To tank or not?

[Gguod]

The headline is a bit aggressive but to me its an important question for this franchise. Should we either just aim to win the maximum amount of games that we can or focus on developing young players and improving our odds for the draft? Someone could say that its the idea of this sport to win as many games as you can but actually its not that simple. There are two important points included in that strategy of winning as much as you can: 1) If the team isnt good enough to actually compete, its just going to play itself out of the situation to draft a star level player. 2) Being in a win now mode means that young guys wont get the valuable playing time they need for their developement. If the argument about Bagley being a net negative player still is that despite of this being his third year, he hasnt played that many games, well then should we give our young guys these minutes since they are pretty valuable?

Is this team a solid role playing piece away from being a competitive team? To me the answer is no. Currently we are playing a 9 man rotation like its the playoffs and the rotation is currently: Fox, Hield, Barnes, Bagley, Holmes, Haliburton, GRIII, Whiteside/Metu, Joseph. Who would you replace with a player that is a)available for us and b) that would put this team from bottom 10 to top 10? Replacing CoJo with a slightly better backup pg wont make us a serious playoff force. It will come down on wether we get a star level player or not.

To me winning 20 games or 35 is basically the same. Either way the team has never really been competitive even if the 20win team would've been boosted by some solid vets to bring the W total to 30+. What I care about is being a competitive team. If this team thinks there are one ore two possible star level players in the draft with Cade, then in my honest opinion this team should be doing everything they can to secure one of those guys with star potential: AKA trading/releasing/not playing vets and letting young guys get their experience as long as they play hard.

If you wont adapt you will stay stagnant. If year after year we reach for that .400 win record then yeah thats the result. There are othet franchises that does that and basically its one thing in common on these teams that are bad year afrer year. I'm also very interested to hear opinions different from me about why should we aim for that 9th seed in the lottery

 

[kingsboi]

I don't think the Kings need to tank if they let their core players get the majority of the minutes. Let them fail by trial and error and watch them blossom as the season goes on. In the meantime, if the Kings can position themselves to be in the top 8 come lottery time and with this being a deeper draft according to experts on this forum and around other sites, then the Kings will be in a promising position should they draft another stud in the 2021 draft.

 

[Gguod]

I don't think the Kings need to tank if they let their core players get the majority of the minutes. Let them fail by trial and error and watch them blossom as the season goes on. In the meantime, if the Kings can position themselves to be in the top 8 come lottery time and with this being a deeper draft according to experts on this forum and around other sites, then the Kings will be in a promising position should they draft another stud in the 2021 draft.

Who would you think of as our "core players"? Out of our 9 man rotation right now how many of them are our core and how many of our possible core are getting 0 minutes right now? For me: I would be very happy if we played Woodard, Jeffries, Ramsey ect and shipped out all the vets that arent parr of our core long term and that could net us any future assets. Then win as many games as you will, as long as those wins wont come because of short term replecable vets.

Statistically in an average draft the difference of an outcome with1st compared to 4th-8th pick is huge. Thats why I'm personally not at all comfortable to suck another year and then add the 6th-8th pick and suck again and repeat.

 

[ESP47]

Tank via development. Chucking a bunch of young guys out there together doesn't help them as much on the development side as sprinkling them in with the rotational players would. They should be easing the young guys in to see what they've got. Get Guy or Ramsey some minutes with Haliburton and Barnes. Woodard some minutes with Fox and Holmes. Shoot for a top 3 pick while developing your young talent. That way if you land a top prospect, you can try to hit the ground running like Ja Morant did instead of wasting more time for the rest of the guys to develop since they never got to develop when the season was lost anyway.

 

[kingsboi]

Who would you think of as our "core players"? Out of our 9 man rotation right now how many of them are our core and how many of our possible core are getting 0 minutes right now? For me: I would be very happy if we played Woodard, Jeffries, Ramsey ect and shipped out all the vets that arent parr of our core long term and that could net us any future assets. Then win as many games as you will, as long as those wins wont come because of short term replecable vets.

Statistically in an average draft the difference of an outcome with1st compared to 4th-8th pick is huge. Thats why I'm personally not at all comfortable to suck another year and then add the 6th-8th pick and suck again and repeat.

