It's not so much that I don't care. Of course there's a distinction, but at the end of the day losses are losses if you aren't going anywhere year after year. Teams don't edge their way up 2 games by 2 games until they're contenders. They usually make pretty significant jumps. What I cannot understand is how fans here are ok with rooting for a 30 win team year after year. We might have sneaked into the playoffs this year, but it would be more about every other team sucking than us being promising. Like I said, we lost to Philly before in previous years and that was with Cousins on the team when we weren't trying to rebuild, so I don't see why a loss to the Nets when we are tanking/rebuilding should be that much of a disaster. We're throwing a bunch of guys out who have never been more than 5th options, not having had much practice together, and people are being snide that we aren't as good now as we were with Cousins (and again, that was a 35 win team, not even a .500 team). Maybe that is in response to some silly fans who conveyed the idea that trading Cousins would make us a contender overnight, but I have never personally held such an absurd stance. Simply put, I don't see a point in crying over spilt milk, particularly when the milk wasn't even good to begin with. We might have had a goose that would lay a golden egg, but for 6+ years all we got was rotten eggs.
As to whether I truly believe that we will be better, I can tell you that I don't know if we have potential stars. The sample size is too small and it's too early to say. I mock Vlade for saying Papa is gonna be an all star, but only time will tell. Do I trust in the FO to draft and develop a young team? Not exactly, there's no real evidence to base my opinion on. What I do know is that I definitely DON'T trust them to build a winner around Cousins. I don't trust top FAs to sign here, and I don't trust our odds of drafting a ready to play second star when we are drafting around 13-16 every year, which is where we would be for the next few years. I am inclined to believe that Cousins would simply implode at that point from the lack of winning. I am also inclined to believe that the ownership and therefore the FO is more inclined towards playing up tempo, and I am also inclined to believe that it is easier to win in the league today doing so than playing through a a temperamental big (who they will not give the benefit of the whistle as often). Given all of that, I think that the best way forward was to trade Cousins and rebuild, so that we would at least have a potential path forward. I'm no draft expert, so I can only hope they don't screw it up.
We gave Cousins 6 years to win 35 games. You can be mad at the FO for making us have to wait even longer, but to that I would ask why be angry now and not 5 years ago? These young guys are probably going to be here for awhile, so I'm going to root for them.
Thank you for detailed response. I think I understand where you are coming from.
I agree that losing to the Nets by itself is not a big deal and it is too soon to tell what we have in the youngster department. If you just look at the w/l it looks the same as the last year and getting top FA to sign here is a big challenge.
I agree with the style of game being encouraged by the NBA (as of now) not being friendly to the Cuz related teams.
I guess that the main difference are expectations.
If one is looking at the contender, I agree that it would be difficult with Cuz to build that over the next 5-6 years including some of the reasons you listed.
I am not looking for contender. I would be happy for the next 5-6 years if Kings are just your average 2nd tier playoff team without realistic chance to win it all and reaching conference finals being the realistic peak (Wizards, Hawks, Pacers, Bulls, Pistions, Grizzlies, Thunder, maybe Jazz level).
There was a clear cut at the beginning of this season between what was going on for 5 previous years from the stability point of view.
I strongly think that while culture is important, without stability you cannot have culture or any success in NBA.
I think that with Cuz and what appeared FO stability in Joerger and Divac we are on the track. That stability was not there until 6 months ago and I truly believe that Karl-Cuz would never work. Right before All-star, we were 4-2 in February and 8-6 after the quite difficult start of January.
Mid-February to mid-March was the period that some of us were pointing since the beginning of this season as a stretch that will show whether we are on the right track to be basketball relevant or not.
Now we will never know.
What is maddening is that this is not the first time we hit the reset button when I saw that stars might be aligning.
I had exactly 3 times feeling we are on the right track to the relevance (not contender necessary, just NBA relevance) and intrigued by the future.
How will Cuz and Reke fit together when Cuz was drafted, can Malone's success in his second year be sustainable, and this year when there was something that looked like a long term plan to me.
All three have in common that they were squished right at the moment when we could have gotten the definite answer, and there was absolutely no need to do it nor the moves made us better.
I can root for 30 win team when almost every game is exciting and outcome is unpredictable. That is fun, W/L be damned.
How can you root for the team that does not even provide the fighting fun?
On the rebuild front and hopes.
Hoping that Buddy and one extra pick from this draft will somehow make us better than with Cuz is something I do not see happening.
T-Pups have Wiggins/LaVinne/Dieng playing together for almost 3 seasons and with KAT for almost 2 seasons.
We do not need a competent draft, we need now a miracle and a ton of luck just to have T-Pups level talent, and three years later T-Pups are not at the level we were with Cuz two weeks ago.
