Are we REALLY better off?

SLAB · Nov 5, 2017

Culture =/= Talent

The guys may be playing together with some maturity and singing harmoniously around a campfire. But we don't have talent necessary to really ever be competitive.....

Even once the guys get more used to each other. Even if the chemistry goes off the charts... we just don't have enough natural talent to hang with anyone not named the Mavericks.

And here's where the whole quandary begins. Will we have that talent by the time of our gone 2019 pick. Because if we don't, we're absolutely screwed long term as a franchise.

We need a star. We had a star. We no longer have a star. I don't think we're better off, especially after the first 10 games (extremely small sample size, yes but I'm having a hard time seeing the bright future now)

fansinceday1 · Nov 5, 2017

I don't think its going out on a limb to say the kings won't be good enough to take away the sting of not having that 2019 pick. Come that time, it is gonna be a bitter bitter pill to have to swallow.

gunks · Nov 5, 2017

fansinceday1 said:

We'll probably lose out on a top 5.

Vlade Brooklyn'd us.

SLAB · Nov 5, 2017

gunks said:

And he doesn't even have the decency to go out and take a gamble on a kid like D'Angelo Russell. (Who would be our best player by a country mile)

Chupacabra · Nov 5, 2017

SLAB said:

I think you might be standing at too close of an angle to see whats going on. Its bound to happen when the team sucks. I have to point out that we arent competitive right now because that wasnt the goal. The goal is longterm success, or, how do we become competitive the fastest. I think the prognosis of last years team with respect to its main players was that they would never get to the top of the west. Hitting the restart button becomes the only option. We can argue with how our management went about it, but a rebuild was definitely in order.

sactowndog · Nov 5, 2017

In grading Vlade you have to keep in mind the nature of the 2016 draft. It was probably one of the worst in a long time... who from Chris on down really stands out?

https://www.basketball-reference.com/draft/NBA_2016.html

Quite frankly getting Bogdan for Chris straight up was probably a win. Vlade’s move originally in drafting Willie and not protecting the 2019 pick were poor moves but it was his first year. The man is improving. I wish he would hire Pollard as a talent scout as I think Scott has an eye for talent to project.

King Baller · Nov 5, 2017

bajaden said:

I grew up a Warriors fan in the Modesto area. I graduated from high school the year Rick Barry led them to the championship. Nellie ball frustrated me and when he traded CWebb I had enough. I started to watch a few Kings games when Petrie came in as GM. We had partial season tickets though the glory years in the old barn. The Kings were so close but could not get past LA.

Saying this I can relate to Baja and most Kings Fans as long suffering. Also I can relate to Bricklayer leaving when the Big Fella was traded. I thought about it but decided to hang in. In for a penny, in for a......

hrdboild · Nov 5, 2017

sactowndog said:

Not so fast on the 2016 draft being bad. Jakob Poeltl and Domantas Sabonis are quietly having very productive seasons for teams that most people aren't watching. Denzel Valentine looks like he'll at least be a solid role-player. And of course there's Malcolm Brogdon who everybody missed on. It's too early to fairly evaluate these guys but a number of them have flashed intriguing potential. I didn't mind the Phoenix trade when it happened and I still don't. Bogdanovic alone makes it a solid move. I just wish we'd used our picks a little differently. I'm happy we nabbed Skal where we did but I really wanted Timothe Luwawu or Dejounte Murray with one of those other first round picks. They've both shown more potential in limited minutes than either PapaG or Malachi so far.

Vlade has been a mixed bag for me. He's shown a fondness for throwing cap space at veterans even if he has to overpay. Some of them have been valuable contributors (Rondo, Casspi, Temple, Tolliver) and some have just been money sinks (Marco Belinelli, Matt Barnes, Caron Butler, Arron Afflalo, Zach Randolph). That's also a lot of roster spots eaten up by mediocre journeymen. I've been pleasantly surprised by his willingness to wheel and deal for added value on draft day, something we never saw while Geoff Petrie was managing the team, but then the actual picks have been hit or miss. We might have something with Skal Labissiere and Harry Giles. Fox looks like a solid starter at the very least. That's from 7 first round picks in 3 years though. I'm not real optimistic at this point that Willie, Malachi, PapaG, or Justin Jackson will be anything more than decent roster filler. We'd be absolutely stocked with young talent right now if he'd made better use of those picks.