Fox, Bagley, Hali and possibly Holmes. Woodard and Ramsey are not quite ready to play right now so let them learn from the bench and soak it all in. If the G League were going on the Kings could of sent them down there to get playing time like they did with Kyle Guy. As far as Jeffries, he has been injured from the start of the season otherwise he would of been playing spot minutes. If the Kings hit on that 6-8th pick then they don't have to worry about repeating the process.

 

[Turgenev]

As the team seems to be playing to win, but not winning, and as our young guys are playing a decent amount and showing improvement, I don't feel there is that much difference between trying to win as many games as we can now, developing our key guys, and tanking. I guess there is an argument they could go more 'all in', but think there does need to be some balance.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

I agree team needs to be in development mode. As for who is "core" or how do we divide minutes, it's simple to me:
If we have the player on an expiring deal, they should only be playing if it is to directly impact/mentor another young player on a long term deal.

Is CoJo required to get Haliburton 100% (probably not). Limit him to only giving Fox a breather, if Buddy and Tyrese aren't sharing the back court. Ship him if Walton insists on overusing him.

Do this same type of evaluation with everyone on an expiring especially if they are getting in the way of a talent we drafted in the last two years.

 

[steelevt]

I keep seeing Ramsey and woodard’s name as people we need to play, yet every time I see them get minutes they look pretty bad or C at best unimpressive. The only players that look decent is metu and guy (in preseason). I think we need to develop our young guys but that doesn’t mean throw them to the wolves when they’re not ready. In some cases that actually could hurt their development.

 

[Iced Espresso]

I keep seeing Ramsey and woodard’s name as people we need to play, yet every time I see them get minutes they look pretty bad or C at best unimpressive. The only players that look decent is metu and guy (in preseason). I think we need to develop our young guys but that doesn’t mean throw them to the wolves when they’re not ready. In some cases that actually could hurt their development.

I don't see any benefit now that we are pretty much obviously not going to make the playoffs to play Cojo or GR3, so I think it annoys people they don't play the new prospects more. They get destroyed oh well...at least you take a gander.

We have 3 seconds next year + guy and JJ

If you're not going to play them now, when?

 

[Vinny Basketballerino]

Tank via development. Chucking a bunch of young guys out there together doesn't help them as much on the development side as sprinkling them in with the rotational players would. They should be easing the young guys in to see what they've got. Get Guy or Ramsey some minutes with Haliburton and Barnes. Woodard some minutes with Fox and Holmes. Shoot for a top 3 pick while developing your young talent. That way if you land a top prospect, you can try to hit the ground running like Ja Morant did instead of wasting more time for the rest of the guys to develop since they never got to develop when the season was lost anyway.

This. Like literally every other good team that had talent but wasn't good yet. It's the biggest no brainer move to develop a team but this org seems allergic to it. They don't seem to get that fans would still come to games to see the young kids give it a go and be prioritized. That, or vets agents are putting pressure. Both cases are an indication of weak leadership, and that's really what has plagued the org for so long. It's really simple. Not an Indian Burial Ground curse. Weak leadership. Chronically.

 

[Gguod]

If the Kings hit on that 6-8th pick then they don't have to worry about repeating the process.

Thats a huge if and my point exactly. Statistically its very rare to draft an all star caliber player with 6th or worse pick. Thats one reason the Kings have been bad for so long.

I would also like to trade or release some vets, not only because they give us unneccesary wins and prevent young players from getting experience, but because we could also get roster spots that way. Those could be used to search for a cheap talent from g-league ect. Rotate guys at the bottom of your roster and try to identify diamonds in the rough and tie them up to team friendly contracts.

 

[kb02]

Tank. Top 5 for a star.

 

[SwipaTical]

Tank for kuminga. Trade the vets. Play the youth.

 

[funkykingston]

I think Buddy's shooting woes are both helping and hurting the tank efforts.

Through 16 games Buddy has the worst FG% of his career (37.0%) and his second lowest 3P% at 37.5%

I'm sure the hope was that Buddy would start the season hot and improve his trade value. At this point Tyrese is clearly outplaying him since Buddy's one elite skill seems to have abandoned him.

