[Game] Kings vs. Knicks, 1/22/21, 7pm PST, 10pm EST

for a moment there I though Bags would continue in his role of tank commander but he played well. Hopefully we can get a decent young player or a pick for Barnes before the trading deadline.
Wrong vet to move at the deadline. I guess it depends how full "tank commander" McNair wants to go, but I really would like this team to move forward with Fox/Hali/Barnes/Holmes as the core. I'm worried that if we don't move him, Holmes is playing himself out of our price range once he heads to FA since we can afford more than like $9mil/season.

My ideal path moving forward is trade Buddy for a young asset, make sure we have cap space to resign Holmes this off-season, salvage anything for Bjelica/CoJo/Whiteside/GRIII if you can (let them go this off-season if you can't) and give the young guys (Guy, Woodard, Ramsey, Metu) off the bench a chance for some consistent developmental minutes.
 
Randle is another example of a young player underperforming under Luke, then breaking out a few years later.

It's a bit of piling on on Luke. Part of it is a big man taking time to learn how to play with big boys down low.
 
The Kings held the Knicks under 100 points, and had 14 blocks. That is the game right there.
Fox, Barnes and Holmes are playing well and showing up every night. When your center gets 14 rebounds and 6 blocks you are going to win a lot of games. Haliburton is starting to remind me of watching Matisse Thybulle at UW. He does everything well. Metu is good off the bench.

Hield and Bagley are consistently underwhelming. The Kings can consider not starting either one of them. They are still weak defenders. Their offensive firepower is erratic.
 
Randle is another example of a young player underperforming under Luke, then breaking out a few years later.

It's a bit of piling on on Luke. Part of it is a big man taking time to learn how to play with big boys down low.
Not defend Walton here, but Randle really started finding his game his last season in LA. Everything I saw at the time was that upper management didn't want him getting a lot of minutes because it would take time away from their young players. They didn't see him as part of their future because he wasn't a 3pt shooter.
 

Capt. Factorial

trifolium contra tempestatem subrigere certum est
Staff member
Hey mods, how do we stop getting 14 article posts on the site? Seems superfluous
If you're talking about the Kings News Links forum, we have to manually keep up with it by deleting them. It's tedious and not always on my top list of things to do. Slim is the real hero here most of the time, so I'll give him credit. I'd like to fix it once and for all, but on that count I'm like the Wizard of Oz in a hot air balloon.
 
The Kings held the Knicks under 100 points, and had 14 blocks. That is the game right there.
Fox, Barnes and Holmes are playing well and showing up every night. When your center gets 14 rebounds and 6 blocks you are going to win a lot of games. Haliburton is starting to remind me of watching Matisse Thybulle at UW. He does everything well. Metu is good off the bench.

Hield and Bagley are consistently underwhelming. The Kings can consider not starting either one of them. They are still weak defenders. Their offensive firepower is erratic.
Agreed.

Fox, HB, Holmes, TH, Metu. Love what these guys are putting out there. Very excited about what Metu might become. Given his very modest pedigree I've been impressed by his aggressiveness on the floor. Like Haliburton, the kid's not just trying not to mess up. And he has a very nice looking shooting stroke. I could see him extending to 3-pt range eventually.

Bagley I have hopes for too. He might never be a + defender, but he definitely had the physical attributes and want-to to become at least solid. Shooting 35% from 3 and his corner 3 looks good. Let's hope he stays healthy and keeps working hard. He needs lots of one-on-one coaching w/someone who knows what he's doing.

Hield is the fate we hope Bagley will avoid. He has a clear strength, consistently plays hard, and is a solid teammate. That's all good. Buddy's not so much selfish as simple-minded in hoops terms. I feel ambivalent when he hits a shot or two, cuz you can then count on him chucking the next few times he has the ball regardless. (Course, he's also talented enough to make some.) Buddy is probably what he is, warts and all. I think Bagley is young enough in terms of NBA gameplay to hope for real improvement yet. Not ready to give up on him.

Lots of work to do, but the cupboard's FAR from bare.
 
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Capt. Factorial

trifolium contra tempestatem subrigere certum est
Staff member
Don't know about you, but I have around 20 or so college games I have to watch, so it's a nice break for me. Gives me a chance to clear some space on my DVR's...
I do my best to get a backlog like that, but it seems like every other game I try to tape gets postponed...
 
Agreed.

Fox, HB, Holmes, TH, Metu. Love what these guys are putting out there. Very excited about what Metu might become. Given his very modest pedigree I've been impressed by his aggressiveness on the floor. Like Haliburton, the kid's not just trying not to mess up. And he has a very nice looking shooting stroke. I could see him extending to 3-pt range eventually.

Bagley I have hopes for too. He might never be a + defender, but he definitely had the physical attributes and want-to to become at least solid. Shooting 35% from 3 and his corner 3 looks good. Let's hope he stays healthy and keeps working hard. He needs lots of one-on-one coaching w/someone who knows what he's doing.

Hield is the fate we hope Bagley will avoid. He has a clear strength, consistently plays hard, and is a solid teammate. That's all good. Buddy's not so much selfish as simple-minded in hoops terms. I feel ambivalent when he hits a shot or two, cuz you can then count on him chucking the next few times he has the ball regardless. (Course, he's also talented enough to make some.) Buddy is probably what he is, warts and all. I think Bagley is young enough in terms of NBA gameplay to hope for real improvement yet. Not ready to give up on him.