Really this comes down to one thing though: does he have what it takes to build a winning team? You need a superstar to win in the NBA right now and at least two supplementary stars. Vlade has made two big trades with multiple assets included and he's lost big on both of them. He got suckered into giving away an unprotected first round pick in the Philly trade which is absolutely unprecedented in this decade, make that the last 2 decades. Whether that pick winds up in the top 5 or not it was a massive overpay for a salary dump deal where we also gave out a former lottery pick with 3 years left on his rookie deal (not an amazing talent, but we're just talking asset value here) and two years of swap rights. We got no talent in return on that deal. I understand why it was done but you look at the pieces involved and it looks like a desperation move. And the same could be said for the Boogie trade. All-Star franchise big man going out, low lottery pick and struggling rookie guard coming in. That's among the worst returns any team has received for a superstar. Some people try to paper over it by saying Boogie is not a superstar (give me a break...) or that nothing else was available (which we know is a lie -- Vlade admitted he made overtures to only 2 teams and one of them couldn't get their crap together fast enough to even make a formal offer and subsequently fired their GM because of it). The big deals are where a GM makes their name and Vlade is a big 0 fer 2 so far in that area.

So really what hope I have at this point rests on two potential outcomes: (a) we get lucky two years in a row and land a top 3 pick in the 2018 draft... and don't blow it and (b) somebody in our front office has the acumen to package some of this middling talent we've acquired and use it to steal a budding future star from one of our competitors. Boston stole Isaiah Thomas from Phoenix then used him to get Kyrie Irving and they made great decisions in drafting Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum with their top 5 picks. Houston stole James Harden from OKC and then made smart decisions drafting Clint Capela and signing Patrick Beverly off the free agency scrap heap (eventually packaging him with a pick to get Chris Paul from the Clippers). This is what it takes to field a winning team -- multiple hits on trades and draft picks-- more talent coming in than going out. I'd feel better about this whole thing if either of those two outcomes appeared more likely. If Vlade had a better draft record for instance or if he'd shown some ability to find undervalued players on other rosters instead of just throwing a ton of money at aging veterans. In fact, some of the guys he's let go (Seth Curry, Tyreke Evans, Langston Galloway) have been outperforming the players he brought in the last two years. That's not what you want to see.

Larry David · Nov 5, 2017

sactowndog said:

Bring in yet another nostalgia hire over somebody more qualified that didn't lace them up for the Kings 15 year ago? Sure, why not?

sactowndog · Nov 6, 2017

Larry David said:

Has nothing to do with a nostalgia hire. From my experience he has made insightful and in retrospect accurate comments on draft prospects. Scott can be an ass but he also seems to know what he is talking about.

Bosnian Diehard · Nov 6, 2017

I definitely think we’re better off long-term. I was a huge Cousins fan, and I still watch his games when I can. Nonetheless, we were mediocre every year he was here, although not his fault (poor trades, draft picks, lack of FA acquisitions), and I don’t see how we could continue going forward with another five or six years of a team made up of 10 below-average players, 1-2 solid/good players and Boogie. It just wouldn’t work. And it would be even harder to improve our poor roster if we signed Boogie to that huge deal.

A lot of what I said above is a result of not every beginning a true rebuild when we traded Webber. I’m glad we’ve started a true rebuild now.

pdxKingsFan · Nov 6, 2017

bajaden said:

I agree with this. I have given up other teams I had lesser connections with when those connections dissolved. I think the Kings to me were a special part of my story for so long I couldn't do that unless they moved, but that was a very realistic possibility not long ago. We all have our breaking point and that one is mine.

Your point about our loyalty to the team and their loyalty to us as fans is spot on.

Mr. S£im Citrus · Nov 6, 2017

bajaden said:

I'll agree with this but, speaking for myself, the fact that there is no right or wrong to this is the reason why I interjected myself into this discussion in the first place. Whether @pdxKingsFan meant it this way or not, the portion of his post that I took exception to comes across as something you would say if you were the type of person to assign some level of moral character to rooting for a sports team. And the older I get, the more problematic I find that to be.

