Chupacabra
Starter
Pet peeve was tripped over here. Individuals dont take their teams to the playoffs. Making the playoffs requires a team effort hence the idea that basketball is a team sport.
Boogie, Karl, etc. from an unbiased POV
- Thread starter Chasing9
- Start date
Pet peeve was tripped over here. Individuals dont take their teams to the playoffs. Making the playoffs requires a team effort hence the idea that basketball is a team sport.
Chubbs
Starter
Except that among 100 coaches rated for playoff success, he's the 1% at the very bottom.
jcassio
Starter
Tell you what, Kingsfans:
I have come to really like DMC as a person and a player. He's come a long way and still has room to grow. If he can just get his turnovers under control and get-along with Karl, he is ready to lead the Kings to greatness (assuming Vlade has assembled all the necessary parts and that luck doesn't slap us in the face).
That said, the Kings are not DMC and associates. Basketball is still a team sport. And those of you who keep stating that you will leave the Kings if/when Cuz leaves are, IMO, not Kings fans; you're just DMC fans; or, at best, you are long-frustrated Kingsfans who have come to believe that the world will end when DMC walks out on us.
It won't. Nor do I want him to. But sh** happens and sometimes it's not in our control.
I have come to really like DMC as a person and a player. He's come a long way and still has room to grow. If he can just get his turnovers under control and get-along with Karl, he is ready to lead the Kings to greatness (assuming Vlade has assembled all the necessary parts and that luck doesn't slap us in the face).
That said, the Kings are not DMC and associates. Basketball is still a team sport. And those of you who keep stating that you will leave the Kings if/when Cuz leaves are, IMO, not Kings fans; you're just DMC fans; or, at best, you are long-frustrated Kingsfans who have come to believe that the world will end when DMC walks out on us.
It won't. Nor do I want him to. But sh** happens and sometimes it's not in our control.
Sac.Kings
All-Star
How about we just let Karl get us to the playoffs, which would be great for us this season. Truly. Would you not be excited if we make the playoffs? I would be on cloud nine if we did.
After this season, we should determine whether or not we need a new coach. Personally, my vote goes to Thibs at this time, unless a different coach comes into focus. Karl has great success in getting teams to the playoffs, which we haven't done in 9 years. That would be a success for us and with that success we may be able to lure higher end coaches and even top tier free agents. We would be primed for a great 2016-2017 season. New coach with a winning history in the playoffs, a team that attracted top tier free agents, and a new arena to play in with a fan base starved of success for years and years, with Cousins fully in his prime and ready to go.
After this season, we should determine whether or not we need a new coach. Personally, my vote goes to Thibs at this time, unless a different coach comes into focus. Karl has great success in getting teams to the playoffs, which we haven't done in 9 years. That would be a success for us and with that success we may be able to lure higher end coaches and even top tier free agents. We would be primed for a great 2016-2017 season. New coach with a winning history in the playoffs, a team that attracted top tier free agents, and a new arena to play in with a fan base starved of success for years and years, with Cousins fully in his prime and ready to go.
I think my comment on Favors vs Cousins was made three or 4 years ago. Favors wasn't starting but was a significant contributor. At the time Boogie had no interest in defense and was a little bit of a chucker for a big man.Favors is no scrub.
But your opinion on Cousins is a little bit weird, from a Kings Fan point of view.
I don't think Favors was helping his team to win more than Cousins. I don't think Favors is a better defender than Cousins (I personally don't get where the whole narrative about Cousins being disinterested in playing defense is coming from). And I don't think Favors would be anywhere near the efficiency Cousins gives you on the offensive end, when confronted with the same kind of defense (constant doubles or even triple teams).
No disrespect to Favors, who has improved every year in the league and is a very good PF.
And maybe I'm missing your point, because I didn't follow your whole discussion with KingMilz.
Anyway, most posters know that I am not a Kings fan, I am a Jazz fan so I have a different perspective then most others on the board.
Eh, that third sentence is true, the second one, not so much. Let's not pretend that everybody on the team has the same amount of equity in the team's success. There is no other team sport where one player can have such a disproportionate effect on the success of the team. It doesn't mean that one player literally gets the team to the playoffs all by himself but, to paraphrase the Hall of Famer Oscar Schmidt, some people play the piano, and some people carry the piano.
And, let's face it, nobody's ever uttered a sentence that sounds anything like, "Well, how good can Ben McLemore be, if he's never gotten a team to the playoffs?" That's why it's entirely reasonable to say that the best player 'got' his team to the playoffs; because, when the team doesn't make it, nobody ever says that it was because the fourth option didn't pull his weight. Sorry that you consider it a 'trigger', but it's a perfectly cromulent expression.
I've said a few times that if Boogie was traded this offseason that was probably it for me as a Kings fan. I'm not just a DeMarcus fan. And I don't think the world would end if Cousins left. But I DO believe that at a certain point you have to just admit that certain things are lost causes.
