Starting lineup going forward - Fox, Buddy, Bogs, Barnes, WCS
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Yeah that would be a great point if I was making that comparison but I’m not. I’m talking about games in Dec and January where the coaches were talking about needing rest. About our horrible record on back to backs. This team wears out playing guys 35-36 minutes a game. They had a much better stretch when they kept their minutes are 30 or less.
We have multiple critical back to backs against Lakers, Utah and San Antonio. We can’t be worn down again heading into late March/April.
We have multiple critical back to backs against Lakers, Utah and San Antonio. We can’t be worn down again heading into late March/April.
I wouldn’t mind if Beli never played a minute again for the team, despite whatever advanced stats he possessed. No energy and brings nothing but an inconsistent shot. Bagley is anchoring the 2nd unit, and there are so many offensive options in the first unit already that I feel comfortable starting him next year
Well if we look at Real Plus Minus, Bagley has literally the worst RPM in the whole league amongst power forwards. Giles is listed at pf in that stat and hes the 4th worst. Fox is 15th amongst point guards, Buddy is 10th amongst SG's and Bogdan is 18th. Of all SF's Barnes is 32nd (but thats mostly him being in Dallas) and WCS is 15th amongs centers. I would say that at least this metric suggest that we are starting the guys that contribute the most in winning basketball games.
Bagley is a rookie and does impressive things individually but rookies rarely contribute to winning. If we want to win, the players in this starting lineup should play the most minutes and Bagleys minutes should be evaluated on game to game basis. Wether that lineup itself is the best 5 man combination remains to be seen but numbers suggest that those are the 5 players that should play the most minutes if the goal is to win.
Bagley is a rookie and does impressive things individually but rookies rarely contribute to winning. If we want to win, the players in this starting lineup should play the most minutes and Bagleys minutes should be evaluated on game to game basis. Wether that lineup itself is the best 5 man combination remains to be seen but numbers suggest that those are the 5 players that should play the most minutes if the goal is to win.
I understand your overall point, and agree Bagley should not be given 30 min a night if he is completely off his game (which I feel has maybe only been about 5 games this year), but I really don’t take RPM all that seriously with rookies. Too many variables in their adjustment and development in their first year. I just cannot folllow this team very day, watch the things he does (while at the same time acknowledging some of his deficits) and seriously think that RPM ranking is worth more than toilet paper to wipe my butt.
Barnes does not have the mobility or creativity to a full-time 3. He's a mechanical player without a lot of "wiggle", to borrow a term Yogurt is fond of. He defers a lot offensively for a 25M dollar player. He probably needs to lose 10 pounds this summer, run sprints and lean out. He's frigging slow in transition. Unhitch the wagon dude! The guys touch is Willie-esque so far, missing many chippies. He shoots a hard shot without the necessary backspin, allergic to the soft kiss from the rim. With that said he has been quite the boost. I like a guy we acquired for nothing. We got him for the #1 thorn in my side last year and #1A or #1B thorn in my side this year. I will not forget this. Barnes has a great presence about him. He is a smart player who makes good reads. He is a keeper.
My sense is he will opt out of his 25M and we will try to sign him to a 3 + 1 (team option final year). In exchange for longer term security and based on performance a pay cut is in justified. He's probably a 16-18M per year player. I would have to be find the best comps on him but I think that is about right. He's a versatile defender but barely a 4th option on offense. What we will likely do is determine fair market value, then spread out the money he is giving up by opting out over the life of the contract, so technically is not giving up anything. Barnes was in a bad situation in Dallas, an observer to the Luka Show. I think he appreciates his new home and role and will be amenable to staying around.