Lots of work to do, but the cupboard's FAR from bare.
Generally agree with you except for the point on Barnes. Your description of Buddy could pretty much be said about Barnes on any given year. He's having an overall good season for us so far, though not without some really invisible games too, but he has never throughout his career really proven to be anything more than a decent player that consistently plays hard and is a solid teammate.
 
Generally agree with you except for the point on Barnes. Your description of Buddy could pretty much be said about Barnes on any given year. He's having an overall good season for us so far, though not without some really invisible games too, but he has never throughout his career really proven to be anything more than a decent player that consistently plays hard and is a solid teammate.
I've followed HB since his Carolina days (I'm a Heels fan). He and Buddy have similarities, yes, and significant differences (for better and worse). In re the latter:
  1. Barnes is a MUCH more versatile offensive player than Buddy. I'd be happy to count the ways.
  2. HB is also the more versatile defensive player, though Buddy's increased strength has served him well against bigger players this year.
  3. HB is a very underrated passer; Buddy isn't.
  4. Buddy will shoot you out of a game; HB never will.
  5. The flip side of #4 is that HB will take himself out of a game offensively. He's pathologically unselfish. (Larry Brown would have LOVED him.) This has hurt him. If he's out of the flow or missing his shots early, he's unlikely to assert himself late. For better and worse, Buddy never seems to lack confidence with his shot.
  6. HB is a much headier player than BH. He'll ALWAYS play "the right way" on the court - not to be confused w/playing well - and comport himself the right way off the court. He'd never kick up the fuss Buddy did over (not) starting.
HB will never make an All-Star game, or (probably) deserve to. But he's grossly underrated by fans, always - and loved by his coaches, always. He's led his teams in mpg 5 years running. Go figure.
 
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I've followed HB since his Carolina days (I'm a Heels fan). He and Buddy have similarities, yes, and significant differences (for better and worse). In re the latter:
  1. Barnes is a MUCH more versatile offensive player than Buddy. I'd be happy to count the ways.
  2. HB is also the more versatile defensive player, though Buddy's increased strength has served him well against bigger players this year.
  3. HB is a very underrated passer; Buddy isn't.
  4. Buddy will shoot you out of a game; HB never will.
  5. The flip side of #4 is that HB will take himself out of a game offensively. He's pathologically unselfish. (Larry Brown would have LOVED him.) This has hurt him. If he's out of the flow or missing his shots early, he's unlikely to assert himself late. For better and worse, Buddy never seems to lack confidence with his shot.
  6. HB is a much headier player than BH. He'll ALWAYS play "the right way" on the court - not to be confused w/playing well - and comport himself the right way off the court. He'd never kick up the fuss Buddy did over (not) starting.
HB will never make an All-Star game, or (probably) deserve to. But he's always grossly underrated by fans, always, - and loved by his coaches, always. He's led his teams in mpg 5 years running. Go figure.
I don't disagree, and the counter is that Barnes isn't going to shoot you into games either. They're both pretty similar in terms of health/reliability. My point is that even after all that, they're still ideally 3rd options on the team at best, and both getting paid 20mil/yr, and aside from Barnes' fortune of being on the Warriors, really haven't proven that they bring any kind of leadership so significant that it contributes to winning (vs say someone like CP3 and what he did with OKC). In other words, on their current contracts I don't think their values at really that different.
 
I don't disagree, and the counter is that Barnes isn't going to shoot you into games either. They're both pretty similar in terms of health/reliability. My point is that even after all that, they're still ideally 3rd options on the team at best, and both getting paid 20mil/yr, and aside from Barnes' fortune of being on the Warriors, really haven't proven that they bring any kind of leadership so significant that it contributes to winning (vs say someone like CP3 and what he did with OKC). In other words, on their current contracts I don't think their values at really that different.
CP3 is being paid 41 millions dollars this season:) Buddy is at 24 and HB is at 21. So their deals are pretty far apart as is their production:)
 
CP3 is being paid 41 millions dollars this season:) Buddy is at 24 and HB is at 21. So their deals are pretty far apart as is their production:)
Not really sure what your point is. I wasn't comparing Barnes and Buddy's production with Paul. I'm saying it's not as if Barnes' intangibles are so significant that they set him apart from Buddy.
 
Not really sure what your point is. I wasn't comparing Barnes and Buddy's production with Paul. I'm saying it's not as if Barnes' intangibles are so significant that they set him apart from Buddy.
Oh, I thought you made a comparison when you wrote:

(vs say someone like CP3 and what he did with OKC)
 
Oh, I thought you made a comparison when you wrote:

(vs say someone like CP3 and what he did with OKC)
Yeah what I meant was CP3's leadership and intangibles actually move the needle (yes his on-court production was good too but 17.5/6.5 aren't exactly all star or superstar numbers), while Barnes has not proven that whatever professionalism he brings actually significantly helps the team to win to the extent that you could say it makes him much more valuable from someone like Buddy. My point is Barnes isn't bringing $41MM leadership for $20MM, nor is he really bringing on-court production that is significantly better than Buddy, so their values aren't significantly different.