EDIT - I also have this character flaw where, if there are multiple ways in which something could be interpreted, and I have a strong objection to one of those ways, I will voice my objection whether I knew what you meant or not, because I do not assume that everybody else reading knew what you meant, and don't want that POV going unchallenged.

pdxKingsFan · Nov 6, 2017

Mr. S£im Citrus said:

I like you because I share similar flaws. But this was funny to me because my original post just said "And besides, I'm not going to pick another team" and I really don't think there was any implied judgement there. It's just that I'm a Kings fan and not really an NBA fan (and I think you as a mod and me as a LT poster we would know that about each other). I enjoy if the Celtics or Blazers do well due to my connections to their home cities, and will go to Blazers games as a night out, but I don't really watch their games in my free time since I also watch college ball and other sports fairly regularly as well.

gil renard · Nov 6, 2017

hrdboild said:

Not so fast on the 2016 draft being bad. Jakob Poeltl and Domantas Sabonis are quietly having very productive seasons for teams that most people aren't watching. Denzel Valentine looks like he'll at least be a solid role-player. And of course there's Malcolm Brogdon who everybody missed on. It's too early to fairly evaluate these guys but a number of them have flashed intriguing potential. I didn't mind the Phoenix trade when it happened and I still don't. Bogdanovic alone makes it a solid move. I just wish we'd used our picks a little differently. I'm happy we nabbed Skal where we did but I really wanted Timothe Luwawu or Dejounte Murray with one of those other first round picks. They've both shown more potential in limited minutes than either PapaG or Malachi so far.

Vlade has been a mixed bag for me. He's shown a fondness for throwing cap space at veterans even if he has to overpay. Some of them have been valuable contributors (Rondo, Casspi, Temple, Tolliver) and some have just been money sinks (Marco Belinelli, Matt Barnes, Caron Butler, Arron Afflalo, Zach Randolph). That's also a lot of roster spots eaten up by mediocre journeymen. I've been pleasantly surprised by his willingness to wheel and deal for added value on draft day, something we never saw while Geoff Petrie was managing the team, but then the actual picks have been hit or miss. We might have something with Skal Labissiere and Harry Giles. Fox looks like a solid starter at the very least. That's from 7 first round picks in 3 years though. I'm not real optimistic at this point that Willie, Malachi, PapaG, or Justin Jackson will be anything more than decent roster filler. We'd be absolutely stocked with young talent right now if he'd made better use of those picks.

Really this comes down to one thing though: does he have what it takes to build a winning team? You need a superstar to win in the NBA right now and at least two supplementary stars. Vlade has made two big trades with multiple assets included and he's lost big on both of them. He got suckered into giving away an unprotected first round pick in the Philly trade which is absolutely unprecedented in this decade, make that the last 2 decades. Whether that pick winds up in the top 5 or not it was a massive overpay for a salary dump deal where we also gave out a former lottery pick with 3 years left on his rookie deal (not an amazing talent, but we're just talking asset value here) and two years of swap rights. We got no talent in return on that deal. I understand why it was done but you look at the pieces involved and it looks like a desperation move. And the same could be said for the Boogie trade. All-Star franchise big man going out, low lottery pick and struggling rookie guard coming in. That's among the worst returns any team has received for a superstar. Some people try to paper over it by saying Boogie is not a superstar (give me a break...) or that nothing else was available (which we know is a lie -- Vlade admitted he made overtures to only 2 teams and one of them couldn't get their poopoo together fast enough to even make a formal offer and subsequently fired their GM because of it). The big deals are where a GM makes their name and Vlade is a big 0 fer 2 so far in that area.