The money we invest in Barnes will come at the expense of Willie. We are not going to give Willie a qualifying offer. Bye! We will instead go hunting for a ferocious rebounder on the free agent market. If you don't agree let me remind you what I said right after we got Barnes. I said this is the lineup I would go with before his debut. I would slide Barnes to the 4 and insert Bogdan. The response I got was "I am glad you are not the coach..." Now the forum sentiment has shifted to "coach knows best stop questioning him hater...!" Um okay. I said Bjelica was going to get squeezed for minutes and that is what has happened. Though isn't interesting Joerger deems Bagley worthy of starting one game only when he gave Bjelica DNP-Rest and already has Barnes over Bjelica? There's something I cannot reconcile there. He was so willing to cast Barnes into the fore but so reluctant to start an All-NBA talent like Bagley.
Regardless something makes perfect sense. You cannot trot out TWO stiff methodical players like Barnes and Bjelica and be this upstart team. It would be counter to your identity. Moreover Bogdan has been mired in a season long slump. He is wallowing at 53% TS% when he was 55% TS% last year and should be closer to 57-58% TS%. We need Bogdan to recapture the magic of the buzzer beater vs the Lakers if we are going to make the post-season. He may be starting to break out (15-30 FGs for 50% over his last three games). This shift in roles, putting renewed faith in him, knowing we need efficient production is part of the thought process. As importantly he is the better complement to a non-facilitator like Barnes. Barnes at the 4 and Bogdan at the 3 are switchable. Your defense becomes less porous. Then you have guys like Buddy and Fox who can stay home instead of having to cover for a blown assignment. Bjelica can't switch on the perimeter. He gets blown by and he is forced to foul. Barnes may be our best man defender with Fox. He can guard in the post and switch onto 2s and 3s. On the other end we have creators in Fox and Bogi setting up a finisher in Buddy and "alleged finishers" in Willie and Barnes. The other thing to keep in mind is even though Bogi is 6'5" he has 7'0" wingspan which allows him to hang defensively on the wing. This lineup is the best until Bagley starts next year. Barnes is shooting a pathetic 34% FGs in 5 games and pathetic 5 for 28 on 3s. Wow. Terrible. But he is pulling 6.4 RPG and 2.2 assists to 1.2 turnovers and let me do some quick math....
+5 W MIA
+9 W PHX
+2. L DEN
-9. L GSW
-3 W OKC
Barnes is a net +2 on the court playing 35 minutes per game even though his shooting has been crap. That tells you the other variables he brings to the table. When we almost beat the Nuggets, our three high volume shooters we not shooting well but we stayed in the game to the very end against one of the leagues best teams:
Buddy 9-23 FGs
Barnes 7-19 FGs
Boggy 5-13 FGs
The Kings of the past have been incapable of being competitive against the best teams unless firing on all cylinders offensively. We bend and break defensively when we are firing too many blanks. But we stayed in this game, despite our second half rebounding, due the affect of the defensive presence Barnes brought. Joerger has him averaging 35 MPG though he is not making shots. That is telling. Jackson and Shump were thirsty scorers. That dynamic was a little awkward with better options. Buddy at 24 PPG and Bagley at 17 PPG are having their best scoring months since their departure replaced with more deferential players including Burks. Barnes is trying to find his niche within this hierarchy. We need him to figure it out to earn a playoff seed. 35% FGs is not going to cut it. The revelation however is given his impact on D he does not have to be a highly efficient scorer to be highly effective overall. 53-55% TS% will be just fine, thank you.
My sense is he will opt out of his 25M and we will try to sign him to a 3 + 1 (team option final year). In exchange for longer term security and based on performance a pay cut is in justified. He's probably a 16-18M per year player. I would have to be find the best comps on him but I think that is about right. He's a versatile defender but barely a 4th option on offense. What we will likely do is determine fair market value, then spread out the money he is giving up by opting out over the life of the contract, so technically is not giving up anything. Barnes was in a bad situation in Dallas, an observer to the Luka Show. I think he appreciates his new home and role and will be amenable to staying around.
