"Tyreke was definitely going to be too much money." DA didn't say he'd probably be too much money or was too much money; he said he was definitely too much money. So in other words, he just didn't value him nearly as highly as some on this board. It's not that he doesn't like defense or the ability to drive the ball; he just didn't want to overpay in order to get it (Iggy fits into this picture also). If Tyreke ends up to be an All Star in a couple of years, he'll be proven to be wrong. If not, then he'll be right. And by the way, there will be a ton of GMs around the league who were wrong as well, because it's obvious they didn't see Tyreke as a predestined future All Star.
a) bad timing. like, really bad. b) all the talk so far has been about offensive fits, improving ball movement and shooting, not a peep has been made about frontcourt defense. c) they just freaking signed Carl Landry completely and utterly confirming all the doubts we had (at which point I direct you to point a)). d) your general point was directly attacking those of us that have dared questioning the direction this whole thing has been taking, making it not a general point at all and, in fact, creating a strawman, I called you out on it that is all.
Evans and McLemore might not have worked for 2-3 years (if then) and ensuring that we limit our endless sf search to a point forward. Evans was limited at seeing the floor and creating easy baskets. McLemore will probably get to where he needs to be but he played in the post for a good chunk of HS. There is a reason his handles and particular play making aren't where they should be right now. That backcourt would have some serious issues.
I think the super fandom here is creating a disconnect between what many would like to see happen and what actually needs to happen to create a winner. This team is not close and in need of just a few tweaks. Its a team, roster, and culture that's been permeated with losing, disfunction, selfish basketball, and unhappiness with the franchise, style of play and other teammates. That's hard to break up.
They want to give Cousins until February to turn it around and they probably won't extend him because: (1) they hope the max extension serves as a carrot to make him get in world class shape, perform, and behave better ... and then build upon his success; (2) if that happens, they will offer him a 5 year max on the first day of free agency and match any 4 year max offer. And if Cousins doesn't pan out, he's gone at the deadline and it's a complete blow up.
McLemore is an ideal 2nd banana for Cousins because he's a shooter, athlete, but not selfish about shots.
So that's the foundation for now. After that ... it's hard to scrub the selfishness, pockets of dislike, losing, and disfunction off the players and franchise. Like anything that's been neglected for a long period of time, you just have to throw a lot out.
To me, the disfunction, lack of trust, and lack of professional basketball players is what's affecting the defense, ball movement, and overall execution more than the individual players. When you play in a pickup game, at some point, if your teammates are hogging the ball, not executing on defense, and you keeping losing -- at some point, it really hurts your effort, shot selection, and sharing the ball. Here, that's gone on with some of the same crew for years. They don't trust each other. I bet a lot of them don't really like each other.
I would assume McLemore, Cousins, and Thompson will be here in 3 years. Maybe Vasquez if he gets a lot better. If IT wants to be a 3rd guard that works cheap, he might be around. Everybody else is gone in two years ... or maybe less. And that's needed. Get value when you can, but they need to bring in professional basketball players that will help remake and repair the culture. Thus, they tried to bring in Igudala and Calderon. They passed, so now it's stop gap measures with the same goal in mind and hope for luck in the lottery.
Vasquez was brought in because he's a professional, a good teammate, a willing passer that will radically change the ball movement and pump the ball to Cousins and McLemore. He's got upside and the Kings control his right via restricted free agency. He helps Cousins try to succeed and that's the gamble they've taken over Evans.
But more than that its about culture. At 8 million, the team might have held their nose and brought back Evens to see if they could make him fit. But at 11 he would have been an over paid SG that can't shoot, on a team with money locked into at least 3 SGs and only one they want to keep. More than that ... when Evans pounds the rock or smashes into a crowd, it undoublty affects the chemistry and morale of the team.
This has been a dysfunctional and poorly constructed team for at least 5 years. The front office felt that --- at that price - Evans had to go to address both issues. I'm fine with that.
