‘It’s eating me alive:’ DeMarcus Cousins again leading Kings’ longshot playoff push

[The_Jamal]

Padrino is right, we have good bench guys, who should be the 6-9 guys in a rotation trying to be the 2-5 guys next to our stud. It's insanely hard to win with such a huge overall talent gap against essentially every team.

Can anyone think of another supporting cast in the NBA that wouldn't be an instant upgrade over this one? I cant

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

If that's the way you really feel, don't expect the Kings to be playoff contenders anytime soon with Cousins at the helm then. If you are cool with just watching Boogie put up video game numbers while winning 30-35 games for the next couple of seasons, by all means.

I'm not really "cool" watching Cousins at all. I don't self-identify as a Cousins fan. From my point of view, it's simply the LOA.

I have been fairly consistent in my position, regarding Cousins, over the years: I am against trading Cousins because I have no faith in our ability to get value for Cousins. I don't enjoy watching kids play, and I don't believe in the draft, so I'm not interested in moving Cousins for unproven prospects and/or draft picks.

 

[kingsboi]

I'm not really "cool" watching Cousins at all. I don't self-identify as a Cousins fan. From my point of view, it's simply the LOA.

I have been fairly consistent in my position, regarding Cousins, over the years: I am against trading Cousins because I have no faith in our ability to get value for Cousins. I don't enjoy watching kids play, and I don't believe in the draft, so I'm not interested in moving Cousins for unproven prospects and/or draft picks.

With that said, are the Hornets also formerly known as the Bobcats, a team you enjoy watching or was it more so due to the fact that Gerald Wallace was playing for them?

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

I have no attachment to Charlotte. I pretty much quit paying attention to them when Wallace got traded. I'm also not particularly interested in rooting for a team that has Spencer Hawes on it.

 

[allrightythen]

I agree with the idea that after Cousins we have a bunch of solid 6th-men types (excluding Rudy as he's injured). In my view we to upgrade the starter and every position around Cousins and given Rudy's injury and desire to leave Sacramento that includes his spot. On the bright side we will have money to spend this off-season in addition to some promising youth so all is not completely hopeless. If this team can by some miracle squeak into the playoffs this year Joerger deserves an award because these pieces are not all that talented and do not fit together particularly well.

 

[hrdboild]

I didn't bother with any drafts where we actually got good players with our first round picks.

The 2007 draft produced 22 guys who are still in the league ten years later, into their second (and third?) contracts, including 14 career double-digit scorers, four All-Stars, two DPOYs and one MVP. In the aggregate, the average NBA career is a little over three years long, so any draft in which 45 percent of the guys who actually made a roster are still in the league a decade later (22 out of 49) is as close to "deep" as makes no odds. The 2008 draft produced 28 guys who are still in the league (out of 51 who actually made a roster) nine years later, including 15 double-digit scorers, five All-Stars and one MVP (so far). The 2011 draft produced 31 guys who are still in the league (out of 54 who made a roster), including 19 double-digit scorers, five All-Stars (so far) and one DPOY.

Counting the pick we got from Memphis in 2008, we had four first round picks in those three drafts. The four guys we got were Spencer Hawes, Jason Thompson, Donte Greene and Jimmer Fredette. The season I first started following the Kings was the year we drafted Pervis Ellison. The year after that, we had four picks in the first round, and came away with Lionel Simmons, Travis Mays, Duane Causwell and Anthony Bonner. I won't be fooled again; I'll wait on the bird in hand instead. Miss me with this draft stuff, homie; I ain't never gonna be with it.

If you're going to judge the validity of the draft as a means of obtaining talent solely on the basis of the players that Sacramento has drafted through the years, I can see why you would hate the draft. I think if you can find 5 players we passed on in a particular draft who are solid starters in the league that's a good enough sample to blame the team for using their resources poorly rather than the draft itself for being a bad pool of talent. Case in point, the 2011 first round is absolutely loaded with solid NBA veterans and we made one of the worst picks in the entire round. It doesn't matter how good the draft is if we're going manage our picks so ineptly. So in terms of just analyzing the results, yeah the draft has been a comedy of errors for this franchise. But then you look at teams like Golden State and San Antonio who are dominating the league with mostly homegrown talent and it's hard to dismiss it outright.

