It's early, but anybody have a draft wish list yet?

Glenn

Hall of Famer
Who was paired with Cousins when we had 92 points scored on us in the paint? We have a lot of problems on defense at least in that record breaking game. I don't know how you stop people from getting to the paint but if a defender better than Salmons can do that, great. I don't know the SFs that would be available when we might pick. He would have to be a mega defender to be better than Salmons by an amount that is clear. It would be great to have a guy better than Salmons but we are piling up SFs like my grandma collected Hummels.
 
I think Lamb has all-star potential. Very talented. His game is somewhat similar to McGrady's. My only worry with him is weight, but he's wiry strong and should fill out over time.
 

Capt. Factorial

ceterum censeo delendum esse Argentum
Staff member
Does anyone have a site (Other then Wikipedia whichs explanation I didn't understand) which explains the collage conferences I don't get it at all
What don't you understand about college conferences? If you ask a more specific question I'm sure I or someone else around here would be able to give you a fairly concise answer.
 

Capt. Factorial

ceterum censeo delendum esse Argentum
Staff member
I think Lamb has all-star potential. Very talented. His game is somewhat similar to McGrady's. My only worry with him is weight, but he's wiry strong and should fill out over time.
I like Lamb too, but I'm pretty firmly convinced he's a guard, which doesn't make him a very good fit for our needs. Tyreke/Thornton/Lamb is a very crowded guard rotation. At that point you might be able to hold on to IT as a 4th guard/emergency guy, but I think you'd have to trade Jimmer to get SF help. If you can turn Jimmer (or, I suppose, Thornton) into a starting SF (who?) then drafting Lamb isn't necessarily a bad move, but if not then you might be better off grabbing the best talent/fit combination available. And that probably depends a lot on where Lamb goes (early lottery sez NBADraft.net, late lotto sez DraftExpress, as of today). If there's a Kidd-Gilchrist or a Sullinger available (unlikely IMO) then you don't worry about Lamb. But if it's down to Lamb/Q. Miller then I don't know how I lean. Miller's a better fit but risky; Lamb seems to be the more polished talent. That's a tough call in the #10-12 range.

On the other hand, either of those guys is probably a nice haul in the #10-12 range. I guess it's OK to be late lottery in deep drafts!
 
i didnt want to waste your time on what might be considered a stupid thing to ask about... i dont undertsand how you get into a conference,why are they there,why do some of the conferecnces have a really small chance of getting to the tournement, whats the big 12, does every team only play its conference or every team, can you move conferences.....
 

Capt. Factorial

ceterum censeo delendum esse Argentum
Staff member
i didnt want to waste your time on what might be considered a stupid thing to ask about... i dont undertsand how you get into a conference,why are they there,why do some of the conferecnces have a really small chance of getting to the tournement, whats the big 12, does every team only play its conference or every team, can you move conferences.....
So pretty much the whole kit and kaboodle! I'm not actually sure there would be a great site to explain all of that. Maybe somewhere, but it's not too hard to give a brief rundown.

Conferences are voluntary associations between college athletic programs. For the most part, conference associations extend across all sporting programs, or at least the major ones (meaning if you're in the Big-12, you're in the Big-12 for basketball, for football, for baseball, for gymnastics...etc.) There are often financial reasons for teams to associate into conferences (for instance, negotiating a television rights deal for the entire conference can be more lucrative than each individual school trying to do so), but the main consequence of conferences is that teams within a conference agree to play every year. Usually conference membership coincides with general regions to some extent, because if you group with schools that are nearby and play them every year, you don't have to travel as much. For instance, the original Pac-8 (now the Pac-12) was composed of schools that were on or near the Pacific coast, and traveling to those schools every year is a lot easier than traveling all the way across the country. In addition to geographical concerns, schools tend to want to associate with schools of approximately the same athletic caliber - you don't want to be a great basketball school in a conference full of push-overs.

As I said, conference membership is voluntary, and there are a few schools who don't have conference associations (right now 10 in basketball, but none are major programs). Membership is kind of like a club. A handful of schools get together and start their "club". If anybody else wants to join, they have to get permission to join from the current members of the club. It's really as simple as that. Conference membership tends to be stable on about a ten-year scale, or so. Teams can and do move conferences occasionally, however. Recently the Big-12 has undergone a bit of a shakeup such that there are now only 10 teams, and this shakeup is partially responsible for the Big Ten now having 12 teams (a delicious absurdity in which neither conference wants to change their historic name!). The Pac-10 added two teams last year but reasonably changed its name to the Pac-12.