But when you are scratching your head wondering with PDA is waiting for ... or why he's going to over pay some less talented vets on 1 and 2 years deal soon ... it's because he's trying to both completely change the culture and style of this team and make sure he properly pays the right pieces ... while the situation is a mess and people don't want to come. That's what I think. I'd bet that's what PDA thinks.
If you think this team is close and just needs a few tweaks, you may disagree. But this frame of mind might help you understand the moves.
I'm not an offense only kind of guy. I hate this Carl Landry signing. Drafting Mclemore pretty much put Tyreke out of a job. He's not good enough to play PG and his skills are diminished playing SF. He's a combo guard at best but he belongs at SG. Did you watch the beginning of last year? We ran Thomas, Evans, Johnson, Thompson and Cousins out there for the first half month or so. Our D was great, we held opponents under 100pts more often than not. The problem was we could barely score 90 ourselves.
With Tyreke running the point, he gets his stats. He could do 20-5-5 every night. It's his teammates that struggle. Yeah he's efficient and he plays D (although it's highly overrated here) but he hurts the team running the point more than he helps it. That's why he's more of a combo guard. He can run it for a while but then he has to go back to playing off the ball for a while or else we can't score enough. While Tyreke is efficient on talent alone, he doesn't make the guys around him more efficient. So if he isn't shooting the ball on that particular possession, chances are someone else on the team is forced to take a bad shot because they weren't set up in the open for a higher percentage bucket. You make it sound like I said Tyreke was the only problem. The only problem I have is when he's forced to play PG for any extended period of time. It drags the offense down to a stand still and hardly makes us competitive with anyone.
If we're going to have Vasquez and Mclemore as our starting guards, then we absolutely have to have a rim protector at center. There's no other way around it. Let those guys dictate the offense and then when they can't cover a guy, let the big men make it tougher on the opposing team to get easy baskets.
With Tyreke running the point, he gets his stats. He could do 20-5-5 every night. It's his teammates that struggle. Yeah he's efficient and he plays D (although it's highly overrated here) but he hurts the team running the point more than he helps it. That's why he's more of a combo guard. He can run it for a while but then he has to go back to playing off the ball for a while or else we can't score enough. While Tyreke is efficient on talent alone, he doesn't make the guys around him more efficient. So if he isn't shooting the ball on that particular possession, chances are someone else on the team is forced to take a bad shot because they weren't set up in the open for a higher percentage bucket. You make it sound like I said Tyreke was the only problem. The only problem I have is when he's forced to play PG for any extended period of time. It drags the offense down to a stand still and hardly makes us competitive with anyone.
If we're going to have Vasquez and Mclemore as our starting guards, then we absolutely have to have a rim protector at center. There's no other way around it. Let those guys dictate the offense and then when they can't cover a guy, let the big men make it tougher on the opposing team to get easy baskets.
in the only season tyreke got significant burn at PG, he had little in the way of talented teammates. DMC was an offseason away. i am much more inclined to fault a front office that loads it's team up with chuckers and other assorted non-defenders than i am to fault a talented combo guard that has not been presented with the kind of franchise conditions that help other players of his talent level succeed around the league. if i had the energy, i'd list every king tyreke played alongside during four seasons. when you see them all lined up, it's so terribly disappointing to recognize just how poorly this team's roster has been managed. demarcus cousins, tyreke evans, and a motley crew of ill-fitting, overrated, non-defensive role players who enjoy pretending that they deserve to hoist as many shots as their more talented teammates. it is never a good idea to bleed talent in favor of such players. and it's an absolute gamble to assume that you can just go out and pluck an equally-talented player via free agency, or through trade, as PDA is quickly realizing. it's embarrassing...
