Artest and defense
- Thread starter VF21
- Start date
Sure, they're a playoff team, needing a big to fill in for the last month of the regular season. Adelman didn't want to have to develop anyone earlier, either (he sent two players to the DL instead), no way he'd want to work on improving anyone during his run for the playoffs. So Justin got replaced by a vet (Loren Woods), who will be gone as of tomorrow. But Woods' getting released tomorrow won't reflect on him either, just on Houston's extremely short-term needs.
I'm sure that Justin will be on a roster next year, as will Dahntay, who's tearing up the DL.
"On top of his 37 (points), Jones was assigned to guard Iowa’s Shannon Brown, who averages 29.2 points per game. Brown, the former Michigan State standout on reassignment from the Chicago Bulls, was held to 8 points."
We HAD to waive 2 players, or the Bibby trade was dead, and the Maloofs would be looking at $11M a year in luxury tax. The players who truly contribute nothing to the team are on big, multi-year contracts, and could not be waived. So we kept the worthless ones and waived the two who were cheapest. A really stupid situation for a team that desperately needs to rebuild, but with the contract hell we've consigned been consigned to, what other options were there? Waiving any other 2 players would have cost an additional $12.4M at minimum, and made Geoff look like an idiot for having committed that money to those players to begin with. So we waived two of our best defenders, slid into essentially last place in the NBA in terms of D, and now we get to watch teams score 140 on us & wonder what happened.
But I'm not wondering, I'm laughing at the bad joke.
FakeInjury
Bench
I, straight up and down, think Ron can be the best player on the court on any given night. And he knows this. Conversely, he likes to sit out games at his convenience or otherwise; which doesn't really bother me. Although his name recognition is high, and his ability to defeat opponents is great, I don't see a pressing need to keep him. God knows he can carry his weight on the court, but unless his game expands, he is not worth more than he is currently being paid. If he was averaging 25ppg it would have been enough, if he could lead the team in assists on any given night, it would be enough for me. If he could excel in any other statistical category in addition to steals and deflections, it probably would be enough to garnish a maximum contract. When it is all said and done, I see him and bonzi playing in europe next year.
bajaden
Hall of Famer
c) in Indiana he was the lead pit bull on a pack full of pit bulls urging him on. Defensive intensity feeds on itself. Here he is surrounded by poodles. With half the team taking entire nights off defensively, has to be harder to resist the urge to take the occasional play off, and focus on scoring points like all the pretty boys.
So all we need to do is trade those poodles for a couple of rat terriers and a mastiff and the problem is solved. Wa La...
So all we need to do is trade those poodles for a couple of rat terriers and a mastiff and the problem is solved. Wa La...
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Gary
All-Star
BMILLER,
Beno is actually not a bad defender.. Adding to that Garcia isn't bad either. K-Mart is the bad one of the bunch. I can't wait to see those three running the PG/SG/SF for a year or two together and see what happens. Perhaps Garcia, and Beno will pick up some of the slack and K-Mart wont look so bad.
Beno is actually not a bad defender.. Adding to that Garcia isn't bad either. K-Mart is the bad one of the bunch. I can't wait to see those three running the PG/SG/SF for a year or two together and see what happens. Perhaps Garcia, and Beno will pick up some of the slack and K-Mart wont look so bad.
LOL Artest was a better defender than Garcia and he and Beno played with Martin... really Martin is who he is defensively IMO. But to be honest I don't think he's as bad as everyone makes it out to be. Beno isn't a GOOD defender, but he's better than Mike was. But really it's Mikki/Brad/Spencer who are the bad defenders. As long as that is our frontline we won't be a good defensive team.
tyrant
Starter
its what ive said all season. no defense from anyone on this team all year long. maybe we would be at .500 if we played some.
LPKingsFan
All-Star
The numbers, according to 82games.com, appear to back up VF's observations.
Artest's opponents average 17.0 in terms of production, which is higher than Udrih (15.9), Martin (16.1) and Salmons (16.8). It's a small sample size, so take from it what you will, but Jones (10.0) and Justin Williams (13.5) were our best defenders, by this metric.
My guess is that because the team isn't contending, Artest isn't putting forth the maximum effort on the defensive end. I bet the contract situation has something to do with it as well, as he wants to boost his offensive numbers a bit in the hopes of getting a better deal.
Artest's opponents average 17.0 in terms of production, which is higher than Udrih (15.9), Martin (16.1) and Salmons (16.8). It's a small sample size, so take from it what you will, but Jones (10.0) and Justin Williams (13.5) were our best defenders, by this metric.
My guess is that because the team isn't contending, Artest isn't putting forth the maximum effort on the defensive end. I bet the contract situation has something to do with it as well, as he wants to boost his offensive numbers a bit in the hopes of getting a better deal.
Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Actually here is why that is probably deceptive -- seen that number myself -- Ron doesn't guard his own man all the time. In fact what you get there as well as in Kevin's numbers is basically a reflection of Ron guarding the better offensive player, and Kevin hiding over on the weaker one, thus inflating the numebrs of th guys lines up across from Ron (on those nights when Kevin is switched onto them) and shrinking the numbers of those guys lined up on Kevin (on the nights when Ron takes them. The reason I say "probably" is because I don't know for 100% sure how they determine who the opponent is -- I assume they just do it by linueps (i.ei., who is playing what position), other than something really insane like watching possession for possession.
Here are the defensive +/- scores for all our guys (i.e. how the team does with them vs. without them on the floor). In this case the bigger the "-" score, the better:
Miller -5.1
Artest -4.1
Udrih -2.5
Moore -1.8
Douby -1.1
Hawes +0.2
Salmons +2.6
Bibby +2.7
Cisco +3.0
SWilliams +3.6
Thomas +4.6
Johnson +6.3
Martin +6.4
Others (guys who played in less than 5% of our minutes this year)
J.Williams -12.6
Jones -9.5
Greene -7.2
Abdur-Rahim -5.0
Wrigth -1.5
Watkins +0.8
Its an interesting list on a number of levels. One of course is the Miller effect -- Brad's shotblockinng has fallen off to as bad as it ever was, but as our only legit big, his presence has helped us (of course all these +/- numbers are relative to other Kings, not to the league as a whole, so deosn't mean we win the battle wiht him in there, jsut that we do better than we do with anybody else in there). Another is the weakness of guys like Cisco (too many mistakes) and Salmons, although again some of that may be that they replace Ron. Another is the way that we managed to cut every defensive roleplayer we have stumbled across this year (Justin, Dantay, and Greene had the best defensive +/- scores on the team in limited minutes). As an aside, Dahntay is tearing up the NBDl right now, averaging something like 25ppg for the Mad Ants. And finally of course is that Kevin's score on that end remains abysmal, and that's despite starting alongside Bard, Ron, Mikki and Beno, who all have negative +/- scores.
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