So really what hope I have at this point rests on two potential outcomes: (a) we get lucky two years in a row and land a top 3 pick in the 2018 draft... and don't blow it and (b) somebody in our front office has the acumen to package some of this middling talent we've acquired and use it to steal a budding future star from one of our competitors. Boston stole Isaiah Thomas from Phoenix then used him to get Kyrie Irving and they made great decisions in drafting Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum with their top 5 picks. Houston stole James Harden from OKC and then made smart decisions drafting Clint Capela and signing Patrick Beverly off the free agency scrap heap (eventually packaging him with a pick to get Chris Paul from the Clippers). This is what it takes to field a winning team -- multiple hits on trades and draft picks-- more talent coming in than going out. I'd feel better about this whole thing if either of those two outcomes appeared more likely. If Vlade had a better draft record for instance or if he'd shown some ability to find undervalued players on other rosters instead of just throwing a ton of money at aging veterans. In fact, some of the guys he's let go (Seth Curry, Tyreke Evans, Langston Galloway) have been outperforming the players he brought in the last two years. That's not what you want to see.

Great post. I don't have much faith in Vlade to lead this rebuild either.

sactowndog · Nov 6, 2017

hrdboild said:

Not so fast on the 2016 draft being bad. Jakob Poeltl and Domantas Sabonis are quietly having very productive seasons for teams that most people aren't watching. Denzel Valentine looks like he'll at least be a solid role-player. And of course there's Malcolm Brogdon who everybody missed on. It's too early to fairly evaluate these guys but a number of them have flashed intriguing potential. I didn't mind the Phoenix trade when it happened and I still don't. Bogdanovic alone makes it a solid move. I just wish we'd used our picks a little differently. I'm happy we nabbed Skal where we did but I really wanted Timothe Luwawu or Dejounte Murray with one of those other first round picks. They've both shown more potential in limited minutes than either PapaG or Malachi so far.

Vlade has been a mixed bag for me. He's shown a fondness for throwing cap space at veterans even if he has to overpay. Some of them have been valuable contributors (Rondo, Casspi, Temple, Tolliver) and some have just been money sinks (Marco Belinelli, Matt Barnes, Caron Butler, Arron Afflalo, Zach Randolph). That's also a lot of roster spots eaten up by mediocre journeymen. I've been pleasantly surprised by his willingness to wheel and deal for added value on draft day, something we never saw while Geoff Petrie was managing the team, but then the actual picks have been hit or miss. We might have something with Skal Labissiere and Harry Giles. Fox looks like a solid starter at the very least. That's from 7 first round picks in 3 years though. I'm not real optimistic at this point that Willie, Malachi, PapaG, or Justin Jackson will be anything more than decent roster filler. We'd be absolutely stocked with young talent right now if he'd made better use of those picks.

Really this comes down to one thing though: does he have what it takes to build a winning team? You need a superstar to win in the NBA right now and at least two supplementary stars. Vlade has made two big trades with multiple assets included and he's lost big on both of them. He got suckered into giving away an unprotected first round pick in the Philly trade which is absolutely unprecedented in this decade, make that the last 2 decades. Whether that pick winds up in the top 5 or not it was a massive overpay for a salary dump deal where we also gave out a former lottery pick with 3 years left on his rookie deal (not an amazing talent, but we're just talking asset value here) and two years of swap rights. We got no talent in return on that deal. I understand why it was done but you look at the pieces involved and it looks like a desperation move. And the same could be said for the Boogie trade. All-Star franchise big man going out, low lottery pick and struggling rookie guard coming in. That's among the worst returns any team has received for a superstar. Some people try to paper over it by saying Boogie is not a superstar (give me a break...) or that nothing else was available (which we know is a lie -- Vlade admitted he made overtures to only 2 teams and one of them couldn't get their poopoo together fast enough to even make a formal offer and subsequently fired their GM because of it). The big deals are where a GM makes their name and Vlade is a big 0 fer 2 so far in that area.

So really what hope I have at this point rests on two potential outcomes: (a) we get lucky two years in a row and land a top 3 pick in the 2018 draft... and don't blow it and (b) somebody in our front office has the acumen to package some of this middling talent we've acquired and use it to steal a budding future star from one of our competitors. Boston stole Isaiah Thomas from Phoenix then used him to get Kyrie Irving and they made great decisions in drafting Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum with their top 5 picks. Houston stole James Harden from OKC and then made smart decisions drafting Clint Capela and signing Patrick Beverly off the free agency scrap heap (eventually packaging him with a pick to get Chris Paul from the Clippers). This is what it takes to field a winning team -- multiple hits on trades and draft picks-- more talent coming in than going out. I'd feel better about this whole thing if either of those two outcomes appeared more likely. If Vlade had a better draft record for instance or if he'd shown some ability to find undervalued players on other rosters instead of just throwing a ton of money at aging veterans. In fact, some of the guys he's let go (Seth Curry, Tyreke Evans, Langston Galloway) have been outperforming the players he brought in the last two years. That's not what you want to see.

