What is the #1 Need for the Kings?
- Thread starter Kingster
- Start date
Our #1 need is consolidated ownership. This seemingly constant churn appears to be the hallmark of unwieldy ownership arrangements. Who the heck was Brandon Williams, why was he here, and why did he seem to have so much control in the front office? That was a completely bizarre episode. By all accounts, he basically made the Bagley pick...what exactly was going on? This reminds me a lot of the Atlanta situation a few years back. Unfortunately, we are in the West, so we can't back our way into the playoffs every 5 or 6 years out of a simple law of averages. Vivek needs to consolidate ownership, or sell to someone who can. Everyone except Petrie has great things to say about Vivek, and yet our basketball operations are a non-stop swirl of disfunction since he bought the team. We're not getting the full story, but it sure looks like the result of fractured ownership. I think we are seeing the final phase of the relocation saga, and hastily configured buyout group, play out.
Discipline and fundamentals. Players and talent are there (although room for improvement).
I've been rewatching games from this season. The glaring fundamentals we are weak and lacking in include:
Boxing out
Setting screens
Staying in front of our man on defense
Those are basic things that our players are embarrassingly bad at. Especially for a professional team. If we could do those things consistently, we would easily be in the 8th spot right now, potentially higher.
I've been rewatching games from this season. The glaring fundamentals we are weak and lacking in include:
Boxing out
Setting screens
Staying in front of our man on defense
Those are basic things that our players are embarrassingly bad at. Especially for a professional team. If we could do those things consistently, we would easily be in the 8th spot right now, potentially higher.
While I agree to some extent in general, I don't like generalizing. It's too easy to throw everyone in the same pot. People think that setting a screen should be easy, but actually, it takes two to make it work. It's all about timing. There are times when a perfect screen is being set, but the user gets there too early, too late, or doesn't use it properly. Most of all, I think timing is the main factor, and that comes from playing together, which has been a problem for the Kings.
Then you have young players that were stars in high school and college, that weren't asked to set screens very often. That said, there are players like Len and Holmes, that do box out and do set good screens, and know when to roll to the basket. My biggest complaint is on the defensive side of the ball. It's easy to say that a player should be able to keep his man in front of him in space, but how many players in the NBA can keep Fox in front of them. It's team defense that wins games.
How many times does the help come too late when someone on the perimeter is beat, and it's going to happen. How do you defend, when you have a player that totally disregards where his man is. Something Buddy is prone to do over and over again. If one of the five players on the floor isn't attempting to do his job, it doesn't matter what the other four do. So I'm not disagreeing with you. I just don't like lumping everyone together. There needs to be more individual accountability.
Then you have young players that were stars in high school and college, that weren't asked to set screens very often. That said, there are players like Len and Holmes, that do box out and do set good screens, and know when to roll to the basket. My biggest complaint is on the defensive side of the ball. It's easy to say that a player should be able to keep his man in front of him in space, but how many players in the NBA can keep Fox in front of them. It's team defense that wins games.
How many times does the help come too late when someone on the perimeter is beat, and it's going to happen. How do you defend, when you have a player that totally disregards where his man is. Something Buddy is prone to do over and over again. If one of the five players on the floor isn't attempting to do his job, it doesn't matter what the other four do. So I'm not disagreeing with you. I just don't like lumping everyone together. There needs to be more individual accountability.
This makes way to much sense.... a lot invested in Bagley yet we don't know how his contribution might pan out.
What we seem to know is that Buddy has a lot of holes in his game. At least that's what I gather from many posters comments leading me to believe we need to invest in a more complete two guard or wing. It sounds like there are some interesting prospects in this draft which might be the best approach knowing all teams covet this type of player.
What we seem to know is that Buddy has a lot of holes in his game. At least that's what I gather from many posters comments leading me to believe we need to invest in a more complete two guard or wing. It sounds like there are some interesting prospects in this draft which might be the best approach knowing all teams covet this type of player.
I have been as critical of Buddy as anybody on this board (and a lot more than some). I think he really needs a certain type of coach/mentor who will show him how he can expand his skills and increase his value to the team. I often wonder if he truly understands that just being a shooter isn't good enough in today's NBA. He needs to get smarter BBIQ-wise. He needs to learn how to be valuable when his shot isn't falling.
So, I guess I'm saying maybe we need to augment our coaching staff with some kind of wizard who can get our players to dig deep and find ALL they're capable of being.
So, I guess I'm saying maybe we need to augment our coaching staff with some kind of wizard who can get our players to dig deep and find ALL they're capable of being.
I agree wholeheartedly. I think the #1 need on the team ultimately boils down to coaching and player development. Think of everything we've been mentioning recently:
BBIQ
Team Defense
Fundamentals
Intangibles
These are the things that coaches need to teach the players, but there has been little to no evidence that the players have really come along in those departments.
BBIQ
Team Defense
Fundamentals
Intangibles
These are the things that coaches need to teach the players, but there has been little to no evidence that the players have really come along in those departments.
