick with Philly and getting Phillys pick?
LEt's say we get the 5th pick and Philly get the 6th. Swapping will still be better, than just straight out getting the 7th and not executing the swap.
OR am I just too tired, because I stayed up all night to watch Boogie Pel's debut and the Kings game afterwards?
Best case scenario should be both teams losing as many games as possible or not?

Saving face. If the pick swap happens, even if it is only one spot, it gives ammunition to those criticizing the Phili trade. If it doesn't happen, then it will only be a loss of one 1st round pick and you could argue that that pick has already been recouped.

Because things haven't worked out, the consequences of that trade are hanging around the team's neck.

 

[andjel]

Uhm I may be a little confused, but why is getting between Phillys and the 11th pick better than actually swapping the pick with Philly and getting Phillys pick?
LEt's say we get the 5th pick and Philly get the 6th. Swapping will still be better, than just straight out getting the 7th and not executing the swap.
OR am I just too tired, because I stayed up all night to watch Boogie Pel's debut and the Kings game afterwards?
Best case scenario should be both teams losing as many games as possible or not?

That scenario is valid under the assumption that we can be worse than Philly (which Philly would like, hence our losses Philly's wins).

Frankly I did not even consider that since nobody can beat Philly at tanking, and without Simmons, the way they treat Embiid injury and giving Noel/Ilyasova away without getting talent back, they are calling it a year.

I was responding to the post saying that "the wins are worse than losses" which I think really does not matter since there is a small chance we will win enough/lose enough to get in the bad zone (losing 1st rounder/Philly swap).
One thing did not change since last week, we can still play to win every game, but talent will take care of too much success to make sure that we keep the pick.

 

[King Baller]

The Nuggets came in and hit a buzz saw. The Kings defense was great. Having all the Guards that can handle the ball and multiple threats to score the ball appeared to confuse the Nuggets who are not a good defensive team anyway. Great game from the Kings Players. Willie looked like a different player or maybe just every one of his highlights rolled up into one game. Make no mistake, Willie was a MONSTER!!! Skal is LONG and he can jump. At one point he jumped three times in a row and ended up scoring the ball! Kosta did more of what he can do than usual. Collison was on his game and being the good steady Vet influence as was Tolliver. Darren had TEN assists Ty and Ben contributed, Ty with 6 assists and Ben with 10 points. Buddy is a good all around player. Yes he can shoot but he hustles and his work ethic is perhaps his best trait. Tyreke still has it. Put the ball in his hands and the defense keys on him. Reke had an easy 15-4-3 game and hardly broke a sweat. Perfect role for him. If this keeps up the Kings may have the best bench in the whole Association! Joerger, Turner and the rest of the Coaching staff is doing a stellar job.

It has been a tough week. This was just one game but it was a game that was badly needed. It was nice to see the Kings smiling and having fun after all the drama. Vlade and Peja were sporting big grins after the game.

I will leave this game on the DVR and watch it when I need my spirits lifted

 

[Rain man]

I hate the "comparison" game, but Buddy looks similar to a young Jamal Crawford. He looks able to get his shot, get to the rim, and score in a variety of different ways. Like Crawford, he doesn't look like much of a distributor or defender (though he tries hard), but he looks like he could be a shooter, scorer, creator of his own shot, good free throw asset, and decent rebounder for his size.

Obviously the guy is a rookie and this was based on one game, so lots can change. He just reminded me a lot of Crawford. And that isn't a bad thing. You certainly don't build your team around that, but that is a starter level player on a mediocre team and a competent rotation piece on a contender.

 

[ESP47]

C+ - Tolliver. Rebounded well and made some nice passes. Did not score much but gave us some positives.

B - Kofous. Not a huge impact on the game but definitely a positive. Just went out and did Kofous like things.

B - Collison. Scoring was inefficient but like everyone else this game, if something wasn't working. He contributed in other ways. 10 assists.

B- - Lawson. Didn't have his usual impact. Had nice passes in there and hit a couple of midrange jumpers when the lead started to slip away.

B - McLemore. I'm grading here based on their own personal talents. Hit some important shots for us and was a pest out there for the Nuggets. Got worked over by Gallinari early on but that's not Ben's fault at all. Would be like blaming Collison for not being able to guard Wade. There's only so much you can do with a size disadvantage like that.