Had the Kings to have dealt Cousins for pennies on the dollar this summer it would have been the last straw for me. Year after year after year of losing, the Anaheim saga, the fight with Seattle, the Malone firing etc etc etc. Sports are supposed to be fun. A relief from the stress of real problems, not a constant source of stress themselves. I just want a team I can root for. One that plays hard and has a chance to win. A chance to grow and to be competitive. But when the people in charge keep insisting on sabotaging things there's a point where it just doesn't make any sense to keep being emotionally invested.
For what it's worth Vlade has changed things for me. Finally someone with a logical approach is in charge. He's going to do everything he can to make things work. He's not worrying about national perception or warring factions or anyone else's opinion of what should be done. He's viewing his assets rationally and trying to find the best way forward while maximizing their value. IF after this year Divac says there's no way to move forward with Cousins then I'll be okay with it. Because I feel there's finally someone in charge who is ready to make GOOD decisions.
And the best part is that I don't think it will come to that now that there's someone who understands roster building, understands chemistry and understands the value of having ONE person where the buck stops as far as decision making.
THIS. One hundred times this.
If Vlade determines that the team absolutely cannot move forward with Karl and Cousins then so be it. But otherwise you tell them both to just do their jobs. For Cousins that means continuing to ascend as the best center in the NBA and for Karl it means coaching a team to a playoffs. Yeah, Karl's playoff record is a huge red flag. But he gets his teams there. For this team to make the playoffs would be absolutely huge. And honestly if he does that then he's earned another year of coaching in my opinion. Now if after two more seasons the Kings have two playoff years and two first round exits then you thank George for his work and cut him loose (that fourth year isn't fully guaranteed IIRC), look for the coach who can build on the success and get the team further and grab that guy.
Most of us have said all along that the Kings needed to make the playoffs to keep Cousins happy. Karl is the man to do that. He may not be the guy to take them deep in the postseason or possibly contend for a championship but then again Boogie isn't even 25 so Karl was never going to be his coach forever. Let's just see what he does this year before demanding yet another firing and yet another new system, more chaos etc.
I really think Vlade will get it sorted.
Chupacabra
Starter
What do we use to determine whether or not its a star player's fault that they didnt get their team to the playoffs? Statistics suggest that Cousins is a fantastic player. The eye test bears the same result. To what degree is Cousins responsible for his team's lack of success? Hinkey.
I don't actually know to what degree he's responsible, but my opinion is that it can't be less than forty percent, and is probably closer to sixty percent. Basketball is a sport where one guy can and has been the difference between a 20-win team and a 40-win team. The Kings, in Cousins' rookie year, won one less game than they did the year before. That can't just be bad teammates.
At some point, you either have to start to wonder why Cousins hasn't made more of a difference, or you have to believe that the Kings have literally been the worst team in the league, all five years that Cousins has been here. And I refuse to believe that.
At some point, you either have to start to wonder why Cousins hasn't made more of a difference, or you have to believe that the Kings have literally been the worst team in the league, all five years that Cousins has been here. And I refuse to believe that.
Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
You are welcome to, but you'd be wrong.
And no, 19yur old DeMarcus Cousins wasn't leading his team to the playoffs anymore than 19yr old anybody except maybe Lebron was going to. Rookie years don't count in the modern age as they once did when guys came in at 22/23 and ready to go. It was still the last year of hope around here, but with Reke hobbled, Cousins a rookie, still no defense being played, it was doomed.
And then he comes in as a sophomore to find that we traded away our starting PG to get Jimmer, dumped Dalembert to get Chuck Hayes, who promptly gets hurt for the year, there is a massive blowup leading to an abrupt coaching change two weeks into a racing strike shortened season, and the idiot who takes over is Keith Smart, who then proceeds to move Tyreke to SF so he can get more smallball racing up and down the court going to go along with his 30th ranked defense.
By his 3rd year the dirt poor franchise is signing dirt poor FAs to go with their dirt poor coach, in the midst of an ongoing huge relocation drama, still being coached by a smallball idiot who announces we have no stars and clears Cuz out of the post to make room for his guards, and remarkably, we suck again.
Year 4 rolls around, brand new owner, GM, rookie coach, the entire team is traded before or during the season, he ends up with 22 teammates on the season, Tyreke is gone, Gay only plays in 50 games, IT won't pass, and the entire final month is spent auditioning scrub after scrub rather than trying to win.
Year 5 rolls around with something approaching stability and we, bingo! start winning. We are THE surprise team in the whole league battling with the league's best behind a halfcourt Cousins centered brawlball attack. And then we AGAIN kill ourselves. Cousins catches a life threatening illness out of nowhere. The weasel in the front office cans the popular coach, it all flies apart in ridiculous fashion. By the second half of the lost season we're on our 3rd coach, our starting PG is done for the year, and we're ****ed again.
Cousins two great chances to lead a team as a superstar have been completely FUBARed from the beginning. Bron might be the only player living who could have brought those seasons home, and I'm not even sure of that. I think by Cousins' third year he might have been ready, but there was no way with Keith Smart and the nightly relocation drama that was ever going to happen. There has been no opportunity, for just about anyone. Constant chaos. NO franchise has done it worse.
Kentucky fans seem to love him more than anyone.