Honestly, I think these things come from experience combined with consistency. The coaching and player development department gets turned over every couple of years on average going back 15 years, makes it difficult to achieve a lot of what the Kings are lacking. Always picking in the lottery and how contracts are structured these days contributes further to the difficulty
While I agree the Kings need development they also desperately need larger wing players that can swing between the 3 and 4. They basically have one player in Barnes. When you look at wing players between 6'6" and 6'9" the Kings have 4 players in Barnes, Parker, Bogdanovic and Justin James. And no way Bogi is 6'6". My son is 6'6" and met Bogi in New York and was easily 2 inches taller. Parker and James get no minutes.
By comparison Boston has 6 such players: Brown, Tatum, Hayward, Williams, Theis, and Ojele. They all get minutes
By comparison Boston has 6 such players: Brown, Tatum, Hayward, Williams, Theis, and Ojele. They all get minutes
Exactly you need multiple wings to be good like you said we only have one but I’d add Bogi in there as long as he’s playing SG. One way to do this is to target Philadelphia who’ll be all over Buddy and have bad contracts and are a win now team. A trade of Buddy/Bjlecia/Parker for Tobias Harris and Thybull gives us two wing players who can play 2-4 Thybull being an all world defender who could possibly make all nba defense as soon as this coming year. While Harris would provide us with scoring/shooting, Harris/Barnes would play interchangeable at SF/PF with Bogi instantly making us a good shooting team and great space for Fox to operate. This would make Bagley our first big off the bench playing center and getting 30mpg.
I know what you mean, but not sure it's fair to characterize Theis as a wing. And which Williams are you referring to?
The Rockets might be an even more extreme example, having abandoned any pretense of playing a big in order to start and play several switchable wings.
This ultimately gets back to the Bagley question, though. If you are willing to play Bagley major minutes at the 5, you should look to add another 3/4 type in place of a big. If you're playing Bagley mostly at the 4, though, and you're keeping Bjelica and also playing Barnes at the 4 some (as Walton was doing more and more as the season went on), are you ok with your wings being mostly of the 2/3 variety since there aren't minutes at the 4 anyway?
The Rockets might be an even more extreme example, having abandoned any pretense of playing a big in order to start and play several switchable wings.
This ultimately gets back to the Bagley question, though. If you are willing to play Bagley major minutes at the 5, you should look to add another 3/4 type in place of a big. If you're playing Bagley mostly at the 4, though, and you're keeping Bjelica and also playing Barnes at the 4 some (as Walton was doing more and more as the season went on), are you ok with your wings being mostly of the 2/3 variety since there aren't minutes at the 4 anyway?
Outside of finding a real #1 scoring threat, this is the most important factor by far in today's NBA and something we've largely ignored under the Vlade era. We've heavily invested in guards and bigs with Justin Jackson being the only possible wing to fit that criteria and then Barnes when the Jackson experiment failed.
We saw success at the end of the year because we committed to spacing out the 4 spot with Bjelica and Barnes taking a good chunk of the minutes and acquiring Bazemore put Buddy/Bogdan into more of a platoon rather than seeing them get minutes together. Len and Bazemore opened up the offensive hierarchy, added quality defense and gave Barnes the chance to play his more natural 4 spot.
Barnes from Feb 1 on (final 16 games):
14.8 PPG
4.7 RPG
3.3 APG
48% 3pt (4.3 attempts/game)
62.1% TS
9.9% TOV
16.7% USG
I mean, that's much closer to the guy we paid to be here. Effective shooting/scoring, doesn't turn the ball over, durable, plays decent defense.
I think Fox-Buddy-X-Barnes-Holmes needs to be the starting LU next year if we're trying to win games. The big issue with Bagley is he doesn't do anything better than other options on the team, so you'd be sacrificing team cohesion and wins to get him involved. I think you could take a lot of pressure off of him to live up being the #2 pick by putting him in a 22-25 MPG role and just letting him go get buckets against other 2nd units.
We saw success at the end of the year because we committed to spacing out the 4 spot with Bjelica and Barnes taking a good chunk of the minutes and acquiring Bazemore put Buddy/Bogdan into more of a platoon rather than seeing them get minutes together. Len and Bazemore opened up the offensive hierarchy, added quality defense and gave Barnes the chance to play his more natural 4 spot.
Barnes from Feb 1 on (final 16 games):
14.8 PPG
4.7 RPG
3.3 APG
48% 3pt (4.3 attempts/game)
62.1% TS
9.9% TOV
16.7% USG
I mean, that's much closer to the guy we paid to be here. Effective shooting/scoring, doesn't turn the ball over, durable, plays decent defense.
I think Fox-Buddy-X-Barnes-Holmes needs to be the starting LU next year if we're trying to win games. The big issue with Bagley is he doesn't do anything better than other options on the team, so you'd be sacrificing team cohesion and wins to get him involved. I think you could take a lot of pressure off of him to live up being the #2 pick by putting him in a 22-25 MPG role and just letting him go get buckets against other 2nd units.
Agreed on everything expect the fact that barnes goes on those runs that goes back to being barnes. For us to be a playoff team and be successful Harrison Barnes has to play PF or have a Barnes guy at SF. Bagley or a Bagley type guy isn’t gonna cut in in this era we need shooting and like you said that stretch showed it.