A positive take on the state of the team

[sactownfan]

Ok like many of you when news broke on twitter just before the Kings drafted Nik S. I was in a state of shock. There was Noah sliding and Payton available. Both seemingly fit immediate needs. But above all that we just drafted Ben last year... Ok so before we lose our minds over the apparent step back, or lack of a step forward...lets come back down to earth here.

DRAFT: (plus some Nik vs Ben)
Lets start with Nik. We got absolutely NOTHING from the 2 guard spot all season. We got so desperate Malone had to go to Outlaw at times. Something else to consider is that this roster had only one true SG pre draft ! (Terry isn't gonna be a King most likely). This team WAS one of the worst 3pt shooting teams in the NBA last year. I think we should all agree that if Ben had been lights out that could have been a HUGE HUGE HUGE difference maker, terrible defense aside. We would have won more games. Cousins and Gay woulda had a total field day! Nik is an athlete. He tested better than Ben in the agility drill and standing vert jump. He also tied Ben at the 3 quarter run. HE'S NOT A STIFF. He's also bigger and longer in every way. minus they tied in wingspan. Nik has waaaaaay better handles and I strongly believe he can handle the PG position at times. Especially if you consider that a big part of our offense is feeding Cousins and like the GOLDEN 2002 TEAM. letting the big pass (WE DIDN'T HAVE/NEED A PURE PG THEN!).

Nik is a natural flowing basketball player with swag. He's got soul! haha unlike Ben who looked so mechanical all year. Also Ben has zero handles and zero creativity at getting his own shot. .. Nik also appears to have a better mental makeup. He's got a killer instinct vs Ben who has all kinds of red flags mentally going back to his college time. At this point i just don't know if Ben can handle having any pressure on him. Ben might just be a really great bench guy. (btw I think Ben and JT are getting moved, but if Ben stays. look at Nik as an insurance policy if Ben can't ever pull it together.)

Ok so outside of that I personally believe this team just filled a BIG TIME need and this team just did actually improve at the 2 offensively. Lets talk about what is really driving everyone here crazy...

DEFENSE:
OK Ben was just atrocious defensively.... I'm sorry but this Nik guy is better by default, in that you couldn't play worse defense than what Ben did last year. The most hilarious part about Ben's defensive struggles was that it was considered a strength! lol! which apparently he lost coming to Sacramento. Ben is responsibly for more than half of the 3 pt shots teams hit against us. He cheated off his man over and over and over and over again. which over and over again resulted in a 3pt make for the other team. It was just awful. While defense is consider a weakness for Nik... Seriously i just think his heart and much higher basketball IQ will make him an upgrade, and again he's bigger and just as fast if not faster than Ben!! No he's not a stopper.... but an upgrade for sure....

I've never heard "GOOD DEFENSE LEADS TO GOOD OFFENSE" you have to have a working offense and capable players...however "GOOD DEFENSE LEADS TO LESS POINTS SCORED BY THE OPPONENT AND MORE OFFENSE!!!!" so in theory.... we need to have a better offense no matter what. also this is the NBA. if the offense is a mess you can bank on the defense being effected by that alone.

LETS BE REAL.... do we really have the worst group of defenders in the NBA? well maybe Ben and Jimmer could be up there. but outside of those two I seriously believe were not thaaaaat bad. Defense is a mindset. Its about HEART! and a never quit motor. Defense is about missing a shot on the other end or not getting the ball on the other end (when you think you should have been passed the ball) but still running back and doing everything in your power to keep the other team from scoring. Defense is about knowledge of the game and veteran savvy. Angles/passing lanes/ opponent tendencies / or how many freaking seconds are left in the freaking game and that a 4 pt play is the only thing that will cost you a win... lol! (Derrick Williams/Paul George)...

Heres what I think. It starts with Cousins!!!!!! i've personally watched him pout and quit, and that attitude is contagious. I love Cousins. I think he's a star and a future HOF player, and every year he gets more stable and composed. Go back to 2002. we were one of the best defensive teams... with Peja, Bibby and Vlad. lol! Webber was pretty good, and yeah Christie was a stopper. But we had heart and savvy! we never quit. Everyone bought in and helped each other just like on offense. Again it starts and ends with Cousins attitude. (side note i really think marcus thornton was a cancer and his defense and attitude effected our teams defense as a whole)

ROSTER/FRONT OFFICE:
ok a shot blocker would be great! a defensive stopper would be great too. But we don't need both. Look at the impact Serge had on the thunder vs the Spurs. HUGE difference. PEOPLE NEED TO CUT PETE D SOME SLACK!!! look at the moves he made just last year. SOLID! people are comparing him to Petrie??? we have Reggie Evans on this team? that would have never happened with Petrie lol!. Pete did the best he could with the mess the Maloofs left. the only move i didn't like last year was Carl landry. But that was not a basketball move so much as Malone had a tough task at winning the support of the team and Carl was gonna back him up. Carl is all class. That didn't work out and him being hurt was sad. but in retrospect it wasn't the reason we sucked. We got a lot contracts that will be more movable as the season goes on. As I said JT and Terry are almost locks at being moved. Ben is probably a trade chip.

