Are we REALLY better off?

SLAB

SLAB

Hall of Famer
#1
#1
The way the team is playing is clearly leading to anger, rash opinions, and disappointment. And I'm right there with everyone else. Everyone and everything is bad. Really really bad.

So the question begs... are we really better off now than where we were one year ago? I've always said the hardest thing to do in the NBA is get your superstar. The Kings had one. He was a flawed one. But he was a superstar. The Kings won ~30 games a year on the back of that man's immense talent alone. We're seeing right now what they would have been without him for the past many seasons.

It's a strange quandary we were in... we couldn't grab another high draft pick because DMC dragged our sorry franchise into the 10's of the draft every year, and obviously no one who's good wants to come to Sacramento. Be it a market thing or a DeMarcus thing (I think it's more market)

Right now all we have is a bunch of chances. Could some of them pan out? Sure. Could one of them be a superstar? That's to be determined. It's going to be hard for any one person to have the talent and numbers of DMC, and we'll eventually see once and for all if a bunch of character and singing kubaya together will lead to more wins or not.

At one point our fate was in a known superstar quality. DeMarcus Cousins. Now the fate of this franchise is in a whole lot of unknowns and "I hope so's."

The thought of our kids never reaching their "potential" and the Kings being terrible for the next 10 years... it's a very real chance. Honestly more real than one of them turning superstar. The light of potential I saw (or told myself I saw) over the offseason is fading. And I know it's early. And I know this thread is mostly just a way for me to vent a little so don't get too mad at me. :p

... I'd rather be competing with a chance of eventually getting it right around the known quantity than praying one of our shots eventually hits the target.

Your thoughts?
 
Gary

Gary

All-Star
#2
#2
We would suck either way so who really cares? I would rather have the Cousins problem gone going forward than him here complaining all the time.
 
gunks

gunks

Hall of Famer
#5
#5
I hated the Cuz trade.

Even if it was time to move on (debatable), the way it was handled was INCREDIBLY stupid.

Hey, instead of trading him in the offseason when we could get a bidding war, let's decide to trade him at the last minute and ONLY for either Hield or Ingram (but let's not give the Lakers time for a counter offer). Thanks Vivek. Idiot.

All that being said..... IF we somehow end up with a top prospect this summer (I'm talking Ayton), we might come out ok. Fox could be great. Skal could still turn out pretty good. Bogs could also be pretty dang good.

I knew this year would be horrible, so I'm just gonna wait out the draft before I decide to follow Brick's lead and peace out. Fox + 2018 kid = 2020 playoffs?!!

Every one of us still here deserves an effing medal though, I'll tell y'all that.
 
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Kingsfan23

Kingsfan23

All-Star
#7
#7
We’ll see

Having Cousins we wouldn’t/may not have Hield (struggling), Jackson, Giles, Fox (top ten protected we may have given up with easy remaining schedule), a top pick this year, Mason etc.

Will take years to play out. We aren’t better tonight though
 
sactowndog

sactowndog

All-Star
#8
#8
It’s just too darn early to tell. But at this point the veteran leadership we had last year was light years ahead of this year. With Tolliver and Collison we played hard on D and shared the ball.
 
jcwkings

jcwkings

All-Star
#9
#9
If we had kept Cousins, what does our roster look like right now? Remember the team with Cousins was likely gonna finish outside top 10 in lottery so that means no lottery pick in draft, only our second round pick, which would have been 40-43'ish. Gay still walks. Collison probably gets re signed.

Collison
Temple/Bogdan/Malachi
???
Skal/WCS
Cousins/Koufos/Papa

I mean that team is better than what we have now because of Cousins, but its another 28-32 win team.
 
gunks

gunks

Hall of Famer
#11
#11
206Fan said:
no. I didn't expect our young guys to be hot garbage.
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Buddy is the only surprise for me. I was thinking he'd be a 15ppg player for us.

I think with WCS, what we see is what we get. I sure wasnt expecting him to turn into a double double machine. Dude is too soft.

Fox is a baby and Skal is still very new to the game. They're allowed to be crappy as far as I'm concerned, those guys have flashes.
 
Gliesian

Gliesian

Bench
#12
#12
jcwkings said:
If we had kept Cousins, what does our roster look like right now? Remember the team with Cousins was likely gonna finish outside top 10 in lottery so that means no lottery pick in draft, only our second round pick, which would have been 40-43'ish. Gay still walks. Collison probably gets re signed.

Collison
Temple/Bogdan/Malachi
???
Skal/WCS
Cousins/Koufos/Papa

I mean that team is better than what we have now because of Cousins, but its another 28-32 win team.
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I would LOVE to have a starting 5 of Collison, Bog, temple, Skal and Cuz. The trade was beyond idiotic.
 
gunks

gunks

Hall of Famer
#13
#13
Gliesian said:
I would LOVE to have a starting 5 of Collison, Bog, temple, Skal and Cuz. The trade was beyond idiotic.
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Treadmill. That team would make the post season in the East, but not out West.

Not that I'm trying to say the Cuz trade WASN'T idiotic. We could have gotten way more for him if Vivek wasn't a flighty moron at the last minute. Anyone thinking an underwhelming rookie and late lotto pick was the best we could have done is drinking the cool aid.
 
