Outside shooting

[LWP777]

Our FT%: .726
Opp FT%:.774

Nearly a 5% difference, so yes there was a bigger gap there but not too large of a margin (It was a smaller margin than I expected). I think that our major problem was our revolving door style of interior defense (something that I think is harder to put in a stat) is what really killed us the most.

Wow, I knew we weren't good at the line but I didn't realize we were this bad. A 5% margin here is HUGE. I think you're underestimating how badly we were outshot at the line. We're missing out on 2-3 points, on average, per game because of missed FT's. That doesn't sound like a lot but over 82 games it makes a big difference. I think it could equate to 5 losses that could have been wins.

 

[jcassio]

If you do the math right, he actually played 78% not 88%. In the last 2 seasons he only played half the games. That's not reliable in my book. You can say it was a freak accident or whatever but the end result is the same. Maybe he has bad luck? What's going to happen to him this coming season? He'll get hit by lightning?

Yeah, I say we trade him for a 2nd round pick before he gets struck by lightning!

 

[Capt. Factorial]

If you do the math right, he actually played 78% not 88%. In the last 2 seasons he only played half the games. That's not reliable in my book. You can say it was a freak accident or whatever but the end result is the same. Maybe he has bad luck? What's going to happen to him this coming season? He'll get hit by lightning?

If you read more closely, you'll see that the 88% value was obtained by factoring out last season, in which case it's correct. At any rate, the probability that Garcia will be hit by lightning this year is not materially different than the probability that Evans or Cousins will get hit by lightning. Let's get rid of all of them before they might get hurt, and only employ lightning-proof players on this team!

 

[Tyndel]

Cisco is at .370 but he has the ability to shoot the deep ball for sure. It's mental. He's turning 30 this year and hopefully can focus to shoot like he can. We drafted him for shooting. He's going to get a lot of playing time. If he gets injured again like he always does then we're going to need a backup 2 who can shoot.

December 31, 1981 (age 28) Garcia will be turning 29 this year during the season lets not be adding years that aren't there.

Its too bad people are getting down on him when this is going to be a growing year anyway. Next year we will have seen them together for a year and we can think about winning. This year we need to think about maturing and getting better and verifying the pieces we have are the pieces to build around.

 

[Kingstime]

I don't understand why Cisco is catching so much flack around here, he has been realitvely been playing his career here under the radar, why is he now being scrutinized for being 'injury prone' or not a deep threat?

Does anyone really believe by starting Cisco we are that much more further away from the 8th spot? If we somehow magically found the perfect 2 to play next to Reke would we be suddenly championship bound? Nope. This is a young team let them grow with the right pieces before we tear apart certain guys. This offseason was great because we got rid of 2 players whom we felt were utter crap on this board and we added crazy depth to our think front court. Take a second and think we were starting Sean May last year going into the first month. Now? Well we can choose from a 19 yr old phenom center, a 7ft shot blocking vet or we can roll out JT for no reason at all. My point is let's lay off Cisco and see how these guys play together before we lose too much sleep over our supposed lack of outside shooting.

 

[NME]

When you see guys knock down 3's at a gaudy over-40% rate, it's generally not only the product of a good shooter, but also the system. If you have post scorers (which now we do) and move the ball, your shooters will get good looks. We have four guys with the ability to hit a good percentage and may add another, so let's see how it works out.

What I've learned in this thread is that we really need to step up our free throw defense.

 

[Telemachus]

Our FT%: .726
Opp FT%:.774

Nearly a 5% difference, so yes there was a bigger gap there but not too large of a margin (It was a smaller margin than I expected). I think that our major problem was our revolving door style of interior defense (something that I think is harder to put in a stat) is what really killed us the most.

Here's a different way of looking at it. Last season, our opponents made 15 more 3s than us (45 pts), but they made 233 more FTs (233 pts). I wonder which made the bigger difference?

 

[MassachusettsKingsFan]

This team has plenty of issues, I just dont think shooting is one of them right now. Most of them have to do with defense.

I think Beno is an underrated shooter. Cisco is one of the better shooters in the league when he's healthy, but when you break your wrist that directly hurts your ability to shoot, so hopefully he's back to 100%. Greene and Omri SHOULD get better as shooters. Tyreke should be better this year too.

