Big Love from the UK

I

ITFC

Prospect
#1
#1
Just started following basketball in the last few weeks.
Decided on being a Kings fan after the Celtics @ Kings game the other week.
Still learning the rules of the game but find myself watching every min of every game and cheering the team on.

Big Soccer fan and follow Ipswich Town FC in England

Best performers for the Kings since ive been following have been Udrih, Casspi, Dalembert.
The guy Cousins reminds me as a sportsman of a 17 year old lad we have at Ipswich called Conner Wickham. Raw talent but still very rough around the edges. If Wickham plays then Ipswich are untouchable. Can see this being the same with Cousins. He just needs to control his fierce play into something special. Cant wait to see the guy develop.

Anyway good to meet the forum and would be cool if you can help me understand the game.

Gonna watch the game tomo with a few friends and make then Kings fans.

Cheers
 
rainmaker

rainmaker

Hall of Famer
#2
#2
Welcome. It's a great sport. Team is going through a rough patch right now, but will be very competitive in a year or two. You're just in time for the upswing. We'll add players over the summer, and have to wait for Tyreke/Cousins/Omri to mature. But we're on the right track.

Don't let the hoards of downers on this forum sway your opinion.
 
Capt. Factorial

Capt. Factorial

trifolium contra tempestatem subrigere certum est
Staff member
#3
#3
Nice to have you on board! I think you've picked an exciting team (though not a good team - yet) to follow. The years to come should bring a big upswing in both talent and wins as our young core learns to play together.

However, you should keep in mind that those of us who live in Sacramento are currently quite preoccupied with the question of whether our team will leave our city - and soon. Our arena is old and outdated and up to now the voters have declined to spend money replacing it (as has become standard practice in the U.S. over the past 20 years or so). At least one other city is seriously courting team management and the team may well file to move after this season. We just don't know. All this won't mean much to you, but you'll find that on the fan forums it is (for good reason) currently a more hotly contested topic than the team performance.
 
S

Spok22

Bench
#4
#4
hey there. Glad to see you picked this team to cheer for. Not only is it one of the youngest, it is one of the most underrated teams in the league atm (imo) because of the fact that this team has a horrible record. A closer look though would reveal that almost all of the losses are competitive games in which we lose by 10 or less. Also, weve beaten a lot of winning record teams(lakers,orlando, denver to name a few) so were obviously not a complete mess. It might be pretty frustrating to be a fan of this team sometimes but you can see the huge potential every game. In a couple of years, with the right moves, im sure this team will be amongst the elite. Also, basketball is a great sport. Its not too difficult to figure out either until you start getting into the team management stuff. I hope you grow to enjoy it as much as me and millions of other people do.
 
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Glenn

Glenn

Hall of Famer
#5
#5
I think you have a good eye for athleticism. This team will get better in a few years. It is difficult to explain why but take my (and others) words for it. You haven't seen our best player who probably will be out the rest of the season. Dalembert is new to the team but fits in very nice. You caught a team with a never say die attitude and that is fun to watch.

I'm a rugby fan although sadly, I lke the All Blacks better than any team in the UK. Maybe because they are very good. :) Wilkinson is good, though. Very much so. I also like a few from Ireland.
 
I

ITFC

Prospect
#8
#8
Born in Ipswich! lol. Typical eh.

Would be utter madness to allow the kings to move from Sacramento. I would imagine that most of the fan base would walk away and look for something else that is Sacramento to follow??
The same thing happened with a soccer team in england a few years back. A flagging team with out a stadium who had been in the Premier League a couple of seasons before were brought and moved out of London and to a Large town in the east.
The supporters of the team that were sold started up a new team based around the roots of thier old side and are now rapidly climbing the divisions.
The original team who are now based in Milton Keynes are known as a false plastic side now.

I know the Kings have not always been in Sacramento but it would be sad to move them now that they have a fan base that i would imagine would be of 2 generations of Sacramento settlers.

Also id say that without the Kings then Sacramento would become one of those places that only Americans know about.

Back to the court.....

Whats evens like??? Ive only seen him play a few games and then he got his injury???
Oh and how good was Beno in the first half @ Memphis!! He was The Mustard!
 
S

Spok22

Bench
#9
#9
Evans, not evens. He won rookie of the year last year but has had a little bit of trouble playing up to that standard lately because of an injury he had during the beginning of the season. He makes a lot of boneheaded decisions lately but he is still our best player, hands down. And believe it or not beno was like that in the first half of the season. Lately he's been in a slump though.
 
Glenn

Glenn

Hall of Famer
#11
#11
Another of our group is from near Galway Bay, Ireland. Do they play basketball in England? I know they do in Ireland.

Evans is an extraordinary basketball player and has a game like nobody else in the history of the NBA. That's my opinion. He plays guard, perhaps it could be called point guard, is 6'6" amd a muscualr 225 pounds. Quick on defense. His out side shot is not great yet but will get better at which point he will be unstoppable. He was Rookie of the Year last year.

Because he can attack the basket and pull off acrobitc shots that seem physically impossible. He averaged 20 points per year last year and a whole bunch of rebounds and assists. Cousins is unbelievable at times but Evans is unique. I think Cousins is better but many people would argue with me. They are both very young.

Every great basketball team needs two stars and maybe three. We have two stars although they are very young. In relative terms, they are babies.