I'm of two minds on the topic. I love the draft itself -- I love watching kids play and predicting who they will grow up to be. I love how following the draft every year has familiarized me with not just the stars on other teams but the #4-15 rotation players as well that you don't really see much of unless they play for whichever team you root for. I love thinking about what the league will look like 5 years from now and which players that nobody knows about right now are going to take it there. But I also hate watching my team blunder their way through it every year in embarrassing fashion. Not having a pick can be kindof a relief at times because at least there's nothing for the Kings to mess up. Not having a pick is disappointing, watching the team pass on multiple stars is much worse. But then we did get Cousins from the draft. If we only get one pick every 7 years right, that's a bad record overall but maybe we're due for a good one this year? Wouldn't drafting a second All Star dramatically change our fortunes overnight? Even if we strike out 10 times in a row, the next swing could be a home run.

 

[peacelate]

I'm always intrigued about the draft even though the Kings suck at drafting. How else are they going to get better?

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

If you're going to judge the validity of the draft as a means of obtaining talent solely on the basis of the players that Sacramento has drafted through the years, I can see why you would hate the draft. I think if you can find 5 players we passed on in a particular draft who are solid starters in the league that's a good enough sample to blame the team for using their resources poorly rather than the draft itself for being a bad pool of talent. Case in point, the 2011 first round is absolutely loaded with solid NBA veterans and we made one of the worst picks in the entire round. It doesn't matter how good the draft is if we're going manage our picks so ineptly. So in terms of just analyzing the results, yeah the draft has been a comedy of errors for this franchise. But then you look at teams like Golden State and San Antonio who are dominating the league with mostly homegrown talent and it's hard to dismiss it outright.

Unless we can steal some of their scouts away to work for us instead, what the hell good does that do us?

 

[hrdboild]

Unless we can steal some of their scouts away to work for us instead, what the hell good does that do us?

You were saying that the draft is worthless. I was saying that it's clearly not worthless to those teams so the real question should be: "What are those teams doing right that we're doing wrong?" I get that your whole post basically boiled down to a summation of Kings draft history and why you no longer have faith in the draft for this team. But considering our other options are severely limited (you need assets to make trades and our free agent history is somehow even worse than our draft history) I don't think it makes sense to eliminate the draft entirely as a path to building a winning team. This is a problem that needs to be fixed, not ignored.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

If "eliminate the draft entirely as a path to building a winning team" is what you got out of what I wrote, then you didn't actually read what I wrote. I was speaking of how I consume basketball, in terms of my entertainment value. Nobody else's. The draft is worthless to me, as it pertains to my entertainment value.

Would I eschew the draft, if it were my job to build a winning team in Sacramento? No. But it's not my job to build a winning team in Sacramento. Or anywhere else. And I get that a lot of Kings Fans find that kind of stuff interesting to speculate on; I don't. I not trying watch games like I'm viewing them through the eye of a general manager, or a coach. That's not my idea of fun.

I would rather see guys who already know how to play, but may be ****ty at their jobs, than kids who haven't yet learned how to play, but may or may not get better. I don't know why I do, but I do. I don't want to see the learning process, just show me the finished product.

 

[hrdboild]

If "eliminate the draft entirely as a path to building a winning team" is what you got out of what I wrote, then you didn't actually read what I wrote. I was speaking of how I consume basketball, in terms of my entertainment value. Nobody else's. The draft is worthless to me, as it pertains to my entertainment value.

Would I eschew the draft, if it were my job to build a winning team in Sacramento? No. But it's not my job to build a winning team in Sacramento. Or anywhere else. And I get that a lot of Kings Fans find that kind of stuff interesting to speculate on; I don't. I not trying watch games like I'm viewing them through the eye of a general manager, or a coach. That's not my idea of fun.

I would rather see guys who already know how to play, but may be ****ty at their jobs, than kids who haven't yet learned how to play, but may or may not get better. I don't know why I do, but I do. I don't want to see the learning process, just show me the finished product.

I get it man. I wasn't trying to be argumentative. I wasn't quoting you, just summarizing the general theme of your comments and why I feel differently. You said that you don't like watching kids play, I prefer watching kids play. Veterans to me can feel like they're going through the motions, earning a paycheck. Which don't get me wrong, that's a perfectly legit way to earn a living if you have the means. Keep getting them checks and all that. But I like the enthusiasm for the game that young players have and the possibility of seeing a glimpse of the future before anyone else sees it. That's exciting to me. I also read history books for fun so I'm weird. I want to see this Kings team play great basketball again at some point in my life and I think we get there faster through the draft than any other means. But it's up for debate. I was often frustrated with your posts before when I couldn't figure out where you were coming from. You're awfully single-minded about hating the draft no matter what and I just see it as a means to an end and the best possible result of a losing season (silver lining?) -- ie if you have to lose, at least get something valuable out of it. But it makes sense to me where you're coming from now so I'll cool it.