If you bring up a stat that says 'some team made more 3's than us' I'll pin that on our defense rather than our shooting. One really frustrating aspect of last season was how incredibly slow we were at contesting 3's.

 

[kingsnation]

Omri has tremendous potential, IMO, to be a great perimeter shooter for us.

 

[=LarryLegend=]

Kings should offer philly cap space for Jason Kapono he has only one year left at 6.6mil. why not give a 44% career shooter/3pt champ a chance, he will be an exp in 2011.

 

[Bricklayer]

Kings should offer philly cap space for Jason Kapono he has only one year left at 6.6mil. why not give a 44% career shooter/3pt champ a chance, he will be an exp in 2011.

You know, that's really not a terrible idea given what we know, or thnk we know, about our goals this offseason. We want to preserve our capspace for 10-11, we need to add 2 PG/SG/SF types, we want to add shooting, and possibly a vet. While I don't think Kapono is exactly forceful on the vet front, he kind of fits everyuthing else. Two questions would be would the Sixers actually be interested in that sort of thing -- amongst other things as an ender he mihgt be valuable to them around the trade deadline. And would the Maloofs be willing to pay $6.6mil for a guy that they know coming in would only play 15 min or so tops. Should also be noted Kapono can't do anything else BUT shoot, which would seem to fly in the face of our recent efforts, but maybe beggars can't be choosers.

 

[hammystyle]

Cisco is at .370 but he has the ability to shoot the deep ball for sure. It's mental. He's turning 30 this year and hopefully can focus to shoot like he can. We drafted him for shooting. He's going to get a lot of playing time. If he gets injured again like he always does then we're going to need a backup 2 who can shoot.

Stop calling Cisco a 37% shooter. Yes that's his career percentage, but he's been over 39% for three straight years. That is the truest representation of his currrent abilities. Its like signing Shaq and saying we've taken care of shot-blocking and rebounding because he averages 11 rpg and 2.3 bpg.

I think our team lacks a true sniper type, and we could certainly use one, but its not a real weakness or frustration. But we are actually pretty deep in guys who shoot it better than average (Greene, Cisco, Udrih, Casspi). So we have threats and I think they will get better playing off a 2nd year Tyreke and a real post threat who can pass like DMC. Plus our overall percentage was hurt by Tyreke more than anything. If he shot 32% instead of 25% we'd have been a top 12 team.

 

[TTown Kings]

would the Sixers actually be interested in that sort of thing -- amongst other things as an ender he mihgt be valuable to them around the trade deadline?

he's available per Marc Stein.

http://espn.go.com/blog/TrueHoop/post/_/id/18437/latest-buzz-rj-shaq-t-mac-more

I’ve been advised that Philadelphia, with its surplus of swingmen, is open to moving sharpshooter Jason Kapono, who has one season left on his contract at $6.6 million. Kapono is a natural target for teams in the hunt for a perimeter specialist with Mike Miller and Kyle Korver getting snapped up early in free agency.

 

[Superman]

Our FT%: .726
Opp FT%:.774

Nearly a 5% difference, so yes there was a bigger gap there but not too large of a margin (It was a smaller margin than I expected). I think that our major problem was our revolving door style of interior defense (something that I think is harder to put in a stat) is what really killed us the most.

You can't really guard the three point line, so the opponents average isn't really a consideration there. But I do think we were well below league average, which means that we have to improve from the line. I'm a no-nonsense kind of guy when it comes to free throws: You get paid millions of dollars to play a game, the least you could do is master the easiest part of it. I can go in the gym and make 80 out of 100 free throws. I think professional basketball players should be able to do so. I would be positively giddy if our team average was 80% or more.

 

[Superman]

You know, that's really not a terrible idea given what we know, or thnk we know, about our goals this offseason. We want to preserve our capspace for 10-11, we need to add 2 PG/SG/SF types, we want to add shooting, and possibly a vet. While I don't think Kapono is exactly forceful on the vet front, he kind of fits everyuthing else. Two questions would be would the Sixers actually be interested in that sort of thing -- amongst other things as an ender he mihgt be valuable to them around the trade deadline. And would the Maloofs be willing to pay $6.6mil for a guy that they know coming in would only play 15 min or so tops. Should also be noted Kapono can't do anything else BUT shoot, which would seem to fly in the face of our recent efforts, but maybe beggars can't be choosers.

