[Game] Kings @ Wolves Game Thread, Wed 10/27 @ 5PM

#31
With the exception of maybe Love (knowing Rambis, he'll be inexplicably limited to 20 minutes), Heinrich (Nice Beno-type guard with the Beno-sized contract) and perhaps Beasley (although he is a real tweener), I don't a real problem against this line up. Barring Darko suddenly transforming into the second coming of Bill Walton/ Wilt/ Bill Russell put together (which according to KAhn is a major possibility), DeMarcus should be able to have a good NBA debut.
Heinrich is on the Wizards...
 
#32
Love does a lot of things well but we should be able to score tonight regardless. Darko isn't a bad defender, but yeah he should be able to work with Love a bit better since the Wolves plan to use him as a facilitator. Can't wait for this game tonight!
 

Kingster

Hall of Famer
#33
Well the problem last year was that Love and Big Al did not work, and stepped on each other's toes. That's not the case this year, and I think Minnesota is banking a lot on Love not just being good, but becoming an All Star. Cousins won't be guarding him though. I am considerably concerned about how a Love/Landry matchup is going to play out, because Love is an absolute freak on the boards. Better really for his physique than anybody, even Dwight Howard (whi has all the physical markers, while Love looks and moves like a guy at the park. One of those guys with freak strength. Ball hits his hands, its his. He could really bounce Landry around and maul us in there. Prefer to try JT in this one to try to bang and hustle with him. Be in foul trouble most likely, but anything to take the edge off of Love's boardwork and give Cousins a chance to concentrate on working against Darko.
I would expect to see either Jackson or Cousins on Love early in this game. Landry has no chance. And I don't think Westphal wants JT in foul trouble early in the game because then he'll really be in trouble if Cousins gets in foul trouble, tires, or both. Maybe JT guards Love late in the game if fouls allow...
 
#35
NBA.com released their first power ranking of the actual season and we're ranked at #26, behind such luminaries as the New Jersey Nets, Cleveland Cavs (wha?), among others that are (presumably) in the same range as us. I find it oddly off-putting that th only teams that we are ranked ahead of are the 76ers (no big), Detroit, Minny (No brains), and the Raptors (lost the closest thing they had to a star since Chris Bosh, which is weird since the Cavs lost the closest thing they had to a star since the invention of the wheel and are still ranking in the lower playoff seed range. I really can't wait for the season to start and for us to find out where this team truly sits.

Before preseason, I would have said that ranking is Ludicrous! But after watching the preseason, seeing how poorly we played and how players are reportedly out of shape in camp (check out today's Bee article), all my enthusiasm for this team has been tempered. The team looks like it's in shambles, everyone just looks lost out there. sorry for being a debby downer.
 
#36
As good of a player as ive come to realize that Love is, im no longer worried about the Kings rebounding ability. Seldom will i ever have a concern about the area of the game for the Kings, especially when Dalembert is back. Cousins is a rebounding cyborg sent from the future to play for the Kings.
 

gunks

Hall of Famer
#38
Checked out the gameplan on Sac Bee, they say that Landry might start at small foward to match up with Beasley (which isnt too bad a plan since they are both tweeners)....But they also have Greene starting at PF. Greene vs Love is going to be pretty ugly. Like, I'm gonna save time and congradulate Love on his 20/20 game right now instead of later, ugly.

I'm hoping that start Jackson at the 4, dude is apparently a pretty gnarly banger. Greene can be 3rd string SF or something. I hate Greene at the 4, dude rebounds like crap.
 
#40
No Tyreke means a very hard game to watch, I can't wait for Dally to come back. Anyone think Hassan is going to get some minutes tonight? He could be our X factor on defense, against a Minny team that preaches running.
 
#41
Before preseason, I would have said that ranking is Ludicrous! But after watching the preseason, seeing how poorly we played and how players are reportedly out of shape in camp (check out today's Bee article), all my enthusiasm for this team has been tempered. The team looks like it's in shambles, everyone just looks lost out there. sorry for being a debby downer.
This is sort of where I'm coming from for tonight's season start except for the "enthusiasm" part - mine has not diminished a bit. We start in a hole, against anybody. Hopefully, we can only go up. A little success, even small ones, on offense and defense would help our guys a lot. Kings! May the Force be with you.
 

Kingster

Hall of Famer
#42
Before preseason, I would have said that ranking is Ludicrous! But after watching the preseason, seeing how poorly we played and how players are reportedly out of shape in camp (check out today's Bee article), all my enthusiasm for this team has been tempered. The team looks like it's in shambles, everyone just looks lost out there. sorry for being a debby downer.
Yeah, I saw that article. Tyreke, Landry, Greene, Dally, and we also know, Cousins. When Greene was out of shape going into camp, I dismissed blame on management because I thought Greene was the only one out of shape. Well, I stand corrected. This isn't exactly the way to turn a team around when you have five players coming into camp out of shape. Players obviously didn't get the message.
 

Kingster

Hall of Famer
#43
No Tyreke means a very hard game to watch, I can't wait for Dally to come back. Anyone think Hassan is going to get some minutes tonight? He could be our X factor on defense, against a Minny team that preaches running.
Westphal might have to use him, whether he wants to or not.
 
#45
How do I watch Kings and Giants at the same time - a must tonight? Both to start today about 5pm. I got it solved by putting radio on for G-Man's call of Kings-Wolves, laptop set up on coffee table for Kingsfans game thread and TV tuned in for World Series game one. Lincecum v. Lee - can't miss a pitch of that sensational matchup! Also, Kings radio call often a few seconds ahead of live TV broadcast, so I can flip it over to view action when G-Man lets out yell over a great play or to see instant replay.
 
