Keegan Murray

Plus Holmes operates best where Domas is anchored. Have you seen a push shot from him from an area of the court that is not in the paint area, near the free throw line? It's not going to work unless Domas' improves his outside shooting and camps out on the perimeter or Holmes morphs into something that he's not.
Not to mention it leaves either Richaun or Domas guarding an opposing wing on the other end.

If Holmes is still on this roster to start the season I think other than for very, very short stretches against specific matchups you won't see him share the court with Sabonis. He'll be a backup, energy big and spot starter when/if Sabonis misses games. He's been very good in that role in the past, but ideally you'd see him packaged with Barnes for some wing help rather than keep him as a luxury off the bench and risk losing HB for nothing next offseason.
 
Kings Fans in July: I'm so excited for Mike Brown and his defence!

Kings Fans in November: Why is that MFer playing Holmes and Sabonis? I've had it with this franchise!

I don't think it's a terrible defensive pairing for short spurts and some situations. Holmes is pretty mobile. Not offensively though.
Yeah Holmes is actually a real solid perimeter defender. He just doesn't have much impact in the paint other than not totally missing assignments.
 
Let's say that Barnes is a King when the season begins. When I search my memory bank on him I recall very few situations where he is running hard off of screens, catching, and then shooting quickly. Mostly he was standing around waiting to get the ball, at which point he'd take the outside shot or do his slow-mo-euro step to the basket. Did multiple Kings' head coaches not have him do the former because that's not his game, or was that not his game because they didn't ask it of him? I don't know the answer to the question, but it's just one more thing I'll be looking at closely. I see Barnes's value go down in a Warriors-type offense if he can't run off those screens and catch and shoot (or pass). Lastly, even if Barnes fits well in the offense, as I've said before my biggest concern is having him and Murray and Sabonis on the back line defensively.
You should go back to after the Sabonis trade and watch Barnes in the small sample size we saw before tanking commenced, he's very subtle about it but he knows how to play in this system. He was the first one to start playing off of him immediately. Also, spreading away from the ball is pretty much what you're going to see from someone playing stretch 4/3. We'll probably see a ton of that from Murray as well. As for defense, well, this team is what it is. I don't think there's anything about any of Barnes, Murray, Huerter, or Sabonis that says this can't be a decent defensive team. It will mostly come down to how precise they are offensively and if they commit to using the size they absolutely do have to switch. They now have a team size wise that should be able to. This possible starting unit is every bit as big as the modern switch teams with no player under 6'3" or whatever Fox is.

 
Yeah Holmes is actually a real solid perimeter defender. He just doesn't have much impact in the paint other than not totally missing assignments.
If the Kings screw this up by putting out a frontline that is clearly totally incapable of fitting the modern game then something as seemingly unimportant as that could send this team right into the purgatory they're staring at if this doesn't work out. We saw a little hint of Sabonis and Holmes together and it was AWFUL. It looked as awful on the floor as it did on paper. Now, maybe Brown's system could make it work, but if they move Sabonis out to the 3 so Holmes can operate in the paint, might as well start prepping for Sabonis' exit in a few years lol. If the easy path and obvious starting unit or rotation doesn't work out then start experimenting. I really don't think this team can afford to do much of that early. Especially with how tough the west could be this season. If Monte could have somehow nabbed Grant from Detroit in a move back it would have left a hole open with the Blazers but now, they make that window a little tighter since they should be improved.
 
You should go back to after the Sabonis trade and watch Barnes in the small sample size we saw before tanking commenced, he's very subtle about it but he knows how to play in this system. He was the first one to start playing off of him immediately. Also, spreading away from the ball is pretty much what you're going to see from someone playing stretch 4/3. We'll probably see a ton of that from Murray as well. As for defense, well, this team is what it is. I don't think there's anything about any of Barnes, Murray, Huerter, or Sabonis that says this can't be a decent defensive team. It will mostly come down to how precise they are offensively and if they commit to using the size they absolutely do have to switch. They now have a team size wise that should be able to. This possible starting unit is every bit as big as the modern switch teams with no player under 6'3" or whatever Fox is.

Forgot about the game. That team looked decent. What happened to that team?
 
Forgot about the game. That team looked decent. What happened to that team?
They saw the play in slipping away, and effectively raised the white flag before getting lucky in the lotto, haha. If that trade happened like a few weeks earlier I think they would have had a much better shot.
 
If the Kings screw this up by putting out a frontline that is clearly totally incapable of fitting the modern game then something as seemingly unimportant as that could send this team right into the purgatory they're staring at if this doesn't work out. We saw a little hint of Sabonis and Holmes together and it was AWFUL. It looked as awful on the floor as it did on paper. Now, maybe Brown's system could make it work, but if they move Sabonis out to the 3 so Holmes can operate in the paint, might as well start prepping for Sabonis' exit in a few years lol. If the easy path and obvious starting unit or rotation doesn't work out then start experimenting. I really don't think this team can afford to do much of that early. Especially with how tough the west could be this season. If Monte could have somehow nabbed Grant from Detroit in a move back it would have left a hole open with the Blazers but now, they make that window a little tighter since they should be improved.
Everything about Holmes was awful past the midpoint of the season. Between the eye pokes and the kid stuff, let's just give him a pass. I don't think he's the answer by any stretch, in fact I hope we trade him mid-season and he goes somewhere he can flourish and we get a true 3 back in return. But I think we need to just wash 2022 Holmes away at least until we see him after some time off and apparently with his son back in his care.
 
