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.