A - Skal. Looked smooth on those jumpers and hooks. Punked Faried by moving him for a rebound and then slamming the put back home. Defense was terrible but that's to be expected for a rook. He's just in that awkward no mans tweener between SF and PF land where he's not big or fast enough to guard either. The bright side is once he starts putting some weight on, he will distinctly be a PF unlike a guy like TRob who is forever in limbo.

A+ - WCS. Just a thing of beauty. Everything is coming together for this guy. I don't think anybody saw this kind of offensive talent coming out of college. We thought he'd be a 2 block per game guy but he's sort of doing everything else well other than the one thing we were banking on. I was wondering if he would come out and try to do his best Demarcus impression and at least for one night, he did just that. His defense has been awesome lately. Such a 180 from that junk we saw earlier in the year. And that spin move And 1....wow.

A - Hield. Looked very very smooth out there. His handles are better and he's faster than I was expecting. Would have had an incredibly efficient 20pt game if he would have just finished his layups but that's a mark we knew about coming in. Like one of those sbnation articles pointed out, he's not a good defender right now but he sure as hell tries out there.

A - Tyreke. Just a steadying presence out there. No real surprises here. Just basically went out and did what Tyreke does. His defense is much welcomed for a team with no small forwards. Strong enough to cover many forwards but still quick enough to stay in front of guards.

F - Grant. You are insufferable to listen to. Thank god for Jerry.

 

[KingsFanGER]

Saving face. If the pick swap happens, even if it is only one spot, it gives ammunition to those criticizing the Phili trade. If it doesn't happen, then it will only be a loss of one 1st round pick and you could argue that that pick has already been recouped.

Because things haven't worked out, the consequences of that trade are hanging around the team's neck.

Frankly I do not care about saving faces anymore. From a reputation standpoint we are rock bottom and rightfully so. The Philly trade was terrible, no matter if the swap actually takes place or not.
What I care about is draft position. In the end the record matters and drafting one spot lower in the Top 10 might hurt your chances for a star big time.

That scenario is valid under the assumption that we can be worse than Philly (which Philly would like, hence our losses Philly's wins).

Frankly I did not even consider that since nobody can beat Philly at tanking, and without Simmons, the way they treat Embiid injury and giving Noel/Ilyasova away without getting talent back, they are calling it a year.

I was responding to the post saying that "the wins are worse than losses" which I think really does not matter since there is a small chance we will win enough/lose enough to get in the bad zone (losing 1st rounder/Philly swap).
One thing did not change since last week, we can still play to win every game, but talent will take care of too much success to make sure that we keep the pick.

Kings have been through middling Top10 pick after middling Top 10 pick. Why not change the approach and finally give us the best chance for a better draft position? Sure watching the team go all out and grind out a win against all odds is fun, but it's not smart. And please don't refer to the "winning culture" once again. This is what they tell us year after year after year.
Philly tanked like mad and still the team was hustling and playing incredibly hard this year.

 

[mac]

Really glad to have Tyreke back on the team. Will be fun to see what happens once he starts learning guys' games and kicking it out for 3s.

I'm excited about this team!

 

[k_dubb90]

Frankly I do not care about saving faces anymore. From a reputation standpoint we are rock bottom and rightfully so. The Philly trade was terrible, no matter if the swap actually takes place or not.
What I care about is draft position. In the end the record matters and drafting one spot lower in the Top 10 might hurt your chances for a star big time.



Kings have been through middling Top10 pick after middling Top 10 pick. Why not change the approach and finally give us the best chance for a better draft position? Sure watching the team go all out and grind out a win against all odds is fun, but it's not smart. And please don't refer to the "winning culture" once again. This is what they tell us year after year after year.
Philly tanked like mad and still the team was hustling and playing incredibly hard this year.

And philly still isn't close to the playoffs after all that tanking

 

[TaxMan]

It was pretty cool to beat up on Malone after he was being pretty smug earlier today about how great of a coach he is and insinuating how big of a mess we are, I got love for him but the Kings come first.

As much as I loved coach Malone, I gotta say the pot shots he continues to throw have gotten old. I understand his anger at the situation, but feels like at least publically it's time for him to move on and be the better man. It's been two years and a lot of angry interviews he's given.

