[Game] 37/82 Kings vs. Heat 06 JAN 2025, 7pm PT/10pm ET
- Thread starter Mr. S£im Citrus
- Start date
Yeah, the Defensive Player of the Game is not necessarily the best defender in the game. Impact and context matter to the award somewhat, and I think Domas' work keeping Adebayao contained last night was huge. I know Bam has had kind of a down season, but with all the resistance Miami put up in the paint defensively last night, it was super important that the Kings gave a bit of it back. And it largely meant that Herro was the only consistent threat out there for the Heat, which in turn meant the Kings gave themselves a shot to come back. I like that the DPOG award functions this way. It rewards the efforts of those who are not necessarily the Kings best defenders, but delivered significant defensive plays or a meaningful overall defensive performance.
I see it similarly to a handicap in golf.
If 2 golfers are playing together and player A has a 2 handicap and player B has a 12 handicap, Player B could technically win even if they have a higher "raw" score. For example, Player A may shoot a 74 thus their final score is 72, but Player B may shoot a 80 and their final score is 68 (thus Player B wins). I see the DPOG in a similar way. Ellis & Murray are likely more like Player A while guys like Sabonis are more like Player B. If it was just about who was the best defender that game, Ellis and Murray would be racking them up every game, but sometimes Ellis and Murray just have their typical defensive game while Sabonis plays much better defensively than he normally does. In this case, Sabonis likely wins the award.
If 2 golfers are playing together and player A has a 2 handicap and player B has a 12 handicap, Player B could technically win even if they have a higher "raw" score. For example, Player A may shoot a 74 thus their final score is 72, but Player B may shoot a 80 and their final score is 68 (thus Player B wins). I see the DPOG in a similar way. Ellis & Murray are likely more like Player A while guys like Sabonis are more like Player B. If it was just about who was the best defender that game, Ellis and Murray would be racking them up every game, but sometimes Ellis and Murray just have their typical defensive game while Sabonis plays much better defensively than he normally does. In this case, Sabonis likely wins the award.
The winning streak should make McNair's life easier, as he now doesn't look like a lame lamb among the wolves. I do concur though with the idea that he should still be aggressively looking to make the team better by adding length and athleticism. It's not a time to sit back and rest on the laurels of winning five consecutive games.
I think McNair should make a move still to free up the logjam at guard and give us another wing with length, but outside of Kevin I really don’t want to trade away any of our guards. I like them all too much.
DC has a tough task figuring out starters. You almost have to play Keon in the starting 5. When Fox comes back, I think you move Monk to the 6th man and have Keon in. Keon and Murray together completely change our defense and I think that only improves with Fox over Monk. Need to start games strong and set the tone defensively.
Regardless, the guys playing heavy minutes should be Fox, Monk, DDR, Keon, Keegan, and Sabonis.
Then play Carter more as he gets up to speed. Sprinkle in Kevin, Lyles, and Len as your subs to rest the main pieces.
I still want to see Isaac get run too. I am a believer.
DC has a tough task figuring out starters. You almost have to play Keon in the starting 5. When Fox comes back, I think you move Monk to the 6th man and have Keon in. Keon and Murray together completely change our defense and I think that only improves with Fox over Monk. Need to start games strong and set the tone defensively.
Regardless, the guys playing heavy minutes should be Fox, Monk, DDR, Keon, Keegan, and Sabonis.
Then play Carter more as he gets up to speed. Sprinkle in Kevin, Lyles, and Len as your subs to rest the main pieces.
I still want to see Isaac get run too. I am a believer.
The only issue is where does that "length" get significant minutes if it takes value to get it? The Kings are starting to form what looks to be a strong, fortified 8 man group and that 9th man probably has to be a PF/C. It's likely the Kings eventually kind of start normalizing and then you see what this team really is.
Problem is Huerter is one of your bigger guards and is a catch and shoot threat. I don’t see him being traded unless we get a similar player back. And it isn’t Carter despite Jamal being Carters personal hype person.
I love lots of things about Carter but his push shot super high Arc 3 ball is not one of them. I think unless he changes his form he is going to struggle shooting at the NBA level. The more distance the ball has to travel the greater the chance of it going off line.
I love lots of things about Carter but his push shot super high Arc 3 ball is not one of them. I think unless he changes his form he is going to struggle shooting at the NBA level. The more distance the ball has to travel the greater the chance of it going off line.
Remember that McNair did not hire Brown.
And we can't know for sure that he was on board with the extension, that may have come from the top.
For all we know he could have been engineering the "coup" that forced our hand to fire Brown. The players had clearly quit on him. There can be conversations between agents and the FO to address these types of things. McNair may have been advised that players would accept a Christie head coach.
McNair blame/responsibility ratio in this org may not be 1:1.
And we can't know for sure that he was on board with the extension, that may have come from the top.
For all we know he could have been engineering the "coup" that forced our hand to fire Brown. The players had clearly quit on him. There can be conversations between agents and the FO to address these types of things. McNair may have been advised that players would accept a Christie head coach.
McNair blame/responsibility ratio in this org may not be 1:1.