If Buddy had started this season having a career year, the Kinga likely would have won a couple more games but they'd also have a trade chip to add future assets.

Now? They'd likely have to add sweeteners just to get a team to take on Buddy's contract. It's a bad place to be for a team with few assets that's trying to build around Fox.

What's this team's core? Fox & Haliburton. That's it.

So far things haven't clicked for Bagley and they may not ever. Everybody else is a role player. I like Holmes and Barnes is having a very strong start to the season, but they aren't building blocks. Holmes is maybe closer to being one, but he's also a FA after this season.

This is not a team with a bright future unless they can add one more major piece, and for Sacramento the clearest path is through the draft.

Cunningham looks as advertised, Kuminga generated some buzz in the Ignite's two scrimmages and Mobley looks like an ideal new age big man. Maybe the Kings grab Ziaire Williams and start cornering the market on skinny 2 way wings with great feel for the game. Or maybe Jalen Johnson stays healthy, and starts dominating games consistently.

There are a number of guys in this draft that could possibly be the star the Kinga need to actually have a true "core" moving forward. Because they don't have enough of one now.

 

[King Baller]

What teams out there are going to trade for the Kings Vets? Holmes is a defensive force on a good contract. He is a very average starter but a good energizer off the bench so a team may trade for him. Barnes has had a great year and teams would want him but they have to find a way to fit his contract in their teams salary structure. Same salary challenge with Buddy who is having a shooting slump. Cojo is a fair backup at the point but has a large salary for that role. Bjelly is a nice trade chip who I can see fitting in on a lot of teams. Parker is probably not in high demand. Whiteside signed for the minimum so he must not have had many calls.

So Bjelly and Holmes seem to be the easiest to trade for value IMO. Barnes, Buddy and Cojo have big salaries and I see the Kings needing certain situations to arise where a team needs one of these guys and makes a deal that fits their salary structure. Whiteside is a wild card. If a team needs him they may be willing to take on more salary to make it work. Parker is probably going to be filler in a trade.

So unless the Kings want to take on a bad contract they must be patient IMO. McNair seems like he will be.

 

[iowamcnabb]

I think Buddy's shooting woes are both helping and hurting the tank efforts.

Through 16 games Buddy has the worst FG% of his career (37.0%) and his second lowest 3P% at 37.5%

I'm sure the hope was that Buddy would start the season hot and improve his trade value. At this point Tyrese is clearly outplaying him since Buddy's one elite skill seems to have abandoned him.

If Buddy had started this season having a career year, the Kinga likely would have won a couple more games but they'd also have a trade chip to add future assets.

Now? They'd likely have to add sweeteners just to get a team to take on Buddy's contract. It's a bad place to be for a team with few assets that's trying to build around Fox.

What's this team's core? Fox & Haliburton. That's it.

So far things haven't clicked for Bagley and they may not ever. Everybody else is a role player. I like Holmes and Barnes is having a very strong start to the season, but they aren't building blocks. Holmes is maybe closer to being one, but he's also a FA after this season.

This is not a team with a bright future unless they can add one more major piece, and for Sacramento the clearest path is through the draft.

Cunningham looks as advertised, Kuminga generated some buzz in the Ignite's two scrimmages and Mobley looks like an ideal new age big man. Maybe the Kings grab Ziaire Williams and start cornering the market on skinny 2 way wings with great feel for the game. Or maybe Jalen Johnson stays healthy, and starts dominating games consistently.

There are a number of guys in this draft that could possibly be the star the Kinga need to actually have a true "core" moving forward. Because they don't have enough of one now.

If we land a top 8 pick in this draft, I also look to trade for an established player. The two that come to mind are Julius Randle and Nikola Vucevic.
I would trade any or all of Barnes, Bagley and Buddy for either of those players. I would imagine we would need to throw in a future draft pic.

Fox
Haliburton
Stud wing from '21 draft
Randle
Holmes

Or
Fox
Haliburton
Stud wing from '21 draft
Free agent forward
Vucevic

Both of these lineups have 2 all star level players, a high level glue guy on the rise and a young wing. I then add Frank Ntilikina as our third guard.

