Willie Cauley-Stein: the 2018-19 Season watch

In 1063 minutes this season, Willie has 46 turnovers.

In 246 minutes this season, Harry Giles has 25 turnovers.
You'd have to spend all of 2 minutes watching them play and know why this is the case. Maybe if Willie had tried passing the ball a little more he wouldn't get snuffed at the rim and maybe we would have beat Portland.

Not saying that Giles is all that great himself and the fouling certainly contributes to that. But really, turnovers? If the best thing you can say about our center is his turnovers then we have big problems.
 
Super duper misleading statistic. If he bobbles as pass, the turnover is on the passer.

This is Willie trying to grab a loose ball or catch a non lob pass way too often:

Look at all the centers in the league playing willies minutes.. He averages THE LEAST turnovers of anyone. How's that misleading? It's a ****ing feather in his cap that y'all don't wanna admit is there, is what it really is..
 
So you’re comparing a starter in his 4th season with a rookie who occasionally gets some minutes but mostly gets DNP-CD? That’s useless.
Compare Willies turnovers to any other C in the league playing 28+ minutes... tell me how thats useless.. The Kings are 2nd in the league in possesions per game too... so if u did a stat based on turnovers per possession he'd be even further out infront of the pack
 
You'd have to spend all of 2 minutes watching them play and know why this is the case. Maybe if Willie had tried passing the ball a little more he wouldn't get snuffed at the rim and maybe we would have beat Portland.

Not saying that Giles is all that great himself and the fouling certainly contributes to that. But really, turnovers? If the best thing you can say about our center is his turnovers then we have big problems.
Willie is the #8 Center in the league in assists at 2.5 per game. Thats not good enough?

when did I say turnovers was the best thing I could say about Willie?!o_O

How about he's starting for a team in the playoff hunt.. The level people wanna go to discredit him it's really quite telling as far as I'm concerned.

I'm reminded of a quote from a brilliant movie Pi

Hold on. You have to slow down. You're losing it. You have to take a breath. Listen to yourself. You're connecting a computer bug I had with a computer bug you might have had and some religious hogwash. You want to find the number 216 in the world, you will be able to find it everywhere. 216 steps from a mere street corner to your front door. 216 seconds you spend riding on the elevator. When your mind becomes obsessed with anything, you will filter everything else out and find that thing everywhere.
this is how i percieve the willie haters here, they are actively trying to filter out what they dont want to see (williie do good) so they can focus on what their looking for (the bad)... Now tell me i'm wrong :cool:
 
Last edited:
Willie is the #8 Center in the league in assists at 2.5 per game. Thats not good enough?

when did I say turnovers was the best thing I could say about Willie?!o_O

How about he's starting for a team in the playoff hunt.. The level people wanna go to discredit him it's really quite telling as far as I'm concerned.

I'm reminded of a quote from a brilliant movie Pi



this is how i percieve the willie haters here, they are actively trying to filter out what they dont want to see (williie do good) so they can focus on what their looking for (the bad)... Now tell me i'm wrong :cool:
Can't speak for others, but that's not how player evaluations work for me. Yes you consider both good and bad, but the reason why the bad is harped on alot more is because Willie is bad at what I expect him to do. Sure, he's good at other things, like being elite at switching and guarding on the perimeter, but that's not the biggest thing I need from my center right now. I need paint protection, rebounding... And Willie is not good at those, or at least doesn't try put in the effort to be half the time. I'm not going to come and talk about how great he is at switching onto smaller guys every game while he gives up 20 rebounds to opposing bigs on a nightly basis.

If I were to list the good he does which is really impactful for us I'd say it's mainly rim running.

Also, the reason why he gets large amounts of harsh criticism is because he has every reason to be able to perform much better. No one gives a rats *** about Troy Williams or Frank Mason or even JJ. They're at best role players and at worst out of the league. Willie on the other hand is significant and good enough to warrant constant scrutiny, particularly when the impression is that he could be much better if he simply cared a little more.
 
Can't speak for others, but that's not how player evaluations work for me. Yes you consider both good and bad, but the reason why the bad is harped on alot more is because Willie is bad at what I expect him to do. Sure, he's good at other things, like being elite at switching and guarding on the perimeter, but that's not the biggest thing I need from my center right now. I need paint protection, rebounding... And Willie is not good at those, or at least doesn't try put in the effort to be half the time. I'm not going to come and talk about how great he is at switching onto smaller guys every game while he gives up 20 rebounds to opposing bigs on a nightly basis.

If I were to list the good he does which is really impactful for us I'd say it's mainly rim running.

Also, the reason why he gets large amounts of harsh criticism is because he has every reason to be able to perform much better. No one gives a rats *** about Troy Williams or Frank Mason or even JJ. They're at best role players and at worst out of the league. Willie on the other hand is significant and good enough to warrant constant scrutiny, particularly when the impression is that he could be much better if he simply cared a little more.


