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Was just about to post this! Fox is an awesome interview. Crazy confident, charismatic and self aware for a somebody who just turned 21!

Also, I dunno who that idiot is that said "I can't wait until you're a Laker!" at the end of the interview, but I loved Fox's response of immediately laughing in his face and smugly saying "yeah I don't know about that".

Sorry bro, Lakers had their chance at Fox. Enjoy Lonzo "2 for 12" Ball until LeBron ships him out!
Fox never seemed to me like a bright lights, big city type of guy.

He's seems like a very loyal, respectful and hardworking guy who just wants to compete and play ball.

Prior to the draft, Fox made it publicly known that he loved Sacramento and he NEVER professed such love for the Fakers! Both he and Bagley made it public before the draft, that they would love to become Kings!

I think Vlade is accumulating a bunch of great basketball players and great guys that Love Sacramento and want to build something special here. That is extremely important, considering these recent top players like AD and Paul George (2 seasons ago) trying to bully their way to the Lakers.

With these group of players that Vlade has put together, it seems to me, it's Sacramento or bust! And that something that can blossom into something very, very special! :)
 
Fox never seemed to me like a bright lights, big city type of guy.

He's seems like a very loyal, respectful and hardworking guy who just wants to compete and play ball.

Prior to the draft, Fox made it publicly known that he loved Sacramento and he NEVER professed such love for the Fakers! Both he and Bagley made it public before the draft, that they would love to become Kings!

I think Vlade is accumulating a bunch of great basketball players and great guys that Love Sacramento and want to build something special here. That is extremely important, considering these recent top players like AD and Paul George (2 seasons ago) trying to bully their way to the Lakers.

With these group of players that Vlade has put together, it seems to me, it's Sacramento or bust! And that something that can blossom into something very, very special! :)
It seems pretty clear to me that this current bunch of players are all happy to be building something special. Assuming we continue our upward trajectory, I really doubt we have an Anthony Davis situation with these guys. Whether we can keep them all in the future is another question (from a financial perspective) but I can’r Imagine any of these guys holding the team hostage with a trade demand in the next 5 years.
 
The best revenge for the media hype crap is to keep winning games. Just point at the score board.
The Kings have a ton of talent at every position. We have a great coach and a new stadium. We just have a lot of young players.

I really like the observation that Cousins never scored 32 points as a rookie.
 
I'll buy that. I watched the Suns game and was surprised when Grant said Bagley got his career high and even more surprised to find out he'd scored 32. He did have that one very impressive drive on Ayton where he got by him with a spin move and finished with his right hand and he did knock down an open three but a lot of his other shots were forces that ended in free throws. Stylistically speaking, Bagley is a drive straight at the basket and flip it in type of player. He's big and athletic so it works out for him, especially against a team like Phoenix which just continues to looks like they all hate playing together for some reason. Don't get me wrong, 32 points on 10 for 15 shooting is damn impressive any way you get it, especially for a 19 year old. And the results are what matter, not how hard you're working to get there. But I don't see the talent oozing off him so much as I see a super athlete who's still learning to play the game. I'm not going out of my way to dismiss him -- if he develops into the best player in the draft that's enormously good fortune for this franchise -- it's just that subjective evaluation thing.

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The other thing that I think gets missed in the "what about Tyreke" example so many people bring up is that we all knew Tyreke couldn't shoot. It was a very obvious flaw in his game right from the beginning. And anyone projecting stardom from his 20-5-5 rookie season (and we all were!) understood that he had to develop a reasonable three-point threat for that to happen. It never even crossed my mind that it would take him 7 seasons to get there. The cautionary tale with Tyreke is regarding a player who fails to develop their skillset. It's not like there was any mystery why he slowly became less effective. Once teams knew he wasn't a threat from the perimeter they started playing him to drive and that took away his one weapon. Everything else that went on (pushing him to SF, loading up on other ball dominant guards, drafting a high usage big man who ate into his touches) was ancillary to the big problem which is that you can't consistently fool defenses who know you're driving to the basket on every possession. What impresses with Doncic is his skillset and remarkable ability to make good decisions under pressure. This is a totally different situation. I'm sure he'll have his own difficulties to work through, but it's difficult to spot any obvious flaws right now.