That's the big question. Knowing that we're going to have to pay DMC and Reke, along with the auxiliary players around them, along with not knowing what the new CBA is going to look like, I would think that the Kings would much rather have a lesser shooter at $2 million per for the next three years, rather than a one dimensional sniper at almost $7 million for one year. I like Kapono, but I don't think he's cost-effective, especially for us. If we were in the title hunt, I'd be all for it. Boston, San Antonio, Houston, Lakers, Nuggets, etc. all need a guy like that. Not us, not at that price tag.

 

[Warhawk]

That's the big question. Knowing that we're going to have to pay DMC and Reke, along with the auxiliary players around them, along with not knowing what the new CBA is going to look like, I would think that the Kings would much rather have a lesser shooter at $2 million per for the next three years, rather than a one dimensional sniper at almost $7 million for one year. I like Kapono, but I don't think he's cost-effective, especially for us. If we were in the title hunt, I'd be all for it. Boston, San Antonio, Houston, Lakers, Nuggets, etc. all need a guy like that. Not us, not at that price tag.

One other consideration is that we are still short a couple of players (and I think) still under the minimum payroll of about $43.5 mil (we are at around $40 mil or so, I think), right? Picking up a cheap player may not put us near the minimum salary, so getting a Kapono for one year to get us over the minimums and clearing the space for next year again may be attractive.

 

[eflat]

One other consideration is that we are still short a couple of players (and I think) still under the minimum payroll of about $43.5 mil (we are at around $40 mil or so, I think), right? Picking up a cheap player may not put us near the minimum salary, so getting a Kapono for one year to get us over the minimums and clearing the space for next year again may be attractive.

Curious - what's the penalty for being under min. salary?

 

[hammystyle]

Curious - what's the penalty for being under min. salary?

I'm pretty sure you spread the difference among the players you have.

 

[Warhawk]

I'm pretty sure you spread the difference among the players you have.

At the other end of the spectrum there is a minimum team salary, which is defined as 75% of the salary cap. Any team that doesn't spend at least that much is surcharged at the end of the season, and that money is given to the players. In practice, most teams' salaries will be higher than the salary cap amount.

http://members.cox.net/lmcoon/salarycap.htm

 

[Bricklayer]

http://members.cox.net/lmcoon/salarycap.htm

so sounds like you just send it off to the player's union to presumably be divied up 300 ways amongst all the players. Which doesn't effect you one way or the other, other than it just being empty money. So it looks more like something where you might as well spedn the extra $3mil on players, since you will have to pay $3mil anyway. But if you don't, you don't , and there's no actual penalty beyond paying the money you would have paid anyway.

 

[ParniValjak]

so sounds like you just send it off to the player's union to presumably be divied up 300 ways amongst all the players. Which doesn't effect you one way or the other, other than it just being empty money. So it looks more like something where you might as well spedn the extra $3mil on players, since you will have to pay $3mil anyway. But if you don't, you don't , and there's no actual penalty beyond paying the money you would have paid anyway.

Except if you sign a player you have an asset to practice/play/trade while in other scenario you are just pissing money into the wind. Seems like there are more advantages to signing someone than just giving money away.

 

[jtt]

Striving for Above average

I'm willing to admit that I'm surprised by how satisfied everybody is about our 2 position in this post. We've been losing badly for many years. We pretty much lacked talent for a while after our dream team got old and shipped out. There's hope again because we have some young talent (like future all star) with Tyreke, Donte, and DeMarcus and presently I would contend that they are above average. Casspi and Whiteside have pretty good potential also so I think we're pretty set for the future with 1, 3, 4, 5. We have cap space and to me, what is clear is that the 2 guard position has not been upgraded. To be a winning team you have to try to upgrade every position to be above average when you get a chance. We have that opportunity here with cap space so it makes sense to go out there to try to get a clutch shooter at the 2 position so we can create more room for Cousins to operate just like how CWebb and Peja really made it difficult on the opposing defense when the game got down to the wire.

