A year wasted thanks to Monte.

I understand Huerter has improved other aspects of his game but his best selling card once again disappoints.
Curious if he’s making his trade value even worse this season.
 
I understand Huerter has improved other aspects of his game but his best selling card once again disappoints.
Curious if he’s making his trade value even worse this season.
Considering his season is almost a mirror of last one if not worse it's likely a given at this point. Odds are also him getting pushed from major minutes just like last season at some point as well. Just like with all those "sucky" players that find their game somewhere else, I think they are doing what sometimes happens and that's trying to turn a player into what they need rather than what that player needs to be. The two DHO staples in Huerter and Keegan are struggling and it's not a coincidence even if they shouldn't be struggling this bad. The thing with Keegan is he's now a top notch defender and a darn good rebounder so he's still a net positive every night. With Huerter, deflections aren't taking a player anywhere long term if they are doing so but still not really capable of keeping their man in front of them. Huerter is a classic need a big that can protect the rim player. Domas ain't it.
 
I think I literally flipped my mind on this after last night.

I went into this year basically thinking him and Brown were safe, no matter what. I think that was with the assumption though that we'd stay competitive for the playoffs and either make the play-in or a playoff series. Or even if we got knocked out, it was another 45 win season.

We're really on the verge of this thing toppling over I think though. Like a Philly Sixers sort of lost season. It's hard to see how this team starts winning games until they figure out the massive problem they have at the 3pt line, on both ends of the court.
Same dude. I have defended all the way up until this stretch. I still think he’s a good GM, and he was placed in an extremely difficult situation. Turn around a sorry franchise and get them to the Playoffs without a proper rebuild, with a severe lack of assets. He did great in accomplishing that goal.

I was frustrated by, but understood, the lack of deadline moves. The team was a winning team in each scenario. But this offseason surprised me the most of any McNair off season, the weaknesses were clear as day.
 
Same dude. I have defended all the way up until this stretch. I still think he’s a good GM, and he was placed in an extremely difficult situation. Turn around a sorry franchise and get them to the Playoffs without a proper rebuild, with a severe lack of assets. He did great in accomplishing that goal.

I was frustrated by, but understood, the lack of deadline moves. The team was a winning team in each scenario. But this offseason surprised me the most of any McNair off season, the weaknesses were clear as day.
It's hard for me to put any of this current struggle on Monte. What's he supposed to do when all our shooters are massively slumping? You build the team that, I don't know, are going to hit shots pretty close to their career levels. And it's not like we can just forget the start of the year and then 3 of our best players all get hurt for a stretch and now we're all out of wack trying to reintegrate them into the offense.

The two things I put on Brown are 1. Not enough Keon and 2. The 3pt defense remains in the gutter. Those are two things we have direct control over and it took 20 games to even address one of them.
 

hrdboild

Moloch in whom I dream Angels!
Staff member
It's hard for me to put any of this current struggle on Monte. What's he supposed to do when all our shooters are massively slumping? You build the team that, I don't know, are going to hit shots pretty close to their career levels. And it's not like we can just forget the start of the year and then 3 of our best players all get hurt for a stretch and now we're all out of wack trying to reintegrate them into the offense.

The two things I put on Brown are 1. Not enough Keon and 2. The 3pt defense remains in the gutter. Those are two things we have direct control over and it took 20 games to even address one of them.
There's also the mental hurdle of overcoming the Sacramento Kings whistle. Which, I will admit, is exaggerated to a certain extent by our bias as a fanbase (2002 Western Conference Finals PTSD for those of us who remember it and the same type of confirmation bias that all fans of a particular team are susceptible to). But there is a fair amount of smoke to the fire that Sacramento is just treated different by officials relative to other teams. Kevin Huerter commented on it during his first month on the Kings. I don't know if DeMar has spoken to it, but his reactions during certain games suggest that he is aware of it. The Kings have lost a handful of winnable games already due to suspect officiating and that's the difference between riding high at 12-6 in the 4 seed right now and 8-10 with a constant stream of "I told you so's" filtering in from the usual naysayers.

Like most Kings seasons this one started out with high expectations, a lot of energy from the entire roster, and early buzz about All-Star spots for our top players. But after 4 weeks the doubts have started to creep in, the shoulders have started to slouch, and there's a palpable frustration starting to spread across the faces of our main rotation players. It's the frustration of "when we do everything right, are these officials even going to let us win?"
 
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It's hard for me to put any of this current struggle on Monte. What's he supposed to do when all our shooters are massively slumping? You build the team that, I don't know, are going to hit shots pretty close to their career levels. And it's not like we can just forget the start of the year and then 3 of our best players all get hurt for a stretch and now we're all out of wack trying to reintegrate them into the offense.

The two things I put on Brown are 1. Not enough Keon and 2. The 3pt defense remains in the gutter. Those are two things we have direct control over and it took 20 games to even address one of them.
Monte came into the season with a forward rotation of DDR/Keegan/Lyles, and signed McDermott right before training camp. Two older forwards, one who was specifically injured a lot of last year. McDermott shouldn’t really be counted on to get minutes. So that’s 3 guys at forward to rely on, while you have 6 guards. Just so imbalanced. That’s just unacceptable imo. I agree on the Brown criticisms though.
 

pdxKingsFan

So Ordinary That It's Truly Quite Extraordinary
Staff member
Fox is talented but will never be *That* guy. He can be the Robin to someone else’s Batman.
Monte is not immune from criticism and I still will look back at the good Fox moments fondly - not sure if my timeline is off - but it all changed with the Dubs series - he hooked up with Steph in the offseason and is that also when he signed with Klutch?

everything got in his head and its been downhill since, last season the ball started but now it's a giant snowball steamrolling everything.