 

[ppine]

The dumbest question in sports.
"Show me a good loser, and I will show you a real loser."
I think the line was attributed to Bobby Knight while at Indiana.

 

[kingsboi]

Thats a huge if and my point exactly. Statistically its very rare to draft an all star caliber player with 6th or worse pick. Thats one reason the Kings have been bad for so long.

I would also like to trade or release some vets, not only because they give us unneccesary wins and prevent young players from getting experience, but because we could also get roster spots that way. Those could be used to search for a cheap talent from g-league ect. Rotate guys at the bottom of your roster and try to identify diamonds in the rough and tie them up to team friendly contracts.

Monte was hired not that long ago so I think he deserves some patience to construct his roster and find his own head coach. I know that word is hard to fathom considering that after this season the Kings will be in the NBA record books in terms of longest Playoff droughts but we have no other choice but to be patient and wait it out and hope that he knows how to build a winner.

 

[steelevt]

I don't see any benefit now that we are pretty much obviously not going to make the playoffs to play Cojo or GR3, so I think it annoys people they don't play the new prospects more. They get destroyed oh well...at least you take a gander.

We have 3 seconds next year + guy and JJ

If you're not going to play them now, when?

Apparently they aren’t ready now. Maybe play them next year after a full season of practice since there is no g league. Give cojo’s minutes to ty and guy who seemed more ready than Ramsey. Maybe gr3 was signed to audition for a contract for us, at 27 he isn’t over the hill. Maybe the 2nd round rookies just aren’t ready. Maybe they’re lost even in practice. It’s not like no young guys are playing. Maybe Luke is playing who deserves it like ty and metu. I’d rather see more minutes for ty, metu and bagley vs Ramsey and Woodard right now. After trade deadline or once we’re mathematically eliminated then fine.

 

[iowamcnabb]

Apparently they aren’t ready now. Maybe play them next year after a full season of practice since there is no g league. Give cojo’s minutes to ty and guy who seemed more ready than Ramsey. Maybe gr3 was signed to audition for a contract for us, at 27 he isn’t over the hill. Maybe the 2nd round rookies just aren’t ready. Maybe they’re lost even in practice. It’s not like no young guys are playing. Maybe Luke is playing who deserves it like ty and metu. I’d rather see more minutes for ty, metu and bagley vs Ramsey and Woodard right now. After trade deadline or once we’re mathematically eliminated then fine.

I actually think GR3 has played really well. I didn't like what I saw in preseason but he has made some shots for us. I would like us to resign holmes and eventually bring him off the bench long term. A Holmes GR3 Frank Ntilikina Ramsey ____ bench would be pretty solid.

 

[Albatros]

The talent will decide where we end up.

 

[funkykingston]

I'm still bullish on the long term potential of Jahmi'us Ramsey and Woodard to at least be contributing role players. It's worth noting that Ramsey was one of the youngest prospects in this draft.

 

[206Fan]

Are people aware that the lottery odds have changed to where there's no guarantee with tanking anymore? The #1 worst team has the best odds at getting the #5 pick (47.9) over the others. Just look for yourself:
http://www.tankathon.com/pick_odds

The most any team has at the #1 pick is 14%.

 

[206Fan]

As someone who advocated for tanking under the old lottery rules, there's almost no point under the reformed lottery. There are no guarantees nor safety net. We picked at #12 and ended up with Haliburton who looks like a potential top 5 player from this draft. Good scouting means a lot more than draft position or else you end up with Bagley at #2 again.

Who are the players you guys are targeting? Cunningham is a lock for the #1. I personally like Evan Mobley. Something I've always mentioned with Fox is that he's a ball dominant guard who needs the ball in his hands to be at his best. If you think we have a future in Tyrese at SG, I don't think you can afford to draft another guard without completely taking away from Fox's play. Especially if you want Fox as your franchise featured player. I think we've invested ourselves in Fox way too much, NOT to consider the fit around him.

A lot of fans are going to miss Hield's 3pt shooting when we inevitably trade him.

 

[ppine]

KIngsboi,
Explain an "unnecessary win."