IN CLOSING:
This offseason is just starting. Don't jump off a bridge because we actually might have just upgraded at the 2. Im not totally positive this team is as bad defensively as we ranked last year.. and on a positive note Pete just said himself that we need shot blocking. So there hope. He's not obvious to how we can upgrade at least. Let it play out. Really this could be on hold until the all-star break trading frenzy. So be patent

 

[Monster]

My big worry about the team is the bench. Doesn't matter how good the 5 is when the next few up off the bench put us in a hole.

Good coaching can hide those issues in the first few months of the season. Trades must happen to help.

Cuz and Gay have to become more team oriented. If they cut down their shots and focused on quality smart shots and involving the rest of the team, we're going to take a huge step. Too much talent on this team to be a lottery team...again.

 

[hrdboild]

I'm not even going to attempt to discern how you've arrived at the conclusion that Nik has soul and Ben is some kind of basketball robot. But I do want to talk about defense a bit because it seems to me that most casual fans see defense as what happens by default when the other team has the ball rather than a skill that has to be developed and practiced through repetition like any other part of the game. It comes up over and over again in these conversations and sometimes I feel like I'm speaking a different language. So let's think logically about what defense actually means for a minute.

If I'm going to try and defend Lebron James, what would allow me to do that? First of all I'm going to need some considerable physical gifts just to be able to compete. I don't need to be as tall as he is, but I do need to be tall enough that he can't just shoot the ball uncontested over me. I also need to be strong enough that he's not going to push me all over the gym. When we talk about physical tools -- that's what we mean. There's a minimum level of size and strength required just to get you in the conversation. (I should also note that the reverse is true -- if you're the tallest, fastest, strongest player on the court you're probably going to be able to stop some players from scoring merely by virtue of your physical gifts)

So let's assume I'm a typical NBA SF and I've got average height and wingspan and I've spent a decent amount of time in the weight room. Nothing physical is holding me back. Lebron is going to either back me down to the post, face up and try to drive by me, or create a jumper over me. If this is a five on five game he's also going to be looking to pass but we'll get to that later. We're just dealing with individual defense right now. At this point, Lebron has a significant advantage because he knows what he wants to do while I have to wait and react. Or do I?

This is a subtle thing and often gets missed in the fast pace of most basketball games, but if I'm going to defend Lebron well enough to force more misses than makes I can't allow him to dictate the entire possession. If he wants to go right I have to force him left. If he wants to create a step back I have to crowd up on him and not allow him space. If he wants to back me down I have to hold my position and/or force him to pick up his dribble. Professional defenders spend hours watching enough tape to determine the offensive player's tendencies and understand where they want to shoot the ball from, which hand they want to finish with, which side of the floor they shoot a higher percentage on. Your job as a defender is to prevent them from taking the shots they've practiced and force them to improvise a low percentage attempt instead.

Now let's talk about team defense. This is what makes Lebron such an unstoppable offensive force -- it doesn't matter what I do to prevent him from scoring because his goal more often than not is to create a look for someone else. The best individual defender in the world is useless in this situation if there's a deadeye shooter unguarded on the other side of the floor. Coaches design offenses to screw with your ability to defend them man-to-man. A screen is essentially a two-on-one move whereby an offensive player who can't beat you individually gets help from a teammate to create space for them. This forces the defender into a series of compromises -- switch onto a different player, try to slip under the screen and risk letting your man get by you, or cheat toward the basket giving your man room to shoot or make an easy pass while you recover.

The whole goal of team defense is to plan for these kinds of situations so that everybody on the floor knows what their assignment is when the offense is in motion. Just as the good individual defender studies players and looks to take the initiative and force their hand, a good team defense studies their opponents offense and looks to anticipate and take away scoring opportunities. If a play calls for a baseline screen to free up a shooter, for instance, I might coach the defense to play the passing lane and force the ball handler to keep the ball. The offense has now wasted 5 or 6 seconds of shot clock without creating an open shot. That's a very simple example, but I think you get the idea. Repeat this scenario enough and you might force a bad shot or even better a shotclock violation. It's a chess match with each side trying to get the upper hand.