Watch them grow.

The rules of basketball are simple in some ways but the subtlities of the rules are incredibly difficult to understand. Just hang on and watch people do thibngs you didn't think possible. And wait for Evans. He's spectacular.

Many of the people on this forum are brilliant and I mean very intelligent not in the UK way. I willl not point them out as it would be embarrassing but you'll figure it out quickly. No other fan site about the Kings will be as helpful as this one. Of course I am prejudiced but I also think it is the truth.
 
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UK_King

UK_King

Starter
#12
#12
We have the BBL but the quality is appalling in my opinion, it's all drive and pop for a corner 3, almost every play revolves around the 3 ball.

having said that i would recommend going to games if your uk based the tickets are dirt cheap (3 quid!!! sometimes) and it's always good to see some ball; i've been to watch Glasgow a couple of times and it was fun.
 
Capt. Factorial

Capt. Factorial

trifolium contra tempestatem subrigere certum est
Staff member
#13
#13
ITFC said:
Whats evens like??? Ive only seen him play a few games and then he got his injury???
Click to expand...
Tyreke Evans is what might be called a "power guard". He is both tall and strong for his position and he has very long arms. He has an uncanny ability to get around (and through) defenders to make his way to a layup against a defense that appears more than adequate to stop him. He is also a good ballhandler, a good rebounder, and is generally thought of as a good defender (though he struggles to get through screens most of the time). At times he can be a brilliant passer, while at other times he can be a bit selfish with the ball.

Most criticisms of Evans revolve around his ability to run a team-oriented offense and his somewhat inadequate jump shot. I think most people agree that the jump shot is quite fixable - he seems to have trouble with it when he fades away on the jump to create space, something he doesn't really need to do due to his usual size advantage. As a spot-up shooter he has begun to look very good in recent months. Opinions are quite mixed on whether he is a good option to run an offense, however.

Some argue that Tyreke's driving ability (and drive-and-kick ability) dictates that he should have the ball as much as possible. This opinion is supplemented by the observations that he doesn't seem to move well on offense when he doesn't have the ball, and that his jump shot is not up to the standard expected of an NBA "shooting" guard. However, he has been improving on both of these parts of his game lately - his off-ball movement has been particularly improving this year.

Others argue that the offense "stagnates" when he has the ball - cutters stop cutting because they expect Evans to take over and play "one-on-one" instead of team offense. To some extent this is true, but it also happens from time to time when Beno has the ball and may be as much the fault of the offense as of Evans' handling of it. Certainly there have been too many possessions where Evans has overdribbled and been forced to put up a contested jump shot as the shot clock expires. There is also the school of thought that Cousins should spend most of his time in the low block establishing post position - if so, his defender is effectively in position to counteract Evans' drive-to-the-basket ability. Thus the argument goes that Evans and Cousins will work better as a team if either Evans plays off the ball or if Cousins plays out of the middle - somebody has to go away from their strength in that case.

Regardless, at the age of 21 he is pretty clearly our best player right now, and we hope that he will continue to improve and we will figure out how best to use his talents so that he will become a perennial all-star in a few short years.
 
Glenn

Glenn

Hall of Famer
#14
#14
UK_King said:
We have the BBL but the quality is appalling in my opinion, it's all drive and pop for a corner 3, almost every play revolves around the 3 ball.

having said that i would recommend going to games if your uk based the tickets are dirt cheap (3 quid!!! sometimes) and it's always good to see some ball; i've been to watch Glasgow a couple of times and it was fun.
Click to expand...
Most Americans don't know a quid from a squid but that's about $5.
 
Glenn

Glenn

Hall of Famer
#15
#15
Guys, and gals, define your terms for him. I doubt if he knows what a pick is or screen is. I douibt if he knows what you mean by "drive and kick" etc.

The criticism of Tyreke comes from the fact that we think this 21 year old should be perfect already.

As to Evans being our best - that's right now. For the future, we have two amazing young men. Cousins is 20. He can't even drink legally.
 
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Spike

Spike

Subsidiary Intermediary
Staff member
#17
#17
I think he should be OK with the terms if he's a soccer fan (my bad, football), since there are some similarities there. But hey, now I know the value of a quid - something I didn't know 5 minutes ago.
 
Glenn

Glenn

Hall of Famer
#18
#18
Spike said:
I think he should be OK with the terms if he's a soccer fan (my bad, football), since there are some similarities there. But hey, now I know the value of a quid - something I didn't know 5 minutes ago.
Click to expand...
Quid = pound.

I'm the oldest here and of course the most intelligent. I let other people have opinions however as it wouldn't be a forum without at least two people posting notes. That's a joke!!!! :) People wonder how old I am and I will admit to 66. My buddy from Galway Bay just entered college. He doesn't post often but has an immense knowledge of basketball. I live in Sacramento for now.

My ancestry is British and Norwegian.
 
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UK_King

UK_King

Starter
#21
#21
haha yes sorry you're right of course a quid is a single english pound me ol mucker!

Fiver - 5 pounds
tenner - 10 pounds

you probably say them as well though pretty self explanatory.

Don't know if you've got "shrapnel" for loose change

They started calling the 20p a 'mule' for a while because there was a fault with one of the new mints but i think thats faded out.
 
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