For basketball, the schedule is generally broken down into the "non-conference schedule", usually played between mid-November and late December, and the "conference schedule", which goes from late December to late February. During the non-conference schedule, teams are free to play whatever teams they like, which means that you'll see different matchups every year, though most schools will have one or more traditional non-conference rivals they schedule most years. Most teams play about 10-15 non-conference games. Then the conference portion of the schedule comes up and teams play against the others in their conference. The conference schedule is usually about 16-20 games long. All conferences have a different system for how they do this, but it usually ensures that everybody plays everybody else in the conference at least once in the season, and that over the long run (several seasons) home and away matchups between two teams are equalized. The Pac-10 had a particularly elegant scheduling system which equalized all of this within each season, but when they became the Pac-12 it was no longer possible. Also, in some conferences (the Pac-12 is an example) teams will have one or two "open dates" during their conference schedule when they are able to schedule non-conference games.

The reason that some conferences have a smaller chance of getting teams into the tournament is due to the fact that conferences group themselves by overall strength of the teams. If my count is right, there are 31 conferences, but the minor conferences are unlikely to have strong enough teams to "deserve" to get a team into the tournament. Thus, tournament bids are split into two types - the "automatic bid", and the "at-large bid". Every conference, no matter how major or minor, gets exactly one automatic bid, which is given to the conference winner. Conferences decide themselves whether that bid goes to the winner of the regular season, or whether they have a post-season tournament to decide the bid. Beyond that, the remainder of the bids are given out (in theory) without respect to conference membership, but only with respect to team strength. But since the strong teams are gathered together in only a few conferences, those conferences are likely to get a majority of the "at-large" tournament bids.

The major basketball conferences are traditionally:
A-10 (Atlantic 10
ACC (Atlantic Coast Conference)
Big-12
Big East
Big Ten
PAC-12 (Pacific Athletic Conference 12)
SEC (Southeastern Conference)

There are also a few conferences that are "mid-majors" - pretty strong:
C-USA (Conference USA)
Horizon
MVC (Missouri Valley Conference)
MWC (Mountain West Conference)
WCC (West Coast Conference)
WAC (Western Athletic Conference)

These conferences have a bit more ebb and flow to their strength than the majors, so sometimes one will sort of drop out of the scene and another will come on. But there's nothing hard and fast about these categorizations, and somebody else might argue that one conference or another doesn't belong in the lists I gave.
 

bajaden

Hall of Famer
i didnt want to waste your time on what might be considered a stupid thing to ask about... i dont undertsand how you get into a conference,why are they there,why do some of the conferecnces have a really small chance of getting to the tournement, whats the big 12, does every team only play its conference or every team, can you move conferences.....
I don't think anyone has ever asked this question, and there's no complete simple answer without going on for about 5 pages. lets just say that big sports schools, having developed that reputation over a long period of years, Schools like Michigan St., Ohio St., decided to come together into one conference based on the schools ability to compete, and on the geographic location of the school. The only rub from an outsiders point of view, is that some of the schools that are huge in football, aren't necessarily big in basketball. And vice versa. Although some schools put up competitive teams in every sport. All depends on the money the school has to spend.

For instance, I doubt anyone is afraid of Duke in football, but they've been a basketball powerhouse for a long time. Of course a lot of that has to do with coach K. St. Johns is another school that falls into that catagory. So when looking at a conference, first look at the location of the school, and then the size of the school and the extablished reputation. Schools with big bucks, and big reputations, get the best players. I haven't even gotten into Division 1A, 2A etc.

From a competitive point of view, its much easier for a small school to compete with the big boys in basketball than it is in football, and its all about money. Takes less money to field a basketball team. So then it comes down to recuiting. For instance, Calapari came out of nowhere when he took over the program at UMASS and put it on the basketball map. He did with good coaching, but also with great recruiting. His coaching reputation has followed him from school to school. Bottom line. Get a good coach that also recruits well, and you'll have success in college basketball.

Here's a website that lists all the conferences, they're current rankings, and all the players with their stats on each team. http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/players/all
 

Glenn

Hall of Famer
Can't add much except to emphasize the necessity for conferences in this country has a lot to do with geography. Countries in Europe may be able to travel to any other city in the country without much expense. The US is a big country and traveling can be very expensive. Hence the conferences are lumped together in groups of colleges.
 
Thanks :) so why does a school bother with recruiting...what does it actually gain through it do they get funding for every player into the nba,nfl ect???
 