IMHO Kings were bullied into the extension by Brown and local media who have a hate boner for Monte and Vivek (Matina too, and I'm not even sure they know why they have all just been told to hate her so they do). They ran with the "Vivek is so cheap he's going to screw this up" and in the end they get a deal done and have to fire the guy months later when he clearly lost the team.
And sadly even those of us who held hope for Coach have to admit the signs were there last year.
And sadly even those of us who held hope for Coach have to admit the signs were there last year.
He's stuck with that stench and hasn't run from it but I still believe Brandon Williams steered everyone that way and BW was almost certainly the leak in Vlade's FO that went to war with Joerger in the media.
Also think this is a big part of why the local fan media hates Monte so much because he won't scoop them and everyone's lips are sealed.
Also think this is a big part of why the local fan media hates Monte so much because he won't scoop them and everyone's lips are sealed.
His legacy is complicated and he was put into a job he wasn't ready for by an owner who was still trying to figure out how to own a team. I honestly think it says a lot about them (Vlade and Vivek) that they've continued a good relationship in the Monte/Wes era. It also says a lot about Vlade that he hasn't made any excuses in spite of the fact that every FO under Vivek has been something of a multi-headed snake and we know Vlade had a lot of assistants involved in scouting and financial matters. There is no way Vlade alone passed on Luka and yet he had the courtesy to shove his accomplices away before falling on that sword.
For as long as I can remember Sacramento media by and large (Ailene Voisin was a notable exception) have been more than happy to reheat and re-serve whatever purple-colored narrative that the Kings front office wants to sell them. I'm 98% certain that 29 other franchises would have signed Mike Brown to that same extension after the job he did in his first two seasons and the reactions we're getting from other NBA coaches are entirely reasonable reactions to have outside of the Sacramento bubble. Historically, Kings fans have their own logic about these things. For example, it's tough to explain now, but there was only a tepid level of unrest in Sacramento when Rick Adelman wasn't re-signed in 2006. A sizable chunk of fans had bought into the "we can do better" narrative.
I don't think the disconnect between Kings fan logic on this Mike Brown issue and pretty much everyone else in the NBA orbit is because everyone else is clueless, let me put it that way. This might sound like a put-down but I don't intend it that way. Sacramento is a one team market forever in the shadow of some very very big intra-state rivalries which extend beyond sports. The level of hyper-focus, the psychic weight imparted by how well the team is playing at any given moment, and the unique penchant for second, triple, and quadruple guessing which flow out of this fanbase all evince to me a highly irregular fan ecosystem which exists in very few other places that I've encountered. That level of passion can be very uplifting but it does come with a dark side.
There are structural roster problems which have not gone away with this coaching change and will continue to crop up throughout this season if Monte isn't able to make any trade deadline moves. Any way you slice it, 6 games is too small of a sample to draw sweeping conclusions about the next 40 games. As for "heart" and "fight" or whatever other cliches folks want to credit to Coach Christie, it was mostly this same group of players who went 5-1 in OT games last season and 4-1 in OT games the year before that. And I don't think there's any question that the ego-management part of this job got a lot tougher with Fox quite visibly looking toward his next paycheck, Monk looking to solidify his on-court role now that his long-term future is decided, DeRozan bringing in his All-Star / All-NBA pedigree and hoping for a long playoff run to ossify that Hall of Fame resume, and Keegan trying to keep pace with what's expected from a top 5 pick.
Yes there were apparent cracks in the foundation which are not easy to explain away. Why did Mike Brown stop calling quick timeouts? Why did he stop high fiving players on the sideline as they came out of the game? Why did he appear to come down harder on some player mistakes than others? Was there playful pushback from the players toward his "give me just a little bit more" coaching ethos or had that pushback turned in a more sinister direction? I've been telling people for the last 20 years that Doug Christie was my favorite Kings player so I'd love to join in the lovefest being showered upon him right now but I think he's mostly benefitting from the glow-up of being "not that guy". Mike Brown had simply become the most convenient scapegoat for a group which was not winning and had lost their "us against the world" swagger which is typically what has carried this franchise through similar streaks in the past.
Given all of the reasons I listed above for why none of this team's on-the-court leaders would be willing to take on the burden of personal responsibility this time, it was just a perfect storm of a notoriously impatient owner putting the heat on his front office to do something about all of this right now and the financial calamity of this current CBA tying the front office's hands (along with most other franchises) and making it very difficult to accomplish that directive. The real wizard behind the curtain of Mike Brown's firing here is all of the chatter about other teams wanting to swipe Fox away from us if we don't transform into a contender in the next 3 weeks. Which is ironic because those same talking heads who stoked the flames of Fox thievery which got Mike Brown fired now get to clap back at his firing as more evidence that Sacramento is a disaster which Fox needs to escape from ASAP. See how this works?