So I’m not completely defending Vlade. The Philly trade was a nightmare. But 16 was a horrible draft.

Poetl played 6 minutes last night
http://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=400974890

Sabonis and Murray look okay but that’s it for darn near the whole draft after the 3rd pick.

Mr. S£im Citrus · Nov 6, 2017

pdxKingsFan said:

Nitpick: the post that led to this whole tangent actually said:

pdxKingsFan said:

Emphasis added by me. It was specifically the use of the word "just" that I found problematic: I felt it implied a casualness to the process of switching teams, which I took exception to.

pdxKingsFan · Nov 6, 2017

Mr. S£im Citrus said:

I wish I couldn't equally be a nit picker when it comes to semantics. In my case it wasn't the casualness of switching teams so much as limited interest in casually finding a new one. If that makes sense? Ie, if the Kings slide off my priority list, all my other priorities just move up. I'm not sure what it is, but at this point in my life I've never felt more overextended as it is and I am time shifting and giving up live sports more than I ever did before.

kingsboi · Nov 6, 2017

hrdboild said:

Not so fast on the 2016 draft being bad. Jakob Poeltl and Domantas Sabonis are quietly having very productive seasons for teams that most people aren't watching. Denzel Valentine looks like he'll at least be a solid role-player. And of course there's Malcolm Brogdon who everybody missed on. It's too early to fairly evaluate these guys but a number of them have flashed intriguing potential. I didn't mind the Phoenix trade when it happened and I still don't. Bogdanovic alone makes it a solid move. I just wish we'd used our picks a little differently. I'm happy we nabbed Skal where we did but I really wanted Timothe Luwawu or Dejounte Murray with one of those other first round picks. They've both shown more potential in limited minutes than either PapaG or Malachi so far.

Vlade has been a mixed bag for me. He's shown a fondness for throwing cap space at veterans even if he has to overpay. Some of them have been valuable contributors (Rondo, Casspi, Temple, Tolliver) and some have just been money sinks (Marco Belinelli, Matt Barnes, Caron Butler, Arron Afflalo, Zach Randolph). That's also a lot of roster spots eaten up by mediocre journeymen. I've been pleasantly surprised by his willingness to wheel and deal for added value on draft day, something we never saw while Geoff Petrie was managing the team, but then the actual picks have been hit or miss. We might have something with Skal Labissiere and Harry Giles. Fox looks like a solid starter at the very least. That's from 7 first round picks in 3 years though. I'm not real optimistic at this point that Willie, Malachi, PapaG, or Justin Jackson will be anything more than decent roster filler. We'd be absolutely stocked with young talent right now if he'd made better use of those picks.

Really this comes down to one thing though: does he have what it takes to build a winning team? You need a superstar to win in the NBA right now and at least two supplementary stars. Vlade has made two big trades with multiple assets included and he's lost big on both of them. He got suckered into giving away an unprotected first round pick in the Philly trade which is absolutely unprecedented in this decade, make that the last 2 decades. Whether that pick winds up in the top 5 or not it was a massive overpay for a salary dump deal where we also gave out a former lottery pick with 3 years left on his rookie deal (not an amazing talent, but we're just talking asset value here) and two years of swap rights. We got no talent in return on that deal. I understand why it was done but you look at the pieces involved and it looks like a desperation move. And the same could be said for the Boogie trade. All-Star franchise big man going out, low lottery pick and struggling rookie guard coming in. That's among the worst returns any team has received for a superstar. Some people try to paper over it by saying Boogie is not a superstar (give me a break...) or that nothing else was available (which we know is a lie -- Vlade admitted he made overtures to only 2 teams and one of them couldn't get their poopoo together fast enough to even make a formal offer and subsequently fired their GM because of it). The big deals are where a GM makes their name and Vlade is a big 0 fer 2 so far in that area.