Shams Charania @ShamsCharania 5m
RealGM sources: Free agent guard Sam Young is being pursued by the Sacramento Kings on a possible one-year deal. http://tinyurl.com/l4wyfsb
http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/228700/Kings-Pursuing-Sam-Young
RealGM sources: Free agent guard Sam Young is being pursued by the Sacramento Kings on a possible one-year deal. http://tinyurl.com/l4wyfsb
http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/228700/Kings-Pursuing-Sam-Young
All the talk?? You base your opinion on "the talk"? The last thing you wanna do is to listen to "the talk". GMs gives us BS 99% of the time. And it is too early to base our opinion about this new regime's philosophy on a 2 week "process". This team is bad, was and still will be for some time. Hopefully, it will take them a year to construct something that they want. I understand that people are tired that we were so bad defensively for so long that we or some of us expect Vivek and PDA to address this problem right away. But 1) they did not build this defensively horrible team, 2) they are not trying to keep this team the way it is and make some key D additions, they are re-building and re-branding the whole roster and org. We can not judge their efforts by analyzing a 2 week "process" or by what PDA BSed us (not actually us, fans, more mass media). My position was and is very simple - calm down and wait at least some time. It is only a start, not a finish. And you called me out? 
All the talk?? You base your opinion on "the talk"? The last thing you wanna do is to listen to "the talk". GMs gives us BS 99% of the time. And it is too early to base our opinion about this new regime's philosophy on a 2 week "process". This team is bad, was and still will be for some time. Hopefully, it will take them a year to construct something that they want. I understand that people are tired that we were so bad defensively for so long that we or some of us expect Vivek and PDA to address this problem right away. But 1) they did not build this defensively horrible team, 2) they are not trying to keep this team the way it is and make some key D additions, they are re-building and re-branding the whole roster and org. We can not judge their efforts by analyzing a 2 week "process" or by what PDA BSed us (not actually us, fans, more mass media). My position was and is very simple - calm down and wait at least some time. It is only a start, not a finish. And you called me out?
I reiterate, not judging yet. it all now kinda hinges on the trade that's about to come, if that turns out crap, I'll officially join the detractors camp. just noting that none of the moves appear to be fixing what's really broken and that the rhetoric of the FO doesn't exactly inspire confidence that they will actually address those needs.
What PDA says: We want to be a defensive team
What PDA does: Trades the Kings best wing defender for Vasquez, a poor defender
What PDA says: We want to build around Cousins
What PDA does: Sign an undersized, poor rebounding, poor defending, post scoring PF
What PDA says: We'll look at all options
What PDA does: apparently only considers players from Denver & GS
What PDA says: there's a big hole at SF we have to address
What PDA does: so far absolutely nothing
Is it too late to hire Schlenk? I formally renew my objection to any GM who didn't come up as a scout and/or a coach.
What PDA does: Trades the Kings best wing defender for Vasquez, a poor defender
What PDA says: We want to build around Cousins
What PDA does: Sign an undersized, poor rebounding, poor defending, post scoring PF
What PDA says: We'll look at all options
What PDA does: apparently only considers players from Denver & GS
What PDA says: there's a big hole at SF we have to address
What PDA does: so far absolutely nothing
Is it too late to hire Schlenk? I formally renew my objection to any GM who didn't come up as a scout and/or a coach.
What Vivek said: It's not going to be about winning right away. First we have to change the culture. (Paraphrased)
What Vivek (via PDA) does: Brings in a couple of players who are, by all accounts, very hard workers. With Landry, he WANTS to be here and he wants to help. And he wasn't anywhere near as bad before as some have claimed.
It's my belief they're working hard to change the way the Kings are viewed by others around the league. Then and only then will we actually get upper tier free agents to even take our calls. Nobody said it was gonna happen overnight.
What Vivek (via PDA) does: Brings in a couple of players who are, by all accounts, very hard workers. With Landry, he WANTS to be here and he wants to help. And he wasn't anywhere near as bad before as some have claimed.
It's my belief they're working hard to change the way the Kings are viewed by others around the league. Then and only then will we actually get upper tier free agents to even take our calls. Nobody said it was gonna happen overnight.