Gliesian

Gliesian

Bench
#15
#15
gunks said:
Treadmill. That team would make the post season in the East, but not out West.

Not that I'm trying to say the Cuz trade WASN'T idiotic. We could have gotten way more for him if Vivek wasn't a flighty moron at the last minute. Anyone thinking an underwhelming rookie and late lotto pick was the best we could have done is drinking the cool aid.
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I think we were on track to make the postseason last year. Skal is turning out to be pretty good and Collison is playing the best bball of his career.
Then the free agents may have come. This should have been the plan... but now were back to where we all started before Cuz. I honestly don't know if I can take 2-3 more years of this. And that's the best case scenario.
 
J

Jeremy Fraser

G-League
#16
#16
Yes we're much better off. There is potential. There was 0 potential with Cousins. We were a bad team with no relevant future with Cousins and a looming massive contract. We are now a garbage team with a bunch of potential and no massive contracts. The latter is an infinitely better situation.
 
J

Jeremy Fraser

G-League
#18
#18
Gliesian said:
We'll never know will we?
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I'm very confident that a starting lineup of a good bench PG, a journeyman SG, a rookie SG playing SF, and an extremely raw PF who still has no idea how to play within an offense isn't enough for someone who has never proven to be a winner at the NBA level to carry into relevance
 
S

swisshh

Starter
#22
#22
The Kings sold in a buyer's market. OKC realized it was a buyer's market. Minny sort of realized that. (I think they overpaid for Teague.)

You guys got to realize that. When the press/organization says "As you can see with these other trades, there wasn't much there." What they are indirectly telling you is that it was not the market to be trading a superstar in and they did it anyways. You got to hold them accountable for that. Because that also means the Kings could have sold on some of their young guys to get the other stars available. The lie was that the Kings would top out as an 8th or 9th seed. As if other stars weren't moving on the cheap.
 
gunks

gunks

Hall of Famer
#23
#23
Gliesian said:
I think we were on track to make the postseason last year. Skal is turning out to be pretty good and Collison is playing the best bball of his career.
Then the free agents may have come. This should have been the plan... but now were back to where we all started before Cuz. I honestly don't know if I can take 2-3 more years of this. And that's the best case scenario.
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Maybe. We'll never know. I feel you on the bolded part though. By the time we make the post season again we could be on year 20 of this rebuild.

But hey, Fox could very well develop into an elite PG. Giles' could be the next Webber. We could suck enough to get a top 3 pick in a top heavy draft. Vivek could wander off and leave us with sane ownership.

A lot can happen in those 2 years! But if we still suck in '20, I might be rooting for whatever team Cuz is on, myself.
 
kingsboi

kingsboi

Hall of Famer
#24
#24
Time will tell. None of us will know until we see what we have with the current crop of youth in place and how many moves are made down the road. What future players will be drafted. IF the Kings can land the next superstar even, who knows.
 
Hoovtrain

Hoovtrain

All-Star
#25
#25
I didn't care when they lost the first few games because the games were close entertaining and I saw some good things from their young guys. The NO game started off great , but they imploded in the 2nd half. Wasn't happy but ok. But these last 2 games have been horrendous with very few bright spots. I guess i expected them to be a bit more competitive . Not to mention many of these games so far these guys get off to terrible starts and get themselves in a hole right away
 
Kingster

Kingster

Hall of Famer
#26
#26
They couldn't stay in limbo with Cousins. This way there is a chance to turn it around. With Cousins, zero chance because they would be in draft no-man's land, imo. So you win more games, but not enough to get into the playoffs, and never with enough thrust to ever escape the gravity of suck-dom. I would have liked for them to trade Cousins years ago and cut their losses and start this process then. But, better late than never.
 
SLAB

SLAB

Hall of Famer
#27
#27
Kingster said:
They couldn't stay in limbo with Cousins. This way there is a chance to turn it around. With Cousins, zero chance because they would be in draft no-man's land, imo. So you win more games, but not enough to get into the playoffs, and never with enough thrust to ever escape the gravity of suck-dom. I would have liked for them to trade Cousins years ago and cut their losses and start this process then. But, better late than never.
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My fear has turned to "If they couldn't get out of limbo WITH Cousins, how and why the hell could they with players that probably won't ever reach his peak."
 
Gliesian

Gliesian

Bench
#28
#28
Jeremy Fraser said:
I'm very confident that a starting lineup of a good bench PG, a journeyman SG, a rookie SG playing SF, and an extremely raw PF who still has no idea how to play within an offense isn't enough for someone who has never proven to be a winner at the NBA level to carry into relevance
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DC is a good starting PG
Bog is only a rookie by technicality
Don't really understand why being a journeyman makes your point
Agree with you on Skal

But you left out the best center to have played the game since Shaq.
The free agents that would have likely came in place of Rudy Gay
and as a side note, the player we would have drafted instead of Papa.

So I agree that starting 5 isn't the greatest, but it would have likely changed and might very well be better than the potential of this one. And there is the added bonus that we don't have to watch this horror show in our new arena.
I'm not giving up on these guys at all and I like them, just don't agree with the trade.
 
Hoovtrain

Hoovtrain

All-Star
#29
#29
But to answer the OP, I do think we are in a better spot...but guys like Hield and Skal need to start living up to expectation and WCS needs to be more consistent .
 
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