So really what hope I have at this point rests on two potential outcomes: (a) we get lucky two years in a row and land a top 3 pick in the 2018 draft... and don't blow it and (b) somebody in our front office has the acumen to package some of this middling talent we've acquired and use it to steal a budding future star from one of our competitors. Boston stole Isaiah Thomas from Phoenix then used him to get Kyrie Irving and they made great decisions in drafting Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum with their top 5 picks. Houston stole James Harden from OKC and then made smart decisions drafting Clint Capela and signing Patrick Beverly off the free agency scrap heap (eventually packaging him with a pick to get Chris Paul from the Clippers). This is what it takes to field a winning team -- multiple hits on trades and draft picks-- more talent coming in than going out. I'd feel better about this whole thing if either of those two outcomes appeared more likely. If Vlade had a better draft record for instance or if he'd shown some ability to find undervalued players on other rosters instead of just throwing a ton of money at aging veterans. In fact, some of the guys he's let go (Seth Curry, Tyreke Evans, Langston Galloway) have been outperforming the players he brought in the last two years. That's not what you want to see.

so essentially the Kings will have to have some luck on their side and find their superstar in the 2018 draft since they won't have another lottery pick until 2020

VF21 · Nov 6, 2017

kingsboi said:

God, I hope not.

hrdboild · Nov 6, 2017

kingsboi said:

Not just luck. Kawhi and Giannis were both taken with the 15th pick in their respective draft years and they're exactly the type of players we would want leading our team. Of course we passed on both of them as an organization when we could have drafted them so what does that tell you. Vlade wasn't the GM then but the lesson is --- I'm not sure exactly. Don't be wrong?

I guess, in retrospect, that contradicts my earlier point about needing a top 3 pick this year but what can I say, I'm a complicated guy... Some years you need a high pick because Danny Ainge is up there at the top of the draft and that jerk is never wrong. Other years some team like Minnesota or Orlando is up there and they'll likely get it wrong. At least if you have a top 3 pick though you have the luxury of taking the guy you want rather than waiting to see if someone else gets to them first.

SLAB · Nov 16, 2017

It's official.

No. We're not.

Next question.

fansinceday1 · Nov 16, 2017

after watching that laker/6ers game last night, I'm officially depressed.

Entity · Nov 16, 2017

jcwkings said:

probably could have gotten Hill, Carter and Justin Jackson. so same minus Fox, Randolph, Heild Plus Collison and Cuz

gunks · Nov 16, 2017

hrdboild said:

Not so fast on the 2016 draft being bad. Jakob Poeltl and Domantas Sabonis are quietly having very productive seasons for teams that most people aren't watching. Denzel Valentine looks like he'll at least be a solid role-player. And of course there's Malcolm Brogdon who everybody missed on. It's too early to fairly evaluate these guys but a number of them have flashed intriguing potential. I didn't mind the Phoenix trade when it happened and I still don't. Bogdanovic alone makes it a solid move. I just wish we'd used our picks a little differently. I'm happy we nabbed Skal where we did but I really wanted Timothe Luwawu or Dejounte Murray with one of those other first round picks. They've both shown more potential in limited minutes than either PapaG or Malachi so far.

Vlade has been a mixed bag for me. He's shown a fondness for throwing cap space at veterans even if he has to overpay. Some of them have been valuable contributors (Rondo, Casspi, Temple, Tolliver) and some have just been money sinks (Marco Belinelli, Matt Barnes, Caron Butler, Arron Afflalo, Zach Randolph). That's also a lot of roster spots eaten up by mediocre journeymen. I've been pleasantly surprised by his willingness to wheel and deal for added value on draft day, something we never saw while Geoff Petrie was managing the team, but then the actual picks have been hit or miss. We might have something with Skal Labissiere and Harry Giles. Fox looks like a solid starter at the very least. That's from 7 first round picks in 3 years though. I'm not real optimistic at this point that Willie, Malachi, PapaG, or Justin Jackson will be anything more than decent roster filler. We'd be absolutely stocked with young talent right now if he'd made better use of those picks.