#46
Honestly, the one I'm worried about most at this point is PW. Perhaps I'm reading too much into what we've seen in the preseason, but it is a continuation of what we saw all of the 2010 portion of the 2009-2010 season, which is zero ball movement and zero attempt to function as a team. If PW's only plan is to do isolation plays, then we can win the draft lottery every single year and we still won't make the playoffs. We can't chalk up everything to "these guys are young and need time to learn and gel". If they attempted to move the ball and play as a team and failed, then that would be a valid excuse, but it really doesn't look like they're trying to create anything that looks like a legitimate NBA offense. In fact, most of the time they look like they have no idea what they are trying to do. That's not about being young - it's about having a clear system that allows you to be aware of what your team is trying to accomplish on the court. I hope I'm wrong and that PW does have a plan that I'm just not knowledgeable enough to see yet, but that is the picture I've been seeing so far. So, yea, at this point I don't think #26 is ridiculous at all.
 
#47
Yeah, I saw that article. Tyreke, Landry, Greene, Dally, and we also know, Cousins. When Greene was out of shape going into camp, I dismissed blame on management because I thought Greene was the only one out of shape. Well, I stand corrected. This isn't exactly the way to turn a team around when you have five players coming into camp out of shape. Players obviously didn't get the message.

Jason Jones has done a really poor job of giving a clear report on these guys he says are out of shape. From everything I've heard directly from the players, these guys weren't out of shape and lazy during the summer as it's been implied. Guys like Donte and Tyreke came into camp bulked up through working out because they believed it would help with the grind of the season. They weren't sitting around all summer on a mound of Ho-Hos and cupcakes. That draws a completely different perception of them than if they had come into camp like Brad Miller or Vlade used to do.

What blows my mind is that this training staff wasn't more in tune with what the players were adding to their bodies over the summer. They should know exactly what the coaches and management expect of their players' conditioning and should've stepped in if they saw guys like Tyreke adding more bulk than they'd like. Yet here we are still talking about it going into the season. After all these years of endless and season crippling injuries dating back to the C-Webb days, at what point do we start to suspect the judgement of Pete Youngman and Co.?

Any way we can swing a trade for the training staff in Phoenix if we throw in a draft pick?
 

Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
#48
Checked out the gameplan on Sac Bee, they say that Landry might start at small foward to match up with Beasley (which isnt too bad a plan since they are both tweeners)....But they also have Greene starting at PF. Greene vs Love is going to be pretty ugly. Like, I'm gonna save time and congradulate Love on his 20/20 game right now instead of later, ugly.

I'm hoping that start Jackson at the 4, dude is apparently a pretty gnarly banger. Greene can be 3rd string SF or something. I hate Greene at the 4, dude rebounds like crap.
Love has 3pt range, which is one of the reasons I doubt we see Cousins on him. But Greene? When you have Landry and Green both on the floor at the same time calling Greene the PF and Landry the SF is jsut semantics. Its the other way around really. But I would think starting JT and Landry would make more sense if you're just trying to matchup. Especially with Tyreke out and our backcourt likely being our best shooting combo of Beno/Cisco, meanign you can affor to ahve 3 bigs on the floor shootingwise. With Hassan back you would still have another big off the bench, and Jackson for emergency purposes (its the regular season now, and Darnell should not be taking minutes from our already overloaded frontcourt).
 
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Tetsujin

The Game Thread Dude
#49
Yeah, I saw that article. Tyreke, Landry, Greene, Dally, and we also know, Cousins. When Greene was out of shape going into camp, I dismissed blame on management because I thought Greene was the only one out of shape. Well, I stand corrected. This isn't exactly the way to turn a team around when you have five players coming into camp out of shape. Players obviously didn't get the message.
Although in Reke's and Donte's cases, it was more from putting on too much muscle and not getting the right sort of exercise in.
 

Kingster

Hall of Famer
#50
Jason Jones has done a really poor job of giving a clear report on these guys he says are out of shape. From everything I've heard directly from the players, these guys weren't out of shape and lazy during the summer as it's been implied. Guys like Donte and Tyreke came into camp bulked up through working out because they believed it would help with the grind of the season. They weren't sitting around all summer on a mound of Ho-Hos and cupcakes. That draws a completely different perception of them than if they had come into camp like Brad Miller or Vlade used to do.

What blows my mind is that this training staff wasn't more in tune with what the players were adding to their bodies over the summer. They should know exactly what the coaches and management expect of their players' conditioning and should've stepped in if they saw guys like Tyreke adding more bulk than they'd like. Yet here we are still talking about it going into the season. After all these years of endless and season crippling injuries dating back to the C-Webb days, at what point do we start to suspect the judgement of Pete Youngman and Co.?

Any way we can swing a trade for the training staff in Phoenix if we throw in a draft pick?
Totally agree about the reporting. Why can't we get a clear report on what was going on? This is like the gang that can't get in shape right. Trainers? Coaches? Management? Where does the buck stop? Wouldn't you think that the Kings coaches and trainers would get together individually with each player on what they expected from them prior to the opening of camp? That's common sense. Instead, it appears that players take it upon themselves to come up with their own workout programs. Go figure.
 
#51
The purported starting line-up for the T-Wolves tonight:
13 Luke Ridnour G
19 Wayne Ellington G
8 Michael Beasley F
42 Kevin Love F
31 Darko Milicic C

With the exception of maybe Love (knowing Rambis, he'll be inexplicably limited to 20 minutes), Heinrich (Nice Beno-type guard with the Beno-sized contract) and perhaps Beasley (although he is a real tweener), I don't a real problem against this line up. Barring Darko suddenly transforming into the second coming of Bill Walton/ Wilt/ Bill Russell put together (which according to KAhn is a major possibility), DeMarcus should be able to have a good NBA debut.
Any word on our starting lineup?