Balancing all of this out I see two potential silver linings: (1) Getting Devin Carter healthy was a big plus for Doug Christie's rotations -- as the only other defensive wing on this roster besides Keon and Keegan, the rotations never quite made sense in the early part of this season without him. His activity level on defense and on the boards is already paying dividends even if on offense he's quite clearly a rookie and will need time to grow into the pace of the NBA game and the intricacies of how to find angles and create space. (2) Regardless of the circumstances which led to Coach Christie taking the reins, his stint on the bench started before Mike Brown was hired so any immediate loss of continuity has been mitigated. And NBA players throughout time immemorial have responded better to coaching which comes from former NBA players, especially when those players were parts of winning teams in the past. The timing couldn't have worked out better with Doug taking over just as defensive glue-guy Devin Carter was ready to join the rotation. Now Doug's reputation as a player and Devin's skillset get to reinforce each other on a team which was absolutely desperate for another long-limbed mobile wing who can help to control the 3pt line.
We'll see what happens when this season ends... If Doug is out and someone from outside the organization comes in looking to impart their own personal coaching philosophies (which of course they would) then I would expect a significant dismantling to follow in the near future. A lot is riding on this current swell developing into a tide and sustaining itself for the next 40+ games.
I don't think the disconnect between Kings fan logic on this Mike Brown issue and pretty much everyone else in the NBA orbit is because everyone else is clueless, let me put it that way. This might sound like a put-down but I don't intend it that way. Sacramento is a one team market forever in the shadow of some very very big intra-state rivalries which extend beyond sports. The level of hyper-focus, the psychic weight imparted by how well the team is playing at any given moment, and the unique penchant for second, triple, and quadruple guessing which flow out of this fanbase all evince to me a highly irregular fan ecosystem which exists in very few other places that I've encountered. That level of passion can be very uplifting but it does come with a dark side.
There are structural roster problems which have not gone away with this coaching change and will continue to crop up throughout this season if Monte isn't able to make any trade deadline moves. Any way you slice it, 6 games is too small of a sample to draw sweeping conclusions about the next 40 games. As for "heart" and "fight" or whatever other cliches folks want to credit to Coach Christie, it was mostly this same group of players who went 5-1 in OT games last season and 4-1 in OT games the year before that. And I don't think there's any question that the ego-management part of this job got a lot tougher with Fox quite visibly looking toward his next paycheck, Monk looking to solidify his on-court role now that his long-term future is decided, DeRozan bringing in his All-Star / All-NBA pedigree and hoping for a long playoff run to ossify that Hall of Fame resume, and Keegan trying to keep pace with what's expected from a top 5 pick.
Yes there were apparent cracks in the foundation which are not easy to explain away. Why did Mike Brown stop calling quick timeouts? Why did he stop high fiving players on the sideline as they came out of the game? Why did he appear to come down harder on some player mistakes than others? Was there playful pushback from the players toward his "give me just a little bit more" coaching ethos or had that pushback turned in a more sinister direction? I've been telling people for the last 20 years that Doug Christie was my favorite Kings player so I'd love to join in the lovefest being showered upon him right now but I think he's mostly benefitting from the glow-up of being "not that guy". Mike Brown had simply become the most convenient scapegoat for a group which was not winning and had lost their "us against the world" swagger which is typically what has carried this franchise through similar streaks in the past.
Given all of the reasons I listed above for why none of this team's on-the-court leaders would be willing to take on the burden of personal responsibility this time, it was just a perfect storm of a notoriously impatient owner putting the heat on his front office to do something about all of this right now and the financial calamity of this current CBA tying the front office's hands (along with most other franchises) and making it very difficult to accomplish that directive. The real wizard behind the curtain of Mike Brown's firing here is all of the chatter about other teams wanting to swipe Fox away from us if we don't transform into a contender in the next 3 weeks. Which is ironic because those same talking heads who stoked the flames of Fox thievery which got Mike Brown fired now get to clap back at his firing as more evidence that Sacramento is a disaster which Fox needs to escape from ASAP. See how this works?
Balancing all of this out I see two potential silver linings: (1) Getting Devin Carter healthy was a big plus for Doug Christie's rotations -- as the only other defensive wing on this roster besides Keon and Keegan, the rotations never quite made sense in the early part of this season without him. His activity level on defense and on the boards is already paying dividends even if on offense he's quite clearly a rookie and will need time to grow into the pace of the NBA game and the intricacies of how to find angles and create space. (2) Regardless of the circumstances which led to Coach Christie taking the reins, his stint on the bench started before Mike Brown was hired so any immediate loss of continuity has been mitigated. And NBA players throughout time immemorial have responded better to coaching which comes from former NBA players, especially when those players were parts of winning teams in the past. The timing couldn't have worked out better with Doug taking over just as defensive glue-guy Devin Carter was ready to join the rotation. Now Doug's reputation as a player and Devin's skillset get to reinforce each other on a team which was absolutely desperate for another long-limbed mobile wing who can help to control the 3pt line.
We'll see what happens when this season ends... If Doug is out and someone from outside the organization comes in looking to impart their own personal coaching philosophies (which of course they would) then I would expect a significant dismantling to follow in the near future. A lot is riding on this current swell developing into a tide and sustaining itself for the next 40+ games.
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