So all that being said, it distresses me when I read that defense can be simplified down to heart and effort. If that were true I could theoretically step onto an NBA court and do some damage. That's not going to happen. Even if I had the requisite physical tools to compete with these guys (spoiler alert: I don't) -- I'd better put in a lot of hours studying game tape before I'm going to have a hope in the world of stopping somebody from scoring who's spent their entire life perfecting their ability to put that ball in the hole. Anyone who watched San Antonio in the playoffs this year (or any year really) should have a pretty good appreciation for how difficult it is to prevent a well-coached offense from picking your team apart. And a good team offense will find your weak defender and exploit them no matter what scheme you try to use to cover them up. I bet you Pop has drilled his plays into that team over and over again till they can run them in their sleep. That means your defense needs to practice scenarios as a team twice as long to be able to stop them.

Which is my long-winded way of saying that heart and hustle are cute for rec-league but they don't win NBA games. Defense is a full-time job and I think it's about time that the standout players who do so at a high level get the proper respect for what they actually contribute to the game. Basketball isn't a game of scoring more points than your opponent, from my point of view, it's a game of fighting and clawing for every point. You've got a city you're trying to defend and every time the ball goes through your net that's a howitzer striking against the city walls. It can only take so many hits before the whole thing crumbles down. Do you really want to go into battle knowing you've got a weak link in your defense when lives are on the line?

I'm exaggerating of course, but there are players out there who play defense like their life depended on it. Usually you'll find them on winning teams. Good defense does lead to good offense. It starts with fast breaks and extra possessions but ultimately the game is won when the other team is so demoralized that they can't compete with you anymore. And it's because I see the game as one big strategic battle that I want to see five solid individual defenders come together and throttle a professional offense into submission. That to me wouldn't be an unwatchable low-scoring game, it would be a triumph of good basketball.

 

[ShastaKingsFan]

Nice perspective there. The fact that Nik performed so well in the athletic tests is really something to consider here. This dude has a versatile motor on him. For him to be even close to Ben, let alone tie him, is very impressive.

As he puts on some strength and weight, he has the physical tools to be a good defender. For example, just as capable physically as a Klay Thompson

 

[sactownfan]

I'm not even going to attempt to discern how you've arrived at the conclusion that Nik has soul and Ben is some kind of basketball robot.

lol! honestly maybe you SHOULD start by trying.... you made it this far into your reply before your credibility was questioned. If you happened to miss all of last season. Draft express did a great scouting video on Ben where they mentioned how he darts in straight lines to the hoop when he has the ball as a weakness. Better yet. watch a highlight video of Ben then a highlight video of Nik back to back. While Nik might not be the next skip to my lo or next white chocolate. His natural flow and creativity is on a WHOLE different level vs Ben. Nik creates his own shot and has shown on the college level that he has better all around court vision vs Ben who at this point has show zero handles and court vision. (side note I'm not saying Ben will never be able to do so. but he is quite robotic when the ball is in his hands.

your details about defense are good, and for the most part i agree. I think if you re examin what i said you will see that i spoke (in much less detail) about things such as experience and veteran savvy. the in's and out's of the tactical side of being a good defender and teams playing good defense. however to relegate heart and motor as being some "CUTE rec league thing" couldn't be more off. This team as is, can do better. The cancerous bad attitude and lack of effort, and focus on the defensive end are a major part of why we were as bad as we were.

Adding a shot blocker without a doubt would do wonders. I think and hope it will happen. I also believe Malone will continue to develop this teams defensive abilities its only been one year since the nightmare of bad coaching. its gonna take time to reverse the culture damage the Maloofs left.

 

[hrdboild]

lol! honestly maybe you SHOULD start by trying.... you made it this far into your reply before your credibility was questioned. If you happened to miss all of last season. Draft express did a great scouting video on Ben where they mentioned how he darts in straight lines to the hoop when he has the ball as a weakness. Better yet. watch a highlight video of Ben then a highlight video of Nik back to back. While Nik might not be the next skip to my lo or next white chocolate. His natural flow and creativity is on a WHOLE different level vs Ben. Nik creates his own shot and has shown on the college level that he has better all around court vision vs Ben who at this point has show zero handles and court vision. (side note I'm not saying Ben will never be able to do so. but he is quite robotic when the ball is in his hands.

