Edit -- Sorry folks, to try to avoid any copyright problems I had to go through and hack the crap out of a very thorough article. Tried to capture most of the flavor, but a lot of the reasoning has unfortunately been lost to the ...s. --brick
Sez Hollinger: "The most likely scenario is that they limp home a couple games short of .500, and a couple games short of a playoff spot."
Truthful - but nonetheless painful - look at our favorite team. I think he overstates the age issue a bit, but otherwise, I don't have many arguments with this. Our biggest strength is ballhandling? Geez.
http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=2597728&type=story
Hollinger's Team Forecast: Sacramento Kings
By John Hollinger
ESPN Insider
The uniforms were the same, but by the end of 2005-06 you'd have hardly recognized these Sacramento Kings. In a 12-month span the club changed out three-quarters of its roster...(cont.)
Artest immediately paid dividends, helping the Kings tidy up their defense....(cont.)
That said, the win-loss record exaggerates the extent of the improvement....(cont.)
[FONT=Arial,Hevetica,sans-serif]OFFSEASON MOVES[/FONT]
Kings GM Geoff Petrie has thrived over the past decade by staying a step ahead of the competition. This summer wasn't one of his better ones, though, with the lone major personnel move likely leaving the team much worse off.
• Fired Rick Adelman, hired Eric Musselman. After nine years in Sacramento, it wasn't easy to part with Adelman. One of the more underrated coaches of the past two decades, he's taken a lot of heat for his team's playoff failures. But few coaches have been better at maintaining cohesion, or picking out his seven guys at the start of the season and sticking to that rotation all season. One could argue his message was getting stale, but how stale could it have been to the 10 new players on the roster? It seems the real problem was that the owners were tired of the coach, not the players.
Fortunately, Adelman's replacement is a solid choice....(cont.)
• Signed John Salmons, let Wells leave. Letting Wells go was the easy part....I know he and Musselman are tight, but isn't having Wells and Artest in the same clubhouse a bit like lighting a cigarette at a gas station?
However, the decision to go after Salmons looks fishy. The Kings gave a five-year, $25 million deal to a guy whose production in Philadelphia was positively piddling....(cont.)
• Signed Loren Woods. ...The competition between him and Vitaly Potapenko for the backup center job promises to be the NBA's least-exciting training camp battle.
• Drafted Quincy Douby. A late first-round pick, Douby is another guy who probably will have to play right away because the Kings are so thin. He's a shoot-first, Eddie House type who will play both guard spots...(cont.)
[FONT=Arial,Hevetica,sans-serif]BIGGEST STRENGTH[/FONT] [FONT=verdana, arial, geneva]Mike Bibby helps the Kings keep a good handle on the ball.[/FONT]
Ballhandling. This always has been a Kings' strength and should again this year. From top to bottom, nearly every important player on this team is an above-average dribbler and passer for his size...(cont.)
BIGGEST WEAKNESS
Frontcourt size and depth. Um, these guys know they only have three big men …right?...(cont.)
Moreover, none of the three can give the team the interior presence it so desperately needs at the defensive end. Miller is a high-skill guy but has no elevation and little quickness, while Abdur-Rahim and Thomas both are small for power forwards -- let alone the center spot....(cont.)
[FONT=Arial,Hevetica,sans-serif]2006-07 OUTLOOK[/FONT]
Because of the strong finish, a lot of people are expecting big things from the Kings this year. Don't count me as one of them...(cont.)
All told, I'm not sure Musselman realizes quite how difficult the task before him is. Sacramento can make a playoff run if nobody gets hurt in the frontcourt and Artest and Bibby perform near the top of their range, but everybody in the West can make an argument along those lines. The most likely scenario is that they limp home a couple games short of .500, and a couple games short of a playoff spot
Sez Hollinger: "The most likely scenario is that they limp home a couple games short of .500, and a couple games short of a playoff spot."
Truthful - but nonetheless painful - look at our favorite team. I think he overstates the age issue a bit, but otherwise, I don't have many arguments with this. Our biggest strength is ballhandling? Geez.
http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=2597728&type=story
Hollinger's Team Forecast: Sacramento Kings
By John Hollinger
ESPN Insider
The uniforms were the same, but by the end of 2005-06 you'd have hardly recognized these Sacramento Kings. In a 12-month span the club changed out three-quarters of its roster...(cont.)
Artest immediately paid dividends, helping the Kings tidy up their defense....(cont.)
That said, the win-loss record exaggerates the extent of the improvement....(cont.)
[FONT=Arial,Hevetica,sans-serif]OFFSEASON MOVES[/FONT]
Kings GM Geoff Petrie has thrived over the past decade by staying a step ahead of the competition. This summer wasn't one of his better ones, though, with the lone major personnel move likely leaving the team much worse off.
• Fired Rick Adelman, hired Eric Musselman. After nine years in Sacramento, it wasn't easy to part with Adelman. One of the more underrated coaches of the past two decades, he's taken a lot of heat for his team's playoff failures. But few coaches have been better at maintaining cohesion, or picking out his seven guys at the start of the season and sticking to that rotation all season. One could argue his message was getting stale, but how stale could it have been to the 10 new players on the roster? It seems the real problem was that the owners were tired of the coach, not the players.
Fortunately, Adelman's replacement is a solid choice....(cont.)
• Signed John Salmons, let Wells leave. Letting Wells go was the easy part....I know he and Musselman are tight, but isn't having Wells and Artest in the same clubhouse a bit like lighting a cigarette at a gas station?
However, the decision to go after Salmons looks fishy. The Kings gave a five-year, $25 million deal to a guy whose production in Philadelphia was positively piddling....(cont.)
• Signed Loren Woods. ...The competition between him and Vitaly Potapenko for the backup center job promises to be the NBA's least-exciting training camp battle.
• Drafted Quincy Douby. A late first-round pick, Douby is another guy who probably will have to play right away because the Kings are so thin. He's a shoot-first, Eddie House type who will play both guard spots...(cont.)
[FONT=Arial,Hevetica,sans-serif]BIGGEST STRENGTH[/FONT] [FONT=verdana, arial, geneva]Mike Bibby helps the Kings keep a good handle on the ball.[/FONT]
Ballhandling. This always has been a Kings' strength and should again this year. From top to bottom, nearly every important player on this team is an above-average dribbler and passer for his size...(cont.)
BIGGEST WEAKNESS
Frontcourt size and depth. Um, these guys know they only have three big men …right?...(cont.)
Moreover, none of the three can give the team the interior presence it so desperately needs at the defensive end. Miller is a high-skill guy but has no elevation and little quickness, while Abdur-Rahim and Thomas both are small for power forwards -- let alone the center spot....(cont.)
[FONT=Arial,Hevetica,sans-serif]2006-07 OUTLOOK[/FONT]
Because of the strong finish, a lot of people are expecting big things from the Kings this year. Don't count me as one of them...(cont.)
All told, I'm not sure Musselman realizes quite how difficult the task before him is. Sacramento can make a playoff run if nobody gets hurt in the frontcourt and Artest and Bibby perform near the top of their range, but everybody in the West can make an argument along those lines. The most likely scenario is that they limp home a couple games short of .500, and a couple games short of a playoff spot
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