Last night was my breaking point - 1 for 7 first half. Somehow looks like an MVP for the next 20 minutes. Complete meltdown including blowing the game on the final play. Oh wait, penultimate play. But his half court shot was lazy too.

People can say "DHO has been figured out" but the team was better when it ran around Domas.
 
Fox is talented but will never be *That* guy. He can be the Robin to someone else’s Batman.
What if opponents keep getting him mad every game? Isn’t that what gets leebron actually check that isn’t that what gets Ja, Brunson, and Cade to coke out like stars every game they get pissed right

Edit::
I still want a three way trade with us getting Zion **** rebuilding
 
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Where are all his supporters and apologists at? His inaction is causing us to lose our best player since Chris Webber and send us back to obscurity and lottery hell.
Were you around during the last of the Petrie years? If you think THIS is inaction? Holy cow those years were brutal. Monte literally traded Haliburton for Fox. Likely drafted Keegan for the same. Signed DeMar. This summer after the run it back he shifted. No, not a lot, but Monte >>>> previous GM's in terms of inaction so far.
 
Were you around during the last of the Petrie years? If you think THIS is inaction? Holy cow those years were brutal. Monte literally traded Haliburton for Fox. Likely drafted Keegan for the same. Signed DeMar. This summer after the run it back he shifted. No, not a lot, but Monte >>>> previous GM's in terms of inaction so far.
Word. I take this season (taking a swing and a chance and missing badly) as opposed to last year. Being stagnant with a team that has zero title aspirations is boring. Run it back was probably my least favorite season I can remember as a Kings fan, because I knew that team wasn’t good enough to be better than the previous season but it also was too good to give us dreams of the lottery once again.

And from here it looks like they know what has to be done, and that gives us eyes back on the lottery. It feels so right again!!!
 
Were you around during the last of the Petrie years? If you think THIS is inaction? Holy cow those years were brutal. Monte literally traded Haliburton for Fox. Likely drafted Keegan for the same. Signed DeMar. This summer after the run it back he shifted. No, not a lot, but Monte >>>> previous GM's in terms of inaction so far.
First of all, he traded Halliburton for Sabinos not Fox, and that trade was to fix his mistake of drafting another guard that didn’t fit with the team. Then what does he do? Drafts Mitchell. Signing Derozan was to fix the hole we had with Barnes who he traded away one year after the mistake of extending him. Derozan doesn’t even fit with this team. No defense, slows the pace, and has been inconsistent. Where are the moves to address the true needs we’ve had the last two years? There are none. He’s done nothing to improve the roster, he’s only fixed his mistakes and now here we are with a losing record on the verge of blowing everything up thanks to him.
 

pdxKingsFan

So Ordinary That It's Truly Quite Extraordinary
Staff member
We made changes last year, they also sucked. We let TD go, as well as Metu & Nemi.

All of those guys have huge flaws but for the most part their replacements have been complete and total busts.

The less said about Sasha the better.
 
First of all, he traded Halliburton for Sabinos not Fox, and that trade was to fix his mistake of drafting another guard that didn’t fit with the team. Then what does he do? Drafts Mitchell. Signing Derozan was to fix the hole we had with Barnes who he traded away one year after the mistake of extending him. Derozan doesn’t even fit with this team. No defense, slows the pace, and has been inconsistent. Where are the moves to address the true needs we’ve had the last two years? There are none. He’s done nothing to improve the roster, he’s only fixed his mistakes and now here we are with a losing record on the verge of blowing everything up thanks to him.
No, I'm saying he traded Hali to make a team FOR Fox. And he did. Maybe not the perfect team but that's the issue you run into when a team wastes all those breathing room years of a player being on a rookie contract. Which was Vlades mistake, not Monte's. Monte came in with his back up against the wall to build a team around Fox from day 1. Remember that.
 
No, I'm saying he traded Hali to make a team FOR Fox. And he did. Maybe not the perfect team but that's the issue you run into when a team wastes all those breathing room years of a player being on a rookie contract. Which was Vlades mistake, not Monte's. Monte came in with his back up against the wall to build a team around Fox from day 1. Remember that.
And he’s failed because we are terrible and are probably going to lose Fox.
 
No, I'm saying he traded Hali to make a team FOR Fox. And he did. Maybe not the perfect team but that's the issue you run into when a team wastes all those breathing room years of a player being on a rookie contract. Which was Vlades mistake, not Monte's. Monte came in with his back up against the wall to build a team around Fox from day 1. Remember that.
Like I said, a bunch of little mistakes adding up? Has Monte been horrible? No, but the roster construction could be better. Had Brown been a horrible coach? No, but he could handle his rotations and philosophy better. Has Fox been a bad franchise player? No, but he hasn't found a way to elevate himself to Luka/SGA type status.

Add in the other 10-15 little things and you get the product we have now. Along with a little bad luck too