Better coaching.
We used schemes that did not align with the strengths of our players on both offense and defense. There was good improvement in our key players individually (Fox, Sabonis and Keegan) but the sum of the parts was lesser.
I think we will improve if we address most of the following problems.
Offense:
Lack of transition game and pace - for a team that lacks individual 1-on-1 creators, this is an easy way to create separation and get better shots. Drive and kick works better when the opposition is scrambling to get into position on defense. What's the point in having the fastest player in the league if we're not going to press that advantage? We got so out of practice that we regularly fluffed many fast break opportunities with numbers advantage by the end of the season.
Over-reliance on DHO action - as we failed to push the pace, we tried to create from the perimeter and wasted time and energy trying to juke out defenders in order to create separation. We traded the superior standstill threes for the less efficient movement threes.
Lack of variety in attack - we had a balanced attack last year, when we scored on all three levels as a team. Domas was effective in the paint, Fox killed in the midrange and our shooters excelled from the perimeter. This year, the shot chart changed with the team trying to play like the Warriors, who don't have a paint presence. We did not even know how to pass the ball to Sabonis when he had good position in the paint. We didn't exploit enough when HB had a mismatch on iso situations. We became a live by the three, die by the three team.
Lack of effective ATO plays - we can count on one hand the number of successful ATO (after timeout) plays in the entire season. Invariably, we fell back to making go Fox 1-on-5 as the go-to ATO play, when we needed a bucket. Every great team has signature plays that they run when they need a bucket. The Kings have none. There is no two-man game between Fox and Sabonis, where teams would be forced to pick their poison. Monk had better chemistry with Sabonis than Fox. In general, we need more set plays rather than asking the team to figure out things based on what the defense gives us. We have to force the defense to adjust to us.
Lack of bench development - we played the regular season like the playoffs and missed the playoffs. We don't have a bench that has played many years together. This is just Year 2 and we have lost TD, Metu, and Queta. We added Sasha and McGee. Instead on building on the chemistry with Len, we prioritized McGee in a repeat of the KZ Okpala experiment. Our bench players needed consistent playing time to build more chemistry with each other. Instead we were pulling players like a playoff rotation at the start of the regular season. The rotations typically tighten after the ASB, when we had enough time to evaluate the bench.
Lack of self awareness - for the most part of the season, the Kings were delusional about their offense and claimed that they can score with anyone. In fact, we regressed when the rest of the league improved. The rising tide did not lift our boat.
Defense:
Switch at all costs scheme - for a team that lacks length, this is not a viable scheme as the opposition got favorable switches and attacked the middle easily. As we don't have a shot blocker, our defenders had to shrink to the paint to cover and give up the open corner threes. Spraying more threes was a good option for our opponents. For the most part of the season, we didn't know when to play man and when to switch. Only after Brown was forced to play Keon after Kevin went down, that we had a defensive player that can make schemes work.
How to stop a run - when teams go on a run, we invariably substituted players for more offense. We did not try to add more defense to disrupt our opponents offense. It might work better to improve our point of attack defense and get the ball out of the hot hand rather than trying to trade points.
Defense is more of a roster construction issue than a coaching issue. I'm not sure how much we can improve that with internal growth. Monte knew that we lacked an interior defensive presence to support Sabonis and we didn't do anything about it.