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Part of Bill's schtick is sounding confident in his opinions. I feel like a fair amount of his obliviousness is an act. Or if it isn't, than it's more that our culture rewards the flashy take rather than the nuanced (ie TLDR) approach. I don't even think the argument here is Doncic vs. Bagley so much as it is Doncic vs. everyone else. Nobody comes into the league and is instantly their team's leading scorer, leading playmaker, and go-to option in crunch time unless the team is horrible and they're just force-feeding them the ball because they have no other options. Dallas had Dennis Smith Jr, Harrison Barnes, and DeAndre Jordan and fancied themselves a playoff squad with Luka as a complimentary piece. He's totally reconfigured their entire outlook in half a season. The whole "Sacramento made a mistake" reaction shouldn't be seen as any kind of knock on Bagley as a prospect. It's really just another way of saying that what Luka has done this season is almost without precedent. He's going one-on-one against the best individual defenders in the league nightly and embarrassing them. You can also tell he's getting worn down as his shooting splits have declined for 4 months in a row. He is probably going to hit some kind of a wall at some point but first impressions count for something and his has been spectacular.

Regarding Steph Curry, he very nearly won ROY that year too. Tyreke got off to an early lead and the buzz around 20-5-5 became insurmountable but Curry matched him from about February to the end of the year and probably even outplayed him the last few weeks. He ended up signing a below market value extension because he had so many problems with his ankles that kept him out of games but his ability was already apparent in his rookie season. What most of us failed to realize is that Steph wasn't going to have to adjust to the league, the league was going to adjust to catch up to him. We hadn't seen a player attempt 11 threes a game before and make 45% of them. Most of us probably would have said that wasn't possible. In both cases, you could already see the outline of who each player was going to be. Steph kept improving while Tyreke more or less stayed the same. And that's the big thing with most of these players. The great ones never stop getting better.

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The biggest change in the internet age has been that the demand for content now is enormous. You don't wait for Sportscenter now, the highlights are all instantly available almost as soon as they happen. If you want people returning to your site (which is how these media companies generate revenue) you need to be constantly pushing out something. It's not all going to be fantastic content -- that level of quality control is not possible on a 24/7/360 timeline. So yeah, that does push people to give an opinion on everything before they've seen the big picture. I don't think hyperbole is a necessary result though.

Consider this... Russell Westbrook is well on his way to averaging a triple-double for the third season in a row and nobody really cares at this point. Initially there was skepticism around Harden's scoring output being legitimate considering the changes to the rules which have all benefited offensive players with the ball in their hands. Players don't have control over the standards of the era they play in. Is Harden rising to greatness in a run-and-gun era any less legitimate than what Kobe did in his era or MJ and Magic before that? Is anyone really arguing against Steph as the greatest shooter of all time anymore? I feel like we measure greatness primarily by comparing players to their peers. It doesn't matter if Shaq was better than Kareem or not, he was unstoppable in his time. If you trust nothing else, you can at least trust that great players rise to the top regardless of circumstances. This is the very quality that makes them great, it's teleological.

So when a player comes into the league and plays with the swagger of an All-Star instantly that is noteworthy. That doesn't happen every year. In the last 25 years, the only rookies to come into the league with comparative immediate success were Allen Iverson, Tim Duncan, Lebron James, and Blake Griffin. Obviously we don't know what's going to happen yet in the future. Time has shown that some auspicious beginnings are better than others. The fully-developed college star (ie Emeka Okafor) typically plateaus faster and lower while the 19 year old prodigy (ie Dwight Howard) is still developing their game and their body. Tyreke was so otherworldly good at getting to the basket that he defied the scouting reports and thrived as a one-option scorer for an entire season. But if you think Luka is just having a great rookie season and the "generational" hype is merely hyperbole, I really think you need to take a second look. People flipped out over Jayson Tatum last year when he averaged 14 and 5. Ben Simmons stuffs a stat sheet but has yet to make a three point shot in a season and a half. The need to have a rookie of the year race does create a fair amount of manufactured hype. I don't think that's the case here, however.
Does this win the award for the longest post ever?

Too hard to respond to all the contents but let me address the highlighted ones.

Yes Bagley is unskilled and got most of his points via raw athleticism. That point is why many of us are so excited about his potential. Lack of skill can come from one of two things 1) lack of coaching 2) lack of effort. In the age of AAU basketball rarely is it the former and teams have to be careful of lack of skill. But in Bagley’s case, it is the former exclusively, He played AAU for his dad (a football player). We are already seeing rapid improvement in his skill level such as a right hand finish.

Luka by contrast is almost the polar opposite in skill development. I find it interesting that many who claimed Bogi won’t improve much coming over from Europe also comment how Luka will be an MVP. Luka has skills (his step back) Bogi is still working to perfect. What players like Bogi and Luka are proving is top players in Europe are more than ready to be productive in the NBA. The European leagues are improving by leaps and bounds which shouldn’t be surprising as a whole world is playing basketball generating more talent than a 30 team league can absorb.