Everything about Holmes was awful past the midpoint of the season. Between the eye pokes and the kid stuff, let's just give him a pass. I don't think he's the answer by any stretch, in fact I hope we trade him mid-season and he goes somewhere he can flourish and we get a true 3 back in return. But I think we need to just wash 2022 Holmes away at least until we see him after some time off and apparently with his son back in his care.
Yeah he was arguably the Kings best player the previous 2 seasons and was on track to be even better those first 20 games. He has a long track-record of being awesome.

Also, I think people are misconstruing what we're saying. It's not "Let's start Holmes". Basically everyone thinks thats a bad idea. But 5-6 min a game with Sabonis? I don't think that's bad. Good coaches find a way to get their best players to work together.
 
Now I'm hearing on ESPN radio about Holmes playing the 4 with Sabonis?!? :D Makes absolutely no sense, but that would be par for the course. I'm hoping this "floater" is due to the Kings' management trying to leverage the value of Holmes for a trade, not from any serious consideration.
Before we panic, who is saying this? Is it a national person or local? Is it someone who talked to Brown? Or is this just someone hypothesizing about what we should do. And also, is it a suggestion they will start and play 20 minutes per game together, or that they might play together here or there, for a few minutes?
 
If the Kings screw this up by putting out a frontline that is clearly totally incapable of fitting the modern game then something as seemingly unimportant as that could send this team right into the purgatory they're staring at if this doesn't work out. We saw a little hint of Sabonis and Holmes together and it was AWFUL. It looked as awful on the floor as it did on paper. Now, maybe Brown's system could make it work, but if they move Sabonis out to the 3 so Holmes can operate in the paint, might as well start prepping for Sabonis' exit in a few years lol. If the easy path and obvious starting unit or rotation doesn't work out then start experimenting. I really don't think this team can afford to do much of that early. Especially with how tough the west could be this season. If Monte could have somehow nabbed Grant from Detroit in a move back it would have left a hole open with the Blazers but now, they make that window a little tighter since they should be improved.
I don't think they'll pair them up much but I don't know if it'll sink the team if they play a few minutes per game together.

Holmes on the court in general the second half of the season was awful. He was an absolute shell of what he had been before the injuries and off court stuff was happening. I don't think the pairing will work very often but I don't know if Holmes playing one of the worst stretches of his career is good enough to base a final opinion on either.
 
Yeah he was arguably the Kings best player the previous 2 seasons and was on track to be even better those first 20 games. He has a long track-record of being awesome.

Also, I think people are misconstruing what we're saying. It's not "Let's start Holmes". Basically everyone thinks thats a bad idea. But 5-6 min a game with Sabonis? I don't think that's bad. Good coaches find a way to get their best players to work together.
This! Let’s all take a breath here haha
 
Before we panic, who is saying this? Is it a national person or local? Is it someone who talked to Brown? Or is this just someone hypothesizing about what we should do. And also, is it a suggestion they will start and play 20 minutes per game together, or that they might play together here or there, for a few minutes?
I wouldn't pay much attention to the media that thinks Buddy is still in Sacramento.
 
Keegan is so boring that we have to drum up some inane controversy to keep the thread going.

The opposing teams are going to have a tough time coming up with bulletin board material against Keegan.
Keegan on Lebron -“Yeh he is a pretty good player out of the Midwest. Plays the right way and is always trying to get better”
 

Kingster

Hall of Famer
Yeah he was arguably the Kings best player the previous 2 seasons and was on track to be even better those first 20 games. He has a long track-record of being awesome.

Also, I think people are misconstruing what we're saying. It's not "Let's start Holmes". Basically everyone thinks thats a bad idea. But 5-6 min a game with Sabonis? I don't think that's bad. Good coaches find a way to get their best players to work together.
Yeah, who is going to argue about 5-6 minutes/game? I'm not. This sub-thread got started because of what was said on ESPN radio about multiple sources saying that Holmes was going to start, which implies a lot more than 5-6 minutes. Hopefully, it's just BS. If they said it was one source I wouldn't even have brought it up, but they mentioned three sources. Hence, my angst.
 
Yeah, who is going to argue about 5-6 minutes/game? I'm not. This sub-thread got started because of what was said on ESPN radio about multiple sources saying that Holmes was going to start, which implies a lot more than 5-6 minutes. Hopefully, it's just BS. If they said it was one source I wouldn't even have brought it up, but they mentioned three sources. Hence, my angst.
Seems awfully early to set a starting lineup.
 

Capt. Factorial

trifolium contra tempestatem subrigere certum est
Staff member
he is largely projected to go in the mid first but I expect him to have a huge year at Iowa. He plays more on the perimeter than Keegan did although that may change next year
Keegan was showing out just a bit in limited minutes in his freshman year - I remember seeing him while watching Garza and thinking "watch this kid next year". Kris gave me the same vibe this year, so it will be extremely interesting to follow up on him next year. Thank goodness for the Big10 Channel!

BTW - another kid that notably gave me that same vibe during his freshman year? Tyrese Haliburton. Not saying, just saying.