I think you're selling Ben short. I did go and re-watch some highlights from Ben's rookie season and he does a lot more than straight line drives to the hoop. I saw him finishing plays in transition, hitting set shots while barely touching the ball, using ball fakes to get to the rim, and setting up teammates with open layups off his drives to the basket. He's got every skill a guard needs to have to fill a valuable role in a structured offense. For some reason the number of designated play-finisher guards has dwindled to the point where it's now looked at as a weakness if a guard isn't out there trying to cross people up like Allen Iverson. There was a time not long ago when Ben's style of play was more the norm for guards in the NBA. Reggie Miller, Allan Houston, Steve Smith, Jerry Stackhouse, and so many lesser known starters throughout the league had long successful careers as primarily off the ball scorers.

Something else I noticed, and I'm not trying to knock Stauskas here because I really like his ability to create with the ball, but there's one play which is my least favorite play in basketball. It's when a player starts with the ball and dribbles toward the three point line or parallel to the three point line as if they're going to initiate a play but then instead they pull up for a three. It turns my stomach every time I see it. I'm not talking about a catch and shoot or escape dribble step back or curling off a screen. Those are perfectly fine basketball plays. I'm talking about the dribble up to the line, stare down the D, I don't need my team, full Kobe Bryant. Anyone who's watched professional basketball in the last 15 years knows exactly what I'm talking about. In 6 minutes of Ben McLemore highlights I didn't see him do it once. The first Stauskas highlight reel I clicked on he did it 8 times. Confidence is great but there is such a thing as overconfidence. I personally think it's a good thing that Ben knows his limitations and tries to play his game. Maybe it limits him to 3 and D status instead of a first or second option, but every team needs those types of players too.

 

[bajaden]

I'm not even going to attempt to discern how you've arrived at the conclusion that Nik has soul and Ben is some kind of basketball robot. But I do want to talk about defense a bit because it seems to me that most casual fans see defense as what happens by default when the other team has the ball rather than a skill that has to be developed and practiced through repetition like any other part of the game. It comes up over and over again in these conversations and sometimes I feel like I'm speaking a different language. So let's think logically about what defense actually means for a minute.

If I'm going to try and defend Lebron James, what would allow me to do that? First of all I'm going to need some considerable physical gifts just to be able to compete. I don't need to be as tall as he is, but I do need to be tall enough that he can't just shoot the ball uncontested over me. I also need to be strong enough that he's not going to push me all over the gym. When we talk about physical tools -- that's what we mean. There's a minimum level of size and strength required just to get you in the conversation. (I should also note that the reverse is true -- if you're the tallest, fastest, strongest player on the court you're probably going to be able to stop some players from scoring merely by virtue of your physical gifts)

So let's assume I'm a typical NBA SF and I've got average height and wingspan and I've spent a decent amount of time in the weight room. Nothing physical is holding me back. Lebron is going to either back me down to the post, face up and try to drive by me, or create a jumper over me. If this is a five on five game he's also going to be looking to pass but we'll get to that later. We're just dealing with individual defense right now. At this point, Lebron has a significant advantage because he knows what he wants to do while I have to wait and react. Or do I?

This is a subtle thing and often gets missed in the fast pace of most basketball games, but if I'm going to defend Lebron well enough to force more misses than makes I can't allow him to dictate the entire possession. If he wants to go right I have to force him left. If he wants to create a step back I have to crowd up on him and not allow him space. If he wants to back me down I have to hold my position and/or force him to pick up his dribble. Professional defenders spend hours watching enough tape to determine the offensive player's tendencies and understand where they want to shoot the ball from, which hand they want to finish with, which side of the floor they shoot a higher percentage on. Your job as a defender is to prevent them from taking the shots they've practiced and force them to improvise a low percentage attempt instead.

Now let's talk about team defense. This is what makes Lebron such an unstoppable offensive force -- it doesn't matter what I do to prevent him from scoring because his goal more often than not is to create a look for someone else. The best individual defender in the world is useless in this situation if there's a deadeye shooter unguarded on the other side of the floor. Coaches design offenses to screw with your ability to defend them man-to-man. A screen is essentially a two-on-one move whereby an offensive player who can't beat you individually gets help from a teammate to create space for them. This forces the defender into a series of compromises -- switch onto a different player, try to slip under the screen and risk letting your man get by you, or cheat toward the basket giving your man room to shoot or make an easy pass while you recover.