 

[Spike]

So, just to clarify, you don't think inserting Garcia (a pretty decent shooter, ball-handler, etc.) will be an upgrade? He shot .390 (which is his lowest since his rookie year) from 3pt range last year, and .398 the year before. Last year he also shot .466 from the floor. This also moves Beno to the second unit, creating a pretty strong facilitator off the bench and overall depth.

 

[Bricklayer]

To be a winning team you have to try to upgrade every position to be above average when you get a chance.

you really need to send the Lakers that memo before they go out and threepeat with the worst starting PG in the NBA.

 

[hammystyle]

We have that opportunity here with cap space so it makes sense to go out there to try to get a clutch shooter at the 2 position so we can create more room for Cousins to operate just like how CWebb and Peja really made it difficult on the opposing defense when the game got down to the wire.

Uhhh...... exactly who are you talking about?

 

[Superman]

you really need to send the Lakers that memo before they go out and threepeat with the worst starting PG in the NBA.

I'm sure that the Lakers would jump at the chance to turn Derek Fisher into an above average point guard. What they value in him is steady shooting in clutch situations. Other than that, he's just along for the ride. It's a luxury when you have two top 20 players in your lineup and another couple of solid players surrounding them. But if they could have Jameer Nelson, they'd be drooling all over themselves.

 

[Bricklayer]

I'm sure that the Lakers would jump at the chance to turn Derek Fisher into an above average point guard. What they value in him is steady shooting in clutch situations. Other than that, he's just along for the ride. It's a luxury when you have two top 20 players in your lineup and another couple of solid players surrounding them. But if they could have Jameer Nelson, they'd be drooling all over themselves.

first of all, I actually doubt they would. At least as the rest of us rate "good PGs". They intentionally brought Fisher back to start this new run, and have had numerous opportunities to replace him. People don't understand just how irrelevant the PG is in the triangle. A "good PG" might actually prove a hindrance. They picked up Steve Blake. That's about high end for the triangle. Bring it up, go spot up.

More importantly, reread the comment I was responding to. I won the point with the most obvious example imaginable. No you do NOT need above average starters at every position. In fact relatively few NBA champions have had them. Not Fisher, nor Oberto, nor Rasho, nor JWill, nor Paxson, nor old Grant/Harper etc. etc. Reason being you win titles with superstars, not with solid starters. And who fits best next to a superstar? A roleplayer. In fact I have argued elsewhere that a big key to winning a title is finding a superstar who "buys you" roleplayers with his dominance.

 

[Superman]

first of all, I actually doubt they would. At least as the rest of us rate "good PGs". They intentionally brought Fisher back to start this new run, and have had numerous opportunities to replace him. People don't understand just how irrelevant the PG is in the triangle. A "good PG" might actually prove a hindrance. They picked up Steve Blake. That's about high end for the triangle. Bring it up, go spot up.

The triangle as the primary offensive attack is outliving it's usefulness for the Lakers. Once Phil retires, they'll use a lot less of it.

More importantly, reread the comment I was responding to. I won the point with the most obvious example imaginable. No you do NOT need above average starters at every position. In fact relatively few NBA champions have had them. Not Fisher, nor Oberto, nor Rasho, nor JWill, nor Paxson, nor old Grant/Harper etc. etc. Reason being you win titles with superstars, not with solid starters. And who fits best next to a superstar? A roleplayer. In fact I have argued elsewhere that a big key to winning a title is finding a superstar who "buys you" roleplayers with his dominance.

I understand what your point is. But you still would rather have an above average role player than the worst starting point guard in the NBA. Not that you need to have above average players at every position...

 

[Chupacabra]

I dont get the obsession with 2 guards. The Kings are a LOADED team right now. We really only have room for role players. Some people are down way to low on Garcia.

 

[jtt]

worst pg?

you really need to send the Lakers that memo before they go out and threepeat with the worst starting PG in the NBA.

Did you even see the games? DF is clutch. The announcers and analysts all thought that he was one of the top reasons why they won championship. Some even thought that he played a more important role than Kobe. When the game is on the line, he knocks down treys. Number of teams were hard after him in this FA.

Tell me what has Garcia done? Name a team that has him on a wanted list. I appreciate you sticking up for a Kings player but the fact is Garcia is a slight disappointment for first round pick. I'm a Kings fan but just not a homer. I just want the team to be the best that it can be.