Really this comes down to one thing though: does he have what it takes to build a winning team? You need a superstar to win in the NBA right now and at least two supplementary stars. Vlade has made two big trades with multiple assets included and he's lost big on both of them. He got suckered into giving away an unprotected first round pick in the Philly trade which is absolutely unprecedented in this decade, make that the last 2 decades. Whether that pick winds up in the top 5 or not it was a massive overpay for a salary dump deal where we also gave out a former lottery pick with 3 years left on his rookie deal (not an amazing talent, but we're just talking asset value here) and two years of swap rights. We got no talent in return on that deal. I understand why it was done but you look at the pieces involved and it looks like a desperation move. And the same could be said for the Boogie trade. All-Star franchise big man going out, low lottery pick and struggling rookie guard coming in. That's among the worst returns any team has received for a superstar. Some people try to paper over it by saying Boogie is not a superstar (give me a break...) or that nothing else was available (which we know is a lie -- Vlade admitted he made overtures to only 2 teams and one of them couldn't get their poopoo together fast enough to even make a formal offer and subsequently fired their GM because of it). The big deals are where a GM makes their name and Vlade is a big 0 fer 2 so far in that area.

So really what hope I have at this point rests on two potential outcomes: (a) we get lucky two years in a row and land a top 3 pick in the 2018 draft... and don't blow it and (b) somebody in our front office has the acumen to package some of this middling talent we've acquired and use it to steal a budding future star from one of our competitors. Boston stole Isaiah Thomas from Phoenix then used him to get Kyrie Irving and they made great decisions in drafting Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum with their top 5 picks. Houston stole James Harden from OKC and then made smart decisions drafting Clint Capela and signing Patrick Beverly off the free agency scrap heap (eventually packaging him with a pick to get Chris Paul from the Clippers). This is what it takes to field a winning team -- multiple hits on trades and draft picks-- more talent coming in than going out. I'd feel better about this whole thing if either of those two outcomes appeared more likely. If Vlade had a better draft record for instance or if he'd shown some ability to find undervalued players on other rosters instead of just throwing a ton of money at aging veterans. In fact, some of the guys he's let go (Seth Curry, Tyreke Evans, Langston Galloway) have been outperforming the players he brought in the last two years. That's not what you want to see.

Great post.

Sometimes I wonder where we'd be if Vivek didn't hire the inexperienced Vlade out of desperation. But alas, the lil goblin needed some good will coming his way so he hired a Kings fan favorite from the glory days instead of somebody more qualified.

There's a lot of terrible GMs out there though. Vlade is better than the gerbil, I'll give him that. Hopefully he keeps improving. I still put the Cuz trade on Vivek. Deciding in the final 24 hours that he DID want to trade Cuz but ONLY for Buddy (wtf) or Ingram didn't give Vlade a chance to get a good return.

That Philly trade though. ... damn. That could put us back years.

John Galt · Nov 16, 2017

gunks said:

How can it put us back by any more than one year? The entire spend was the 2019 first. If we don't get it, surely we will be crappy enough to get just as good a pick or better in 2020 = a 1 year setback.

gunks · Nov 16, 2017

John Galt said:

Depends on who we miss out on. If we end up gifting Philly a future superstar (like they need another), and then we end up drafting another Fox tier prospect the following year? I'd say that puts us back more than a year.

The better talent we have, the faster we're back in the playoffs.

Arkitect · Nov 16, 2017

As a point of reference it took 6 years for philly to rebuild. We have basically entered year 2. While it will suck to miss out on the 2019 pick - we likely will have 3 - 4 more chances to get our 2 HoF level players which is really what you need to be competitive at a high level. We are going to suck for a long time.

gunks · Nov 16, 2017

Arkitect said:

Yeah I'm aware of this too. I even referred to the 2019 pick as Vlade's "Noel" year in another thread, since Philly botched that one and the Okafor drafts. I'm sure we'll be picking in the upper half of the top 10 for awhile.

It'll just really suck if we end up giving them a future great. But we don't know that yet. Maybe we'll drop down to 6 that year and Philly will draft the next WCS.