 

[The_Jamal]

Tank via development. Chucking a bunch of young guys out there together doesn't help them as much on the development side as sprinkling them in with the rotational players would. They should be easing the young guys in to see what they've got. Get Guy or Ramsey some minutes with Haliburton and Barnes. Woodard some minutes with Fox and Holmes. Shoot for a top 3 pick while developing your young talent. That way if you land a top prospect, you can try to hit the ground running like Ja Morant did instead of wasting more time for the rest of the guys to develop since they never got to develop when the season was lost anyway.

Yep exactly. There's a massive difference getting the 10th pick developing Guy, Woodard, Metu, Ramsey off the bench and Fox/Hali leading the team with 35+ minutes, Bagley consistently getting 30+ minutes+crunch time run over what we're currently doing with Buddy,Whiteside,GRIII, CoJo and Bjelica at the beginning of the year.

 

[kingsboi]

KIngsboi,
Explain an "unnecessary win."

Not quite sure what you are referring to. Is there a particular comment that I mentioned the words "unnecessary win"?

 

[Gguod]

KIngsboi,
Explain an "unnecessary win."

Not quite sure what you are referring to. Is there a particular comment that I mentioned the words "unnecessary win"?

I said that and to me it means wins that bring you from ~23wins to ~33wins (in a 82 game season) if those additional wins are achieved via veteran players that either arent a part of the future core or that are overpaid role players (that you could get in any free agency if you splash that 20+mil/year offer). The term unnecessary to me is because a) you lose extremely valuable draft position by doing so and b)opportunity cost of those vets salary and roster spots. Thats my opinion and I'm very interested to hear the argument for aiming to be realistically a 9th-13th seed team by playing a tight 9 man rotation consisting of mostly vets.

Are people aware that the lottery odds have changed to where there's no guarantee with tanking anymore? The #1 worst team has the best odds at getting the #5 pick (47.9) over the others. Just look for yourself:
http://www.tankathon.com/pick_odds

The most any team has at the #1 pick is 14%.

There is still a huge difference with entering the lottery as the 1st team or as the 9th team. Its still soley about numbers and probabilities. As a 1st seed in the lottery you are guaranteed a top 5 pick. Top 3 seeds have a 52% probablity to pick in the top 4.

If you enter the lottery as a 9th seed, your odds for the 1st pick are three times worse than they would be for the top 3 teams. Your probablity in drafting top 4 would go down from 52,1% to 20,2%. Your odds of drafting top 3 would go down from 40,1% to 14,5%.

To me there is a huge difference in those numbers especially when its statistically proven that finding all stars is rare after the premium picks in the draft and statistically the expected outcome is getting worse the lower you get. Us getting Haliburton at 12 doesnt prove that its the expected/probable outcome at that slot anymore than getting Bagley at 2 doesnt prove that thats the expected outcome. All of these are all included in the numbers and the numbers are very clear. I've posted some of these statistical researches about draft position in here so I'm not gonna dig em up right now unless someone is very interested in them but my point stays the same: its unneccesary to get your team from 3rd worst to 9th worst by playing vets. IMO you have only lose in that situation.

 

[funkykingston]

The 4th worst team (by record) has a 48% chance at a top 4 pick and a 12.5% chance at the #1 pick.

The 10th worst team has a 10.3% chance at a top 4 pick and. 2.2% chance at #1 overall.

I like that the NBA has tweaked the lottery odds but the Kings are still much better off being in the #4 slot (they are a half game behind/ahead of New Orleans for that spot now) than at #10.

In full disclosure, when the Kings got off to a fast start I was all in favor of them fighting for a playoff spot.

Buddy has a career year, Fox continues his upward ascent, Bagley becomes a force, Barnes and Holmes are great role players, Haliburton is a super sub, and Whiteside anchors the second unit defense.

Unfortunately a few of those things went badly, particularly Hield and Bagley. And overall this team is just too soft defensively. So barring a huge turnaround the playoffs aren't likely. If that's the case I'd rather see them finish with a top 4 worst record than 10-12 or so.

 

[funkykingston]

A lot of fans are going to miss Hield's 3pt shooting when we inevitably trade him.

I'm missing Hield's 3pt shooting right now. . .