Last edited:

Glenn

Hall of Famer
Thanks :) so why does a school bother with recruiting...what does it actually gain through it do they get funding for every player into the nba,nfl ect???
MONEY!!!!! Big time college programs make an enormous amount of money. They get nothing from the NBA except any program that regularly has players enter the NBA tend to be able to recruit the better athletes in the country. Look at Kentucky for example. The best players have NBA in their mind and want to go to a college program that has coaches good enough to advance their careers.

It's been awhile since I went to a Big 10 football game but our stadium held 80,000 people and sold out every game. Our team was never all that good. Basketball always sold out its 70 year old building that held about the same numbers of people as the arena in Sacramento. Consider the athletes get paid nothing but the tickets to the games are pricey. Huge profit that helps finance much else at the college/university.
 
Last edited:
so if your a little school how do you get the top stars do you just have to have really good scouts who can find you underated stars and build on the reputation you get for them
 

Glenn

Hall of Famer
so if your a little school how do you get the top stars do you just have to have really good scouts who can find you underated stars and build on the reputation you get for them
Very, very difficult. Next to impossible. The coach can be the key and the respected coaches get the best players. The best coaches go to universities willing to pay them huge salaries (more than what Keith Smart makes) AND if the have a good reputation in that sport. I went to a university of 45,000 students and we seldom turned out players good enough to go to the NBA. Generally the occasional good player would be from the same state like Mark Olberding, Randy Breuer, Kris Humphries, Kevin McHale, and maybe a few others except we occasionally got lucky like with Bobby Jackson. Otherwise where I came from there never will be a great program simply because other schools have established reputations.

We are not a small university.
 
Last edited:

bajaden

Hall of Famer
so if your a little school how do you get the top stars do you just have to have really good scouts who can find you underated stars and build on the reputation you get for them
Thats a yes to the last part. For instance Marshon Brooks was an unknown to most people not in touch with highschool basketball. Even then, he wasn't highly recruited by the bigs. Some times you get lucky and recruit someone like Jason Thompson, who as a freshman was a guard at 6'3". By his junior year he was 6'10" and then grew another inch before his senior year. So Rider ended with a very good center that helped put them on the map. The other way is to lure an established coach with a good rep. Very difficult considering the money the big time coaches are offered by schools like Kentucky, Louisville, UCLA etc. Sometimes you get lucky with a young coach like Calapari, or promote a young assistant coach like Brad Stevens at Butler, and he catches fire.

Don't think its not a lot easier to recruit at Butler since his success there. You can't win without the players. There's a reason North Carolina, Duke, Kentucky, Syracuse, Kansas, Baylor, Texas etc. are consistent visitors to the NCAA tournament. They almost always lead in recruiting the best highschool players in the nation.

Right now, almost all the top senior highschool players in the nation are already committed to a college. As a matter of fact, a large majority of the top highschool juniors have made verbal commitments to a college. Recruits are the life blood of any sports program in college. It becomes dog eat dog, and is the source of most NCAA violations.
 
I like Lamb too, but I'm pretty firmly convinced he's a guard, which doesn't make him a very good fit for our needs. Tyreke/Thornton/Lamb is a very crowded guard rotation. At that point you might be able to hold on to IT as a 4th guard/emergency guy, but I think you'd have to trade Jimmer to get SF help. If you can turn Jimmer (or, I suppose, Thornton) into a starting SF (who?) then drafting Lamb isn't necessarily a bad move, but if not then you might be better off grabbing the best talent/fit combination available. And that probably depends a lot on where Lamb goes (early lottery sez NBADraft.net, late lotto sez DraftExpress, as of today). If there's a Kidd-Gilchrist or a Sullinger available (unlikely IMO) then you don't worry about Lamb. But if it's down to Lamb/Q. Miller then I don't know how I lean. Miller's a better fit but risky; Lamb seems to be the more polished talent. That's a tough call in the #10-12 range.

On the other hand, either of those guys is probably a nice haul in the #10-12 range. I guess it's OK to be late lottery in deep drafts!
Yeah, I don't think he's a perfect fit. Shame he's not a SF as he has all the tools to be an excellent player on both sides of the ball. Even so, at the bottom end of the lottery I'd be reluctant to pass him up. This will probably be irrelevant as I think he'll rise up the draft boards by the end of the season, but on talent alone I'd be inclined to take him and figure the rest out later. Depending on who else is available, of course.

As for Quincy Miller, right now I'd take Lamb ahead of him regardless of fit. However, that is pretty much because I've seen very little of Miller. He does look slow to me as has already been mentioned, and I don't think he's a lot quicker than he looks. He doesn't have a good leap either. All irrelevant if he's a great player - I'm just cautious. He is a SF, so he may fit. I'll have to watch a lot more of him before I can give a valid opinion on him.