Joshoua · Nov 16, 2017

hrdboild said:

Not so fast on the 2016 draft being bad. Jakob Poeltl and Domantas Sabonis are quietly having very productive seasons for teams that most people aren't watching. Denzel Valentine looks like he'll at least be a solid role-player. And of course there's Malcolm Brogdon who everybody missed on. It's too early to fairly evaluate these guys but a number of them have flashed intriguing potential. I didn't mind the Phoenix trade when it happened and I still don't. Bogdanovic alone makes it a solid move. I just wish we'd used our picks a little differently. I'm happy we nabbed Skal where we did but I really wanted Timothe Luwawu or Dejounte Murray with one of those other first round picks. They've both shown more potential in limited minutes than either PapaG or Malachi so far.

Vlade has been a mixed bag for me. He's shown a fondness for throwing cap space at veterans even if he has to overpay. Some of them have been valuable contributors (Rondo, Casspi, Temple, Tolliver) and some have just been money sinks (Marco Belinelli, Matt Barnes, Caron Butler, Arron Afflalo, Zach Randolph). That's also a lot of roster spots eaten up by mediocre journeymen. I've been pleasantly surprised by his willingness to wheel and deal for added value on draft day, something we never saw while Geoff Petrie was managing the team, but then the actual picks have been hit or miss. We might have something with Skal Labissiere and Harry Giles. Fox looks like a solid starter at the very least. That's from 7 first round picks in 3 years though. I'm not real optimistic at this point that Willie, Malachi, PapaG, or Justin Jackson will be anything more than decent roster filler. We'd be absolutely stocked with young talent right now if he'd made better use of those picks.

Really this comes down to one thing though: does he have what it takes to build a winning team? You need a superstar to win in the NBA right now and at least two supplementary stars. Vlade has made two big trades with multiple assets included and he's lost big on both of them. He got suckered into giving away an unprotected first round pick in the Philly trade which is absolutely unprecedented in this decade, make that the last 2 decades. Whether that pick winds up in the top 5 or not it was a massive overpay for a salary dump deal where we also gave out a former lottery pick with 3 years left on his rookie deal (not an amazing talent, but we're just talking asset value here) and two years of swap rights. We got no talent in return on that deal. I understand why it was done but you look at the pieces involved and it looks like a desperation move. And the same could be said for the Boogie trade. All-Star franchise big man going out, low lottery pick and struggling rookie guard coming in. That's among the worst returns any team has received for a superstar. Some people try to paper over it by saying Boogie is not a superstar (give me a break...) or that nothing else was available (which we know is a lie -- Vlade admitted he made overtures to only 2 teams and one of them couldn't get their poopoo together fast enough to even make a formal offer and subsequently fired their GM because of it). The big deals are where a GM makes their name and Vlade is a big 0 fer 2 so far in that area.

So really what hope I have at this point rests on two potential outcomes: (a) we get lucky two years in a row and land a top 3 pick in the 2018 draft... and don't blow it and (b) somebody in our front office has the acumen to package some of this middling talent we've acquired and use it to steal a budding future star from one of our competitors. Boston stole Isaiah Thomas from Phoenix then used him to get Kyrie Irving and they made great decisions in drafting Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum with their top 5 picks. Houston stole James Harden from OKC and then made smart decisions drafting Clint Capela and signing Patrick Beverly off the free agency scrap heap (eventually packaging him with a pick to get Chris Paul from the Clippers). This is what it takes to field a winning team -- multiple hits on trades and draft picks-- more talent coming in than going out. I'd feel better about this whole thing if either of those two outcomes appeared more likely. If Vlade had a better draft record for instance or if he'd shown some ability to find undervalued players on other rosters instead of just throwing a ton of money at aging veterans. In fact, some of the guys he's let go (Seth Curry, Tyreke Evans, Langston Galloway) have been outperforming the players he brought in the last two years. That's not what you want to see.

Vlade has done a decent job Skal is a promising player and would kill in pick and roll his jumper is pure. Fox-JJ-Bogdan and Buddy are all pretty good you players let’s just run a not out dated offense.

Also you’re right about being lucky hopefully that will be Giles and Skal for us.

Are we REALLY better off?

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