An Artest/Martin conundrum

[CruzDude]

Last night in the Warrior game I saw it again. RonRon takes a game over and Kevin fades to black. It has happened 2 or 3 more times in the recent 10 games, mostly it seems, in losses. Kevin draws a double team and either gets 2 FT or passes to an open team mate. RonRon does neither and on a few occasions last night came away with nothing.

The Warriors did clamp down on Kevin but he didn't have the touches and his FT overall is much better than RonRon's. I like the Kings and the wins when Kevin, Brad and Bibby each had 20+ pts and Brad had 15-20+ rebs.

Time for RonRon to go and help someone get to the next level this year, then he is their problem to deal with.

 

[Circa_1985_Fan]

I think Kevin is just having a rough last week. He did, in fact, get more than enough shots last night(same as in the Seattle game), and going 3-16 doesnt constitute Ron doing that to him. He had alot of open looks that he missed last night, and Ron did what he had to do to keep us in the game, along with John Salmons, at key times. As much as I dont want to see it happen, hopefully we can find a suitor for Ron before the trading deadline and get something in return that would compliment what we have now on our team. Hopefully Kevin can get himself out of his little slump that he's in.

 

[piksi]

Ron is not the source of all evil. Most of it - sure but not all of it.

Kevin does much better when refs are retarded enough to go for his flopping

 

[fnordius]

The Warriors did clamp down on Kevin but he didn't have the touches...

Whoa!

Kevin shot 3 of 16 last night. He got plenty of touches, but his shooting stunk.

Whatever happened to the "Bibby and Artest can't coexist" theory? It was all the rage last year, but now seems to be passe. Maybe Ron and Mike can coexist when Muss is out of the picture. And maybe Kevin has just had a couple of bad games lately. Whatever the cause, getting 16 shots (and one assist) doesn't seem like a sign of severe ball deprivation.

 

[CruzDude]

Didn't mean just last night. Sure Kevin had bad shooting night but my view was that when RonRon takes 21 shots, Kevin and Brad just don't get the quality looks. Go back to the 2 earlier losses. It's just that is "seems" that when RonRon takes over, we don't necessarily win and other main scorers suffer disproportionately. And sure, RonRon is not the only problem but do his "pluses" exceed his "minuses"?

The Kings work well on the high post offense running thru Brad. In some of those same games where RonRon takes over and we don' t win, the high post goes south as well as Kevin's effectiveness. Kev's last couple of poor games not-with-standing, which in their own way beg a "chicken and egg" dilemma regards RonRon.

 

[HighFlyingMonkey]

I like the Kings and the wins when Kevin, Brad and Bibby each had 20+ pts and Brad had 15-20+ rebs.

When did this happen? Artest and Bibby came back on the same day, we have yet to see how Bibby/Martin/Brad would play without Artest

 

[VF21]

Didn't mean just last night. Sure Kevin had bad shooting night but my view was that when RonRon takes 21 shots, Kevin and Brad just don't get the quality looks. Go back to the 2 earlier losses. It's just that is "seems" that when RonRon takes over, we don't necessarily win and other main scorers suffer disproportionately. And sure, RonRon is not the only problem but do his "pluses" exceed his "minuses"?

The Kings work well on the high post offense running thru Brad. In some of those same games where RonRon takes over and we don' t win, the high post goes south as well as Kevin's effectiveness. Kev's last couple of poor games not-with-standing, which in their own way beg a "chicken and egg" dilemma regards RonRon.

While I do think it was way too much "Ron Artest" last night I don't think Kevin would use that as an excuse. His shots were simply not falling. There could be a myriad of reasons. He could be coming down with the flu; he could simply have had an off night. It wasn't like the night against the Sonics where he just seemed out of the game entirely. Last night he had touches but his shots just wouldn't fall.

Regardless of how Kevin performs - or doesn't - the Kings simply aren't as good when Ron Artest tries to be LeBron Bryant. If we had been able to bring Garcia in, I truly think things might have been different. Without the energy of Cisco, however, we were just not able to eke out the win.

 

[CruzDude]

When did this happen? Artest and Bibby came back on the same day, we have yet to see how Bibby/Martin/Brad would play without Artest

I stand corrected. It was Bibby-Martin-Artest hitting 20 each a few games then miller having 20 and 20 twice that I was thinking about. Also, Artest is not the reason Kevin is having bad nights, it just seems coincidental more than a few times. As VF21 said, when RonRon tries to become Lebron Bryant, we just aren't a good as when the load is shared.

 

[Bricklayer]

a) kevin took 16 shots last night. He can't blame that on Ron. Many were fairly openb, several were right at the hoop.

b) it is Ron, not Keivn, who draws far more double teams with his bull in the paint moves, and he can be quite adept at kicking the ball out of that position (or not, depends on his mood). On the season Ron averages twice as many assists as Kevin.


Many critiques can be leveled at Ron. These aren't some of them.