BTW, I also like Terrence Jones at the bottom of the lottery. That could depend on whether you believe he can play SF - I think he can.
 
With the lottery pick, I'm hoping for someone like Meyers Leonard. He's seems pretty athletic and I'm interested to see if he could be paired with Demarcus.

As for the SF position, I really would like to try to get Jeff Taylor (we may need to get another first round pick). I think he could be a good fit for the team. I definitely need to watch more Kentucky/Terrence Jones games.
 
also in a few mock drafts i have seen our second round pick is Andrew Nicholson from St.Bonaventure's i cant say i have watched him because its a small team in a small conferencce (??) but vidios of him looks good anyone seen anything of him
 
He's nothing special. Averages 7.8reb in 28 minutes and that's after ridiculous last game where he got 23 of them so before that he had less than 7 rpg. In three games against only serious teams he faced (Illinois, Xavier and NC State) he had 7rpg 5.3 topg in 37.6 mpg. That's pathetic. Bargnani will crush him on the boards and Cousins on TOs. He still got his points in all those games though. Kings already have one underdeveloped offensive-minded big in Hickson who did the same as a freshman what Nicholson does as senior. So no to him.
If you look at draftexpress.com Kings should rather take Ratliffe, Jones or Satoransky and nbadraft.net also have Tyshawn Taylor available.
 
Hayes, Thompson and Hickson are all PFs so at this point PF is not a need. Kings should just take the best talent on the board since you cannot seriously expect 2nd rounder to alter team's composition.
 

bajaden

Hall of Famer
Yeah, I don't think he's a perfect fit. Shame he's not a SF as he has all the tools to be an excellent player on both sides of the ball. Even so, at the bottom end of the lottery I'd be reluctant to pass him up. This will probably be irrelevant as I think he'll rise up the draft boards by the end of the season, but on talent alone I'd be inclined to take him and figure the rest out later. Depending on who else is available, of course.

As for Quincy Miller, right now I'd take Lamb ahead of him regardless of fit. However, that is pretty much because I've seen very little of Miller. He does look slow to me as has already been mentioned, and I don't think he's a lot quicker than he looks. He doesn't have a good leap either. All irrelevant if he's a great player - I'm just cautious. He is a SF, so he may fit. I'll have to watch a lot more of him before I can give a valid opinion on him.

BTW, I also like Terrence Jones at the bottom of the lottery. That could depend on whether you believe he can play SF - I think he can.
I had Lamb at number 5 on my personal board for quite a while. I liked him last season, and even more this season. At the end of the day he should be top ten, maybe top five. He's that talented. However, as stated, he's not a big need for the Kings. If he's sitting there at number 10 or 11, I'd have a hard time passing him up. I've seen Quincy Miller play around 10 or 11 times so far this season, and have two games I haven't watched. I still think he's a better athlete than he appears to be.

He has good size and length for the SF position, at 6'9". He rebounds well, and shoots the outside shot well. He's shooting 43.1% from the three, and 47.9% overall. He's also an 80% freethrow shooter. He has decent handles for a 19 year old. Defensively, its hard to say, because as stated, Baylor primarily plays a zone about 70% of the time.

What I like most about Miller, talent aside, is that he seems to let the game come to him. He just takes whats there. He seldom forces shots. He's far from perfect, but when compared to Barnes at the same time last year, he's ahead of that schedule. When Jones came back, I think Miller tried to give him the stage. But of late, he's gotten more aggressive again.

I agree on Terrence, the other Jones. When he's aggressive on the court, he's a top five player. In some ways he reminds me of Rudy Gay. Just plug him in somewhere on the court and he'll produce for you. He'd probably be a better rebounder than Gay, but like Gay, he can defend two positions..
 
Last edited:

bajaden

Hall of Famer
With the lottery pick, I'm hoping for someone like Meyers Leonard. He's seems pretty athletic and I'm interested to see if he could be paired with Demarcus.

As for the SF position, I really would like to try to get Jeff Taylor (we may need to get another first round pick). I think he could be a good fit for the team. I definitely need to watch more Kentucky/Terrence Jones games.
First, my gut tells me that Leonard will stay another year at Illinois. Which is probably a good decision on his part, because I seriously doubt he would be a lottery pick, if even a 1st round pick this season. Don't get me wrong. I like Leonard, but this is a very deep draft, and he has some flaws. He's having a good year, and its possible he could slip into the bottom of the first round if he were to declare, but its iffy.