The money we invest in Barnes will come at the expense of Willie. We are not going to give Willie a qualifying offer. Bye! We will instead go hunting for a ferocious rebounder on the free agent market. If you don't agree let me remind you what I said right after we got Barnes. I said this is the lineup I would go with before his debut. I would slide Barnes to the 4 and insert Bogdan. The response I got was "I am glad you are not the coach..." Now the forum sentiment has shifted to "coach knows best stop questioning him hater...!" Um okay. I said Bjelica was going to get squeezed for minutes and that is what has happened. Though isn't interesting Joerger deems Bagley worthy of starting one game only when he gave Bjelica DNP-Rest and already has Barnes over Bjelica? There's something I cannot reconcile there. He was so willing to cast Barnes into the fore but so reluctant to start an All-NBA talent like Bagley.
Regardless something makes perfect sense. You cannot trot out TWO stiff methodical players like Barnes and Bjelica and be this upstart team. It would be counter to your identity. Moreover Bogdan has been mired in a season long slump. He is wallowing at 53% TS% when he was 55% TS% last year and should be closer to 57-58% TS%. We need Bogdan to recapture the magic of the buzzer beater vs the Lakers if we are going to make the post-season. He may be starting to break out (15-30 FGs for 50% over his last three games). This shift in roles, putting renewed faith in him, knowing we need efficient production is part of the thought process. As importantly he is the better complement to a non-facilitator like Barnes. Barnes at the 4 and Bogdan at the 3 are switchable. Your defense becomes less porous. Then you have guys like Buddy and Fox who can stay home instead of having to cover for a blown assignment. Bjelica can't switch on the perimeter. He gets blown by and he is forced to foul. Barnes may be our best man defender with Fox. He can guard in the post and switch onto 2s and 3s. On the other end we have creators in Fox and Bogi setting up a finisher in Buddy and "alleged finishers" in Willie and Barnes. The other thing to keep in mind is even though Bogi is 6'5" he has 7'0" wingspan which allows him to hang defensively on the wing. This lineup is the best until Bagley starts next year. Barnes is shooting a pathetic 34% FGs in 5 games and pathetic 5 for 28 on 3s. Wow. Terrible. But he is pulling 6.4 RPG and 2.2 assists to 1.2 turnovers and let me do some quick math....
+5 W MIA
+9 W PHX
+2. L DEN
-9. L GSW
-3 W OKC
Barnes is a net +2 on the court playing 35 minutes per game even though his shooting has been crap. That tells you the other variables he brings to the table. When we almost beat the Nuggets, our three high volume shooters we not shooting well but we stayed in the game to the very end against one of the leagues best teams:
Buddy 9-23 FGs
Barnes 7-19 FGs
Boggy 5-13 FGs
The Kings of the past have been incapable of being competitive against the best teams unless firing on all cylinders offensively. We bend and break defensively when we are firing too many blanks. But we stayed in this game, despite our second half rebounding, due the affect of the defensive presence Barnes brought. Joerger has him averaging 35 MPG though he is not making shots. That is telling. Jackson and Shump were thirsty scorers. That dynamic was a little awkward with better options. Buddy at 24 PPG and Bagley at 17 PPG are having their best scoring months since their departure replaced with more deferential players including Burks. Barnes is trying to find his niche within this hierarchy. We need him to figure it out to earn a playoff seed. 35% FGs is not going to cut it. The revelation however is given his impact on D he does not have to be a highly efficient scorer to be highly effective overall. 53-55% TS% will be just fine, thank you.
Thats the thing with rookies. They do a lot of impressive stuff but also a lot of small mistakes that is hard to see while watching the game live. Small things like missing the defensive rotation and forcing additional help, not making the quick pass that would lead to that guy being able to score or assist, holding the ball too long, forcing the opponent wrong way on defense ect. Thats why its commonly known that rookies dont oftent contribute to winning.
Rpm is not a perfect metric but its reasonably good indicator wether the player contributes to winning or not. Saying that rpm isnt "worth more than toilet paper to whipe my butt" is pretty much just ignorance. RPM is a usefull tool amongst others, its not end all be all but its also not surprising that it doesnt look good for a rookie since rookies usually dont contribute to winning. That doesnt mean that the rookie is bad but it means that this rookie needs to learn more about Nba level game as does most rookies and most (good) rookies will do just that, learn and improve.