The whole goal of team defense is to plan for these kinds of situations so that everybody on the floor knows what their assignment is when the offense is in motion. Just as the good individual defender studies players and looks to take the initiative and force their hand, a good team defense studies their opponents offense and looks to anticipate and take away scoring opportunities. If a play calls for a baseline screen to free up a shooter, for instance, I might coach the defense to play the passing lane and force the ball handler to keep the ball. The offense has now wasted 5 or 6 seconds of shot clock without creating an open shot. That's a very simple example, but I think you get the idea. Repeat this scenario enough and you might force a bad shot or even better a shotclock violation. It's a chess match with each side trying to get the upper hand.

So all that being said, it distresses me when I read that defense can be simplified down to heart and effort. If that were true I could theoretically step onto an NBA court and do some damage. That's not going to happen. Even if I had the requisite physical tools to compete with these guys (spoiler alert: I don't) -- I'd better put in a lot of hours studying game tape before I'm going to have a hope in the world of stopping somebody from scoring who's spent their entire life perfecting their ability to put that ball in the hole. Anyone who watched San Antonio in the playoffs this year (or any year really) should have a pretty good appreciation for how difficult it is to prevent a well-coached offense from picking your team apart. And a good team offense will find your weak defender and exploit them no matter what scheme you try to use to cover them up. I bet you Pop has drilled his plays into that team over and over again till they can run them in their sleep. That means your defense needs to practice scenarios as a team twice as long to be able to stop them.

Which is my long-winded way of saying that heart and hustle are cute for rec-league but they don't win NBA games. Defense is a full-time job and I think it's about time that the standout players who do so at a high level get the proper respect for what they actually contribute to the game. Basketball isn't a game of scoring more points than your opponent, from my point of view, it's a game of fighting and clawing for every point. You've got a city you're trying to defend and every time the ball goes through your net that's a howitzer striking against the city walls. It can only take so many hits before the whole thing crumbles down. Do you really want to go into battle knowing you've got a weak link in your defense when lives are on the line?

I'm exaggerating of course, but there are players out there who play defense like their life depended on it. Usually you'll find them on winning teams. Good defense does lead to good offense. It starts with fast breaks and extra possessions but ultimately the game is won when the other team is so demoralized that they can't compete with you anymore. And it's because I see the game as one big strategic battle that I want to see five solid individual defenders come together and throttle a professional offense into submission. That to me wouldn't be an unwatchable low-scoring game, it would be a triumph of good basketball.

I'll just simplify what you said by quoting Larry Bird. First he said, that you can't stop a great player from scoring. All you can do is study him, and make him uncomfortable. If he likes to shoot from a certain spot, or spots on the floor, make him shoot from somewhere else. If he likes to drive right, make him go left. If he likes to spin toward the baseline, make him spin toward the key. Great players like LeBron are going to get their points. all you can hope to do is make them shoot a lower percentage, and make them work hard to do it. I agree that heart and effort alone won't get the job done, but the job won't get done without those things, and I think that was the implication. But far be it for me to speak for someone else.

I suppose that you could say good defense leads to good offense, but the opposite could be said as well. The more made baskets you have, the fewer rebounds and fast breaks the other team has. You need both to be a championship team. I'm a team defense guy, but, you still need individual effort to have good team defense. I think getting obsessed with either is a bad thing. Unfortunately, fans for the most part aren't interested in watching 80 to 76 final scores. Offense puts butt's in the seats. The player that scored 30 points gets the post game interview, not the player that shut down his man, but didn't score much. Not saying its right, just saying that's the way it is. There's no reason that Malone can't improve the team defense with the right group. Cousins defense improved a lot last season. He dropped his defensive rating down to 102, which if memory serves, was the lowest rating on the team. Get five guys out there with that rating, and you'll have a good defensive team, and you'll win a lot more games.

 

[kingsboi]

Well let's see how positive of a outlook we as fans have after a few weeks of free agency and rumor mills. I don't want to have one of those front offices where we say we are going to go one way and then do the complete opposite, it feels like sometimes all the pieces are kind of meshed together as far as the FO is concerned and that we really have no outlook on an identity, which is one of the first things you want to do.

 

[HereWeBoogie]

Very well writtin

 

[rainmaker]

Get five guys out there with that rating, and you'll have a good defensive team, and you'll win a lot more games.

Yes, but that doesn't happen by largely bringing back the same players.