What people are questioning with Luka is not how well he has done this year. They question how much skill development is left. Skill development is not linear, it is asymptotic. Yes he is 19 but he has also had, in contrast to Marvin, some of the best coaching in the world. Real Madrid is no slouch organization when it comes to athletic development. Already, Luka has one of the mechanically best step backs in the NBA. You could credibly argue only James Harden has a more mechanically sound step back because Harden jumps into you on the shot forcing you to foul if you defend it at all.
 
If one believed in conspiracy theories, one might offer the argument that the league WANTS the Kings to make the playoffs. They're young, they're exciting, they're fun to watch. They embody the new look of the NBA - the only thing they need is the superstar and they've got TWO of them in their future.
I'd lean more toward bad refereeing against the Kings to help the Lakers get in. The NBA has to have their darling get in. Might be something we need to pay attention to.
 
I'd lean more toward bad refereeing against the Kings to help the Lakers get in. The NBA has to have their darling get in. Might be something we need to pay attention to.
I agree to a point, we all know that the Lakers have always seemed to get a little extra love from the refs.

On the other hand, we have the longest playoff drought in the league, we have a new arena ( that I wish I lived close to) and most importantly we have a young exciting team that LOTS of fans of other teams love to watch. I haven't seen this much positive buzz from non Kings fans since I became a fan.

Of course, in the end one would hope the games get to be completely decided by the players and coaches, but we all live in reality. Mostly :D
 

VF21

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I agree to a point, we all know that the Lakers have always seemed to get a little extra love from the refs.

On the other hand, we have the longest playoff drought in the league, we have a new arena ( that I wish I lived close to) and most importantly we have a young exciting team that LOTS of fans of other teams love to watch. I haven't seen this much positive buzz from non Kings fans since I became a fan.

Of course, in the end one would hope the games get to be completely decided by the players and coaches, but we all live in reality. Mostly :D
And that, say the tinfoil hat folks, is music to the NBA ears and enough to tilt the scales.
 
Another nice little Kings nugget in the middle of Bill Simmons' podcast today. They were briefly talking about "who's next" with respect to a team that could break out in the league. Simmons takes the Kings, with a comparison to the very early construction of the Warriors team when they were a homegrown team coached by Mark Jackson and took an early leap in the playoffs. Points to the young centerpieces they have under rookie contract, and implies they could take a big, quicker than anticipated step forward if they can snag the right FA this offseason. Simmons also once again gushes about Bagley. Saying he keeps getting better and that he's higher on him now then he was last month when he moved him up in his "NBA trade rankings". As always, he caveats that they should have taken Luka because he's a "generational" player vs. a superstar in the making (Marvin), but I think he "gets it" with respect to the FO thinking on the selection and given the Ringer's love affair with Luka, this is probably the best we'll get out of him.

Anyway, it's a short 2 minute discussion in a long podcast, so probably doesn't really deserve anyone trying to find it, but I think indicative that people are now not only seeing the team as a nice surprise this year, but as a potential future powerhouse.
 
Another nice little Kings nugget in the middle of Bill Simmons' podcast today. They were briefly talking about "who's next" with respect to a team that could break out in the league. Simmons takes the Kings, with a comparison to the very early construction of the Warriors team when they were a homegrown team coached by Mark Jackson and took an early leap in the playoffs. Points to the young centerpieces they have under rookie contract, and implies they could take a big, quicker than anticipated step forward if they can snag the right FA this offseason. Simmons also once again gushes about Bagley. Saying he keeps getting better and that he's higher on him now then he was last month when he moved him up in his "NBA trade rankings". As always, he caveats that they should have taken Luka because he's a "generational" player vs. a superstar in the making (Marvin), but I think he "gets it" with respect to the FO thinking on the selection and given the Ringer's love affair with Luka, this is probably the best we'll get out of him.

Anyway, it's a short 2 minute discussion in a long podcast, so probably doesn't really deserve anyone trying to find it, but I think indicative that people are now not only seeing the team as a nice surprise this year, but as a potential future powerhouse.
Super team, just young....who's laughing now?
 
People coming around, but will never admit they were wrong the last couple years.
And those same people, Simmons included, aren't going to admit they were wrong to judge this past draft as if it were a 1 season sprint rather than a 3-4 year marathon. Luka's gonna lead after 1 year, but MB3 is already closing the gap before the first marker.