Rpm is not a perfect metric but its reasonably good indicator wether the player contributes to winning or not. Saying that rpm isnt "worth more than toilet paper to whipe my butt" is pretty much just ignorance. RPM is a usefull tool amongst others, its not end all be all but its also not surprising that it doesnt look good for a rookie since rookies usually dont contribute to winning. That doesnt mean that the rookie is bad but it means that this rookie needs to learn more about Nba level game as does most rookies and most (good) rookies will do just that, learn and improve.
Anyone who pays attention to schedules did not circle OKC as a game we were supposed to lose. Look at the road to beating the Spurs and this game was in the toss-up column. After OKC went to double over-time it moved to should win. Paul George went 4-19 in part because he played 50 minutes the night before.
But I agree we are all happy the Kings won one of the key 8 swing games they have to win. Monday is another one.
But I agree we are all happy the Kings won one of the key 8 swing games they have to win. Monday is another one.
Not sure how you can claim Bogi is a better defender than Beli.
https://stats.nba.com/players/defen...9&SeasonType=Regular Season&TeamID=1610612758
https://stats.nba.com/players/defen...9&SeasonType=Regular Season&TeamID=1610612758
Yeah, I think the problem is that @Gguod is citing stats that take the whole season into account. Which is fine. But Bagley has been getting much better! In fact, in 2019 so far, Bagley has the best net rating on the team, aside from Brewer's one appearance and Burks' 12 minutes/game.
Link: https://on.nba.com/2T9EQDn
Link: https://on.nba.com/2T9EQDn
If you notice that last night, when Paul George scored two quick baskets at the beginning of the game by just shooting over Bog's, Joerger took out Bog's, brought in Bagley and moved Barnes over to guard George. So I'm not sure what the problem is. He tried the lineup, which will likely work against some teams, but last night when it didn't work, he quickly adjusted. George scored 14 pt's on 19 shots, and five of those pts were on Bog's. Barnes has made a huge improvement in our Pick and roll defense, and frankly, Bjelica was downright terrible guarding the pick and roll.
I think it's fairly clear he is when watching the game. It's also hard to compare because of the players they tend to guard when out there and their respective defensive versatility. I do think Bjelica is underrated but it's also hard to judge a team like Sac that plays at the pace they do and is so inconsistent defensively along with the reliance on help from the wing that Joerger desires. The Kings are one of a few teams that has a negative net rating yet they are above .500. That screams inconsistency all the way. Advanced stat defensive ratings are iffy IMO anyway because it takes circumstance out of the picture and relies too heavily on accumulated stats. If person A is guarding someone that misses 8 wide open shots in a row and person B guards someone that makes 4 out of the 8 with a hand in there face I'm sorry, person A still isn't a better defender than B. If a player is blown by but their team runs a saggy help scheme, eh, not quite fair either. I can see the team being worse on both ends than they should be for a variety of reasons. For instance, they change their defensive stance a lot which is a lot to ask for a young team. They'll hedge on some pick and roll, switch on others, zone off of others. Most veteran teams stick to one style so it's a lot for a young team to take in.
Anyone that's familiar with me know's I'm not a stats guy. Don't get me wrong, I certainly take stats into consideration, but I tend to go more with what I consider factual stats, like points per game, rebounds per game etc. Nothing subjective there. Other stats, like defensive rating and offensive rating, while useful, are also team dependent. Similar to the plus/minus stat, which to me is one of the most worthless stats out there. For instance, there was a night many moons ago when DeMarcus Cousins scored something like 38 pts, grabbed 14 boards, had 10 assists in a loss, and he ended up with a -11. Really?
So if all I did was read that one stat, and not watch the game, I'd think he had a terrible game, when the opposite would be true. If all you needed to do to judge a player was to look up his stats, then why go scout college players prior to the draft. Just look at their stats and make you decision. How do you think that would work out for you. It wouldn't, because there are too many variables involved. The single most imported test is the eye test. Then go see if the stats back up what your seeing.