Boogie stepped his game up defensively under Malone. Most others did not. So while Malone could likely get others to commit to defense the way Boogie has, they probably are not on this roster. If it didn't happen last year, makes little sense to expect it this year. If Malone couldn't turn IT into a decent defender last year, there's no reason to think it changes this coming year. It's not like Malone only preached defense to Boogie and left everyone else out of the conversation.

Ben/Ray might be different given youth/age. But you can't go from an IT/Ben/Ray backcourt to an IT/Ben/Ray/Stauskas backcourt and expect much different results on that end. And while a shotblocker would help us, our biggest issue defensively IMO was perimeter penetration, not being able to handle screens and our guards being almost non-factors as soon as they were switched onto other players.

Looking around the league, just about every team which makes a jump defensively does it by adding known defensive players. You almost never see a team who was terrible defensively turning it around and becoming a top defensive team with the same players. Also rarely see guys who aren't good defenders by 24/25 become good defenders.

And I'll say this, no team concerned with stopping perimeter penetration, being a good defensive team and playing playoff basketball in the West would consider having Ben/IT/Stauskas as three of their main backcourt players. And while leading up to our golden era we were exciting, we also had scrappy defenders in the backcourt, from Vernon Maxwell to Jon Barry to Jim Jackson to Anthony Peeler to Doug Christie to Bobby Jax. At the least we need a plus defender next to an IT or Stauskas when they're out there. That should be the minimum expectation, if both are here next year.

 

[dude12]

Yes, but that doesn't happen by largely bringing back the same players.

Boogie stepped his game up defensively under Malone. Most others did not. So while Malone could likely get others to commit to defense the way Boogie has, they probably are not on this roster. If it didn't happen last year, makes little sense to expect it this year. If Malone couldn't turn IT into a decent defender last year, there's no reason to think it changes this coming year. It's not like Malone only preached defense to Boogie and left everyone else out of the conversation.

Ben/Ray might be different given youth/age. But you can't go from an IT/Ben/Ray backcourt to an IT/Ben/Ray/Stauskas backcourt and expect much different results on that end. And while a shotblocker would help us, our biggest issue defensively IMO was perimeter penetration, not being able to handle screens and our guards being almost non-factors as soon as they were switched onto other players.

Looking around the league, just about every team which makes a jump defensively does it by adding known defensive players. You almost never see a team who was terrible defensively turning it around and becoming a top defensive team with the same players. Also rarely see guys who aren't good defenders by 24/25 become good defenders.

And I'll say this, no team concerned with stopping perimeter penetration, being a good defensive team and playing playoff basketball in the West would consider having Ben/IT/Stauskas as three of their main backcourt players. And while leading up to our golden era we were exciting, we also had scrappy defenders in the backcourt, from Vernon Maxwell to Jon Barry to Jim Jackson to Anthony Peeler to Doug Christie to Bobby Jax. At the least we need a plus defender next to an IT or Stauskas when they're out there. That should be the minimum expectation, if both are here next year.

This is not only well written but more importantly, it's accurate.....and while I think bajaden is mostly right in saying that fans want to see offense, I'd say that at this point, Kings fans want wins. We want a winning record. We put points on the board and we have a great fan base, we put W's in the win column and this fan base AND city will go nuts.

 

[rainmaker]

Kings fans show up anyway, sans the Maloof era. They want a winner. A high scoring winner might be more attractive to some, but fans want a winner and they want playoffs.

We have a great fanbase. It's not like if we bring in some defenders that fans will leave the arena in packs. I'd also say, given the Stauskas pick was hammered all over social media and KHTK by the more average/casual fans, the idea Kings fans want shooting and offense is overblown. This was the first time it seemed collectively that Kings fans said "hey, wait a minute, we need defense, we need help elsewhere". It brought a smile to my face. Ben/Jimmer also likely killed any excitement for another shooter, even if Stauskas is better than both combined.

But we don't have a fickle fanbase. Our fans are more like a Portland or Utah. They aren't going anywhere because we're more offense than defense of vice versa. What will make them stop coming however is repeatedly failing to get 35-40 wins, let alone the playoffs.

 

[pshn80]

Well let's see how positive of a outlook we as fans have after a few weeks of free agency and rumor mills. I don't want to have one of those front offices where we say we are going to go one way and then do the complete opposite, it feels like sometimes all the pieces are kind of meshed together as far as the FO is concerned and that we really have no outlook on an identity, which is one of the first things you want to do.

I don't think that kind of frustration comes from a forint office it comes as normal NBA player transaction business. The kind of thing you are talking about has always been there. So fasten your seat belt for the annual summer circus and hope for the best for our Kings.