I've been watching a lot of Houston with them on this latest run and it's frustrating as hell watching Capela run his role as a rim protecter, rebounder and rim runner to absolute perfection and wondering why the hell WCS can't figure out that's the mold he needs to follow. Yeah, it obviously helps playing with a HoF level playmaker like Harden, but Capela deserves his share of credit too.Dude plays his ass off on both ends, fights for position to clean the glass, fights for the garbage points and knows exactly what he needs to be doing to maximize his talents on the court. He's not trying to do dumb one on one crap that he doesn't have the skill to do. He's not any bigger or more athletic than WCS. It's his complete understanding of what he's good at on the court and playing at a high effort/energy level that make him so much more valuable than WCS as a player.

There's nothing but himself keeping him from having a Capela/Adams/Prime Tyson Chandler kind of impact on the floor. And that's far and away his biggest issue as a player.
 
This thread is great.
When I wake up on the east coast all I have to do is check up which thread on kingsfans has the most recent comment.
If it is this one, Kings lost the previous night, any other - Kings won.
Works 9 out of 10 times I'd say. The 1 being when WCS gets to play against some Kentucky big and decides he'd like to try
 
Who would you guys realistically trade Willie for? If we traded him, it means we still have a C hole. I don't think that's something Bagley can fill up because I think he's better as a PF.

Here would be my list of straight up swaps that I think both sides could potentially agree to:
  1. Jaylen Brown
  2. Taurean Prince
  3. Andrew Wiggins
  4. Robert Covington
  5. Nicholas Batum(older, but would be perfect)
  6. Frank Ntilikina
Maybe we would get a chance of getting Josh Jackson?
 
Laziness, plus softness, plus low BBIQ is a deadly combination.
Make no mistake. I’m on record for wanting him gone. For the best we can get by the trade deadline. But... I’m not sure that Willie is a low BBIQ guy. He just has some head issues.
 
Make no mistake. I’m on record for wanting him gone. For the best we can get by the trade deadline. But... I’m not sure that Willie is a low BBIQ guy. He just has some head issues.
You mean low motor?

That’s why I haven’t been secure with him for years, since I sensed that. It’s innate, and will always catch up in the end. It’s beyond conscious control
 
Last edited:
You mean low motor?

That’s why I haven’t been secure with him for years, since I sensed that. It’s innate, and will always catch up in the end. It’s beyond conscious control
I believe it is innate. I have a bunch of friends who live and die Kentucky basketball. They will say he is far and away the most frustrating player they’ve ever seen since Calipari’s been there. They all loved it when we picked Cousins and Fox, but puzzled by us picking WCS and Skal. I think it boils down to lack of commitment to really improve on the areas he is a major liability in and an unwillingness to thrive where he already has the elite tools to be great (blocks, rebounds, help defense)
 
You mean low motor?
That’s why I haven’t been secure with him for years, since I sensed that. It’s innate, and will always catch up in the end. It’s beyond conscious control
I dunno. I know that Bagley is high-motor. Most everyone can see that. Willie is not afraid to run and he's more than a willing switcher. So I'm not comfortable giving him the low-motor label. But he's a sandwich short of a picnic, that's for sure. I don't know that Willie has the ability to think ahead; to anticipate. Last night DC pointed out that one of Willie's errant passes was there when he (Willie) saw it. But then the pass was gone and Willie didn't have the ability to see it (or know it) before he passed it to the other team. That captures it for me, and also helps explain why he's not a better shotblocker. Call it what you will, but to me, Willie is a head case. He's always going to disappoint and frustrate us as long as he wears a Kings jersey.
 
The more things change the more they stay the same..... same old issues with Willie that continually pop up every two or three weeks. He'll have a two or three good games and then sink right back into his old habits.

Context is everything when discussing Willie.

Willie has some very useful skills (especially for this team) but he also has some major flaws (especially for this team). In the future (say two years from now) he'd be great as the first big off the bench if Bagley and Giles were starting, However Willie is looking to be a starter and wants paid like a prime level starter. For 12-14 MIL per year I think most of us could live with his inconsistency and faults.

However he wants paid something like 18-20 Million per year (which means high level starter) and that's just too much money to commit to a guy that doesn't bring any interior presence. That's also too much money (and probably too many years) to commit to a guy that doesn't consistently bring effort/focus.

For those that keep defending Willie, you should be highly concerned that he doesn't bring consistent intensity and focus when he's in a contract year and he's made it known that he wants to get paid. Why would that suddenly no longer be an issue after he gets paid?

The consistent theme throughout all of sports among guys with "low motors" is once they get paid they all too often let up on the gas and regress. It happens time and time again especially with big men in the NBA.
 
This thread is great.
When I wake up on the east coast all I have to do is check up which thread on kingsfans has the most recent comment.
If it is this one, Kings lost the previous night, any other - Kings won.
well his role is impactful. or pun intended... not at all impactful at things we need him to be.

he's 1 of only 5 starters.

he's currently ranked 77th in blocks. josh heart the lakers SG is 76th ahead of WCS
 
He just has no clue on how to get a rebound...
Though, to be fair, the last rookie center we trained to be a lockdown defender was Sam Lacey, and the people involved are all dead. I'd hope we're doing a great job of it now, but don't have any post-Whiteside evidence one way or the other.