I like Jeffery Taylor quite a bit, and he's an excellent defensive player. Offensively he's gotten better every year. I doubt he's a lottery pick, and at the moment, he's a borderline first round pick. He's a player that frustrates me at times. In his recent game against Kentucky, he was invisible in the first half, and then in the second half, he looked like an all star. He's done this his entire college career. The talent is there. There are times I'm just screaming at my TV. Just play dude! Just let it go!
 

bajaden

Hall of Famer
He's nothing special. Averages 7.8reb in 28 minutes and that's after ridiculous last game where he got 23 of them so before that he had less than 7 rpg. In three games against only serious teams he faced (Illinois, Xavier and NC State) he had 7rpg 5.3 topg in 37.6 mpg. That's pathetic. Bargnani will crush him on the boards and Cousins on TOs. He still got his points in all those games though. Kings already have one underdeveloped offensive-minded big in Hickson who did the same as a freshman what Nicholson does as senior. So no to him.
If you look at draftexpress.com Kings should rather take Ratliffe, Jones or Satoransky and nbadraft.net also have Tyshawn Taylor available.
I've only seen Nicholson play twice, and wasn't blown away. Hard to judge against his current competition. I'd have to see his true height, as he didn't look 6'9" to me, but its difficult to tell on TV. I don't have him on my personal board in the first round. Probably not fair to him since I haven't seen him play that much. But you have to with what you see.

I haven't been a big fan of Taylor's in the past. I have to admit that he's having a stellar season so far. His shooting percentage is the best of his career, and his assist total is better as well. I could see the Kings taking a flyer on him in the second round. Not my choice, but wouldn't be a complete shock.

I'd like to add that these are all my opinions base on what I've seen. So it possible that there's a player out there thats just great that I haven't seen, and therefore I've ommited. I haven't looked at Draftexpress or NBADraft.com since the begining of the season, and have no idea who they have in the first round, other than the obvious choices.
 
I had Lamb at number 5 on my personal board for quite a while. I liked him last season, and even more this season. At the end of the day he should be top ten, maybe top five. He's that talented. However, as stated, he's not a big need for the Kings. If he's sitting there at number 10 or 11, I'd have a hard time passing him up. I've seen Quincy Miller play around 10 or 11 times so far this season, and have two games I haven't watched. I still think he's a better athlete than he appears to be.

He has good size and length for the SF position, at 6'9". He rebounds well, and shoots the outside shot well. He's shooting 43.1% from the three, and 47.9% overall. He's also an 80% freethrow shooter. He has decent handles for a 19 year old. Defensively, its hard to say, because as stated, Baylor primarily plays a zone about 70% of the time.

What I like most about Miller, talent aside, is that he seems to let the game come to him. He just takes whats there. He seldom forces shots. He's far from perfect, but when compared to Barnes at the same time last year, he's ahead of that schedule. When Jones came back, I think Miller tried to give him the stage. But of late, he's gotten more aggressive again.

I agree on Terrence, the other Jones. When he's aggressive on the court, he's a top five player. In some ways he reminds me of Rudy Gay. Just plug him in somewhere on the court and he'll produce for you. He'd probably be a better rebounder than Gay, but like Gay, he can defend two positions..
The Gay comparison isn't a bad one, although Jones might actually be a little bigger. Jones also is a little similar to Josh Smith in that he can do a little bit of everything and is a good defender and shotblocker for the position. With his ability and competitiveness, I don't see any way he's not a good player in the league. He's the type of player we could use.

As for Jeff Taylor, again I haven't seen him play enough. College makes it very difficult to watch games regularly, although I make more of an effort with Kentucky and North Carolina. On paper he seems to be an excellent fit - SF, great defender, very athletic, knocks down the three at a great rate, does the little things etc.. Unless we reach we're unlikely to be in a position to nab him.
 

Glenn

Hall of Famer
I see the focus is on SFs. This assumes that Salmons will not recover to his historically solid (not great) stats. If we add a SF, we then have Salmons, Outlaw, Greene, Garcia, and Honeycutt along with whoever is added. I wouldn't expect the Maloofs to throw away money by amnestying anyone. Sure we can work out the details later but I'm not so sure how. We don't exactly have desireable pieces to trade.

In short, any SF, in my opinion, would have to be a clear cut upgrade over Salmons. And I mean clear cut. As I expect more from Salmons as the year progresses, I don't see this as being so easy. Now if Salmons drifts back to the ugliness that began the year, I'd be more interested in a SF but still it creates problems. You can't have half a team of average to below average SFs.

Now if the guy can play PF, that's a different matter. I don't think a team can have too many bigs within reason of course.