 

[TaxMan]

Frankly I do not care about saving faces anymore. From a reputation standpoint we are rock bottom and rightfully so. The Philly trade was terrible, no matter if the swap actually takes place or not.
What I care about is draft position. In the end the record matters and drafting one spot lower in the Top 10 might hurt your chances for a star big time.



Kings have been through middling Top10 pick after middling Top 10 pick. Why not change the approach and finally give us the best chance for a better draft position? Sure watching the team go all out and grind out a win against all odds is fun, but it's not smart. And please don't refer to the "winning culture" once again. This is what they tell us year after year after year.
Philly tanked like mad and still the team was hustling and playing incredibly hard this year.

I'm not quite sure what you are suggesting they do at this point. They just traded their superstar. Are you saying they should miss shots on purpose or just that you will not be cheering for wins? Outside of playing vets like Evans and collision a little less, I'm not sure what you do as a team to try to improve draft position without instilling a negative atmosphere for growth with the young players we already have.

 

[KingsFanGER]

And philly still isn't close to the playoffs after all that tanking

And what has that got to do with my post? Do you want to deny, that Philly played hard every night?
Philly isn't in the Playoffs, because they took a bunch of redundant assets in their attempt to draft the best player available and they had foreseeable and not forseeable injury problems.
You can like it or not, what Philly did was an all out rebuilding strategy. The Kings on the other hand never went all out on anything - they never put anything semi competent around DMC and now they seemingly want to compete again for the rest of the season, hurting their draft stock in the process. It's those kind of middling strategies and never commiting to anything to the fullest, that produce bad results more often than not. Yes there are a few franchises, that can get away with that, but the Kings are not one of them.

I'm not quite sure what you are suggesting they do at this point. They just traded their superstar. Are you saying they should miss shots on purpose or just that you will not be cheering for wins? Outside of playing vets like Evans and collision a little less, I'm not sure what you do as a team to try to improve draft position without instilling a negative atmosphere for growth with the young players we already have.

I'm a fan. Of course it feels good to watch the team win.
In our situation you should have traded most of the vets for young assets or picks (with picks being much more difficult to get back in a trade). If only one young asset you just traded for, is a capable NBA player, you won those trades, because outside of 1 or two true veteran leaders (I would opt for Temple and Tolliver) you don't need the vets anymore, because your goal isn't to win games, but to lose as much as you can, while still playing hard. Obviously that would mean to take back some bad contracts in order to make the salaries work, but that's also what you do as a rebuilding team. You take back bad contracts and get sweeteners for them to build your team over the next 2-3 years.
Vlade once again in his usual incompetence kept the vets. He will be the front runner for worst GM of all times, if that causes us to miss our pick this year or even to fall in the draft, so that we can't draft a possible star, but are once again left with a prospect that may become a competent starter but no star.
The obvious thing moving forward is to bench the vets. We need to play a vet at PG, but that's it. No more 30+ minutes for DC AND Lawson or 31 for Tolliver. Play Skal, play Papa, give I.Cousins some run in the NBA....lose games.

 

[John Galt]

I'm a fan. Of course it feels good to watch the team win.
In our situation you should have traded most of the vets for young assets or picks (with picks being much more difficult to get back in a trade). If only one young asset you just traded for, is a capable NBA player, you won those trades, because outside of 1 or two true veteran leaders (I would opt for Temple and Tolliver) you don't need the vets anymore, because your goal isn't to win games, but to lose as much as you can, while still playing hard. Obviously that would mean to take back some bad contracts in order to make the salaries work, but that's also what you do as a rebuilding team. You take back bad contracts and get sweeteners for them to build your team over the next 2-3 years.
Vlade once again in his usual incompetence kept the vets. He will be the front runner for worst GM of all times, if that causes us to miss our pick this year or even to fall in the draft, so that we can't draft a possible star, but are once again left with a prospect that may become a competent starter but no star.
The obvious thing moving forward is to bench the vets. We need to play a vet at PG, but that's it. No more 30+ minutes for DC AND Lawson or 31 for Tolliver. Play Skal, play Papa, give I.Cousins some run in the NBA....lose games.

With DC an expiring, and Afflalo a sizeable salary, how do you find partners for those trades? I believe he tried but those two contracts are really worthless to anybody else - even for a 2017 second rounder and people would have killed Vlade for dumping NBA rotation guys for second rounders - it would be tank overkill.