A players individual stats depend greatly on who he's playing with, especially on the defensive side of the ball. Go check how many times a player known as a good defender who has a defensive rating of lets say 101, will be traded to a bad defensive team, and suddenly he has a defensive rating of 111. Did he suddenly become a bad defender? No, of course not, but defensive ratings are about what the team as a whole accomplishes when he on the floor. If their bad, it's going to reflect badly on him.
Not surprisingly, Barnes defensive rating was better when he was on the Warriors, than when he was on the Mav's. I'm not trying to throw shade on advanced ratings. I, like you, read them and take them into consideration, but in context with everything else. Unfortunately there isn't a stat for effort or hustle. Sometimes the results will reflect that, but other times not. Anyway, I'm done venting. Just my worthless two cents.
So if all I did was read that one stat, and not watch the game, I'd think he had a terrible game, when the opposite would be true. If all you needed to do to judge a player was to look up his stats, then why go scout college players prior to the draft. Just look at their stats and make you decision. How do you think that would work out for you. It wouldn't, because there are too many variables involved. The single most imported test is the eye test. Then go see if the stats back up what your seeing.
A players individual stats depend greatly on who he's playing with, especially on the defensive side of the ball. Go check how many times a player known as a good defender who has a defensive rating of lets say 101, will be traded to a bad defensive team, and suddenly he has a defensive rating of 111. Did he suddenly become a bad defender? No, of course not, but defensive ratings are about what the team as a whole accomplishes when he on the floor. If their bad, it's going to reflect badly on him.
Not surprisingly, Barnes defensive rating was better when he was on the Warriors, than when he was on the Mav's. I'm not trying to throw shade on advanced ratings. I, like you, read them and take them into consideration, but in context with everything else. Unfortunately there isn't a stat for effort or hustle. Sometimes the results will reflect that, but other times not. Anyway, I'm done venting. Just my worthless two cents.
Not sure how much of it was reaction and how much was a preset rotation pattern. I said after the game with the Warriors that Bagley came in the game for Bogdan at around 6 minute mark pushing Barnes to SF in both 1st and 3rd quarters. This suggested that this is the pattern we will follow in the future, and the same happened in the OKC game. Now, all of this might be a coincidence but I think we will see Bagley in for Bogdan around 6 minute mark in the first quarter tomorrow. (Although this is Minnesota so Bjelica might get some play)
First I do think that Bog's is a pretty good defender, but sometimes he's stuck in a poor matchup. Like last night when he was asked to guard Paul George right out of the gate. And as I previously stated, it wasn't going to work. Just like asking Bog's to guard Durant wouldn't work. I agree that sometimes the Kings switch what their doing on defense, but it has more to do with matchups than youth.. Of course inexperience doesn't help, but hey, their learning on the fly, and I think their getting better.
I think eventually Bagley will become the starter at PF, and at that point, you'll start to see a more consistent defense with less interchanging of the parts. Barnes is a very smart defender, who understands all the defensive schemes, and our weak link on a regular basis, was Bjelica. So I get why Joerger wanted to replace Bjelica with Barnes. Some nights he'll be able to get away with it, other nights, probably not.
I think eventually Bagley will become the starter at PF, and at that point, you'll start to see a more consistent defense with less interchanging of the parts. Barnes is a very smart defender, who understands all the defensive schemes, and our weak link on a regular basis, was Bjelica. So I get why Joerger wanted to replace Bjelica with Barnes. Some nights he'll be able to get away with it, other nights, probably not.
I don't disagree. I think the plan was to bring Bagley in off the bench at around the 6 minute mark, as you stated. But last night he brought him in earlier because of the poor match up with George. Not sure Bjelica will get minutes simply because its Minny. I think Joerger is in the mind set of winning, and that every game is important. If Bjelica plays, it will be because Joerger believes he can help them win, not because of any sentimental reasons. If that's indeed what you were implying.
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