Padrino
All-Star
i think this point gets lost on kings fans sometimes. meddlesome ownership, abject mismanagement, p*ss poor coaching, crapty roster engineering, unfulfilled potential, cyclical personnel turnover, unbelievable self sabotage, and neverending drama have become such regular occurrences around these parts that a strange phenomenon seems to have occurred whereby fans become so steeped in the suckitude of this franchise that they can no longer recognize just how objectively terrible things have been across the last five years. i don't think it's overstatement in the least to claim that not a single franchise has done it worse in that span of time. that said, vlade divac has put on a helluva show this offseason in overhauling this kings team in true "win now" fashion, and as long as the various competing egos in the locker room can cancel each other out without blowing the whole thing up, then it's time for rubber to meet road, so to speak...
Last edited by a moderator:
Evans being hobbled is a poor excuse, unless you're saying that Evans was a more important player for the Kings than Cousins. The team that drafted Cousins was better at every position than it was twelve months earlier. Even with a hobbled Evans, that team should not have had a worse record.
Padrino
All-Star
no, probably not. but are you really going to lay that at the feet of 19-year-old demarcus cousins? when he was drafted, he was notoriously poor of attitude and utterly full of question marks. it remained unclear if he was going to become the superstar that he is today. and at no time during his career has there been enough stability or mentoring to compensate for his flaws. it's certainly easy enough to say that kings fans make too many excuses for demarcus, but sometimes a bad situation is just a bad situation. and prior to this offseason, it hadn't improved much at all. we'll see what big cuz can do with some talent around him now, and hopefully he can make it work with george karl long enough for us to determine whether the kings problems have been of their own making, or if cousins is simply a talented player who cannot make his team better...
I'm not saying that I lay it all at his feet, but I am saying that he doesn't get to skate on that. He was the fifth pick in the draft and, just based on talent, should have been the first pick. At the very least, he should have been worth a net gain of one win.
Padrino
All-Star
i agree; he doesn't get to skate on that. but it's clear that demarcus has improved dramatically in nearly every facet of his game since then. he's transformed himself from a liability on defense into one of the strongest defensive bigs in the nba. he's become much more efficient offensively. he's a better decision-maker. he's better equipped to lead than he was on day one. and he's even learned to control his temper a fair amount. assessing all of that individual improvement, and looking back at the swirling tempests of chaos surrounding cousins during the last few seasons, in my opinion it's a bit difficult to implicate cousins in that mess beyond saying "well, he's not lebron james" or "well, he's not kevin durant." it's that class of player who could survive such extreme franchise conditions unscathed while elevating their team in the process. i honestly don't believe anybody in the tier below the lebrons and durants of the nba could have taken demarcus' place and done any better...
Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Evans was OBVIOUSLY a more important player for the Kings in that first year. This was Tyreke Evans, reigning ROY coming off a 20-5-5 year. Except he never was that 2nd year. And whether we had won 1 more game, or lost 1 more game, due to the rook, not due to the rook, its irrelevant. 19yr old kids come into the league on radically different development curves., Takes years for everything to sort themselves out.
K
KingMilz
Guest
Still got there and if it were so easy why have we not done it for like 10 years?
IfAt1st
Starter
I find it unreal that Demarcus is being blamed for losing, in a sport where the management dictates who is on the team, the coach dictates what plays are run on the floor, and he has 4 other teammates (one of which is the primary ballhandler) who dictate what happens on the floor (including whether or not he actually touches the ball).
This is absurdity in the extreme.
This is absurdity in the extreme.
Any better? You don't think that anybody below the level of LeBron James could have gone to the team with the reigning Rookie of the Year, and gotten one more win?
I have been soundly mocked for saying that Cousins wasn't really helping his team win in those first couple years.......silly me.
Yeah, but the difference is that I'm the drunk uncle at the cookout, and you're the @$$hole neighbor from down the street. You put up with more from family.
Ha Ha Ha.....Probably true.Yeah, but the difference is that I'm the drunk uncle at the cookout, and you're the @$$hole neighbor from down the street. You put up with more from family.
Padrino
All-Star
in a rookie season in the western conference with the same roster and under the same circumstances? no, i don't think there are any players below the level of lebron james who would have made much of a dent in the w/l record for the kings during that particular season. if you want to split hairs over whether or not some other budding superstar in his rookie season would have been able to pull off a single additional win, be my guest, Sir Pedant. but for reference's sake, kevin durant won 20 games in the western conference during his rookie season with a crap roster around him and a crap head coach at the helm. demarcus cousins and tyreke evans won 24 games in the western conference during cousins' rookie season with a crap roster around them and a crap head coach at the helm. even young superstars-to-be struggle to put wins up when the conditions aren't ripe for their success...
This has nothing to do with splitting hairs. If we didn't even have a draft pick in 2010, that team should have won one more game than it did the year before. I'm telling you, the team we started 2010-11 with was better at every position than the team we ended 2009-10 with. We should have at least won the same number of games as the year before, even if we didn't have Cousins at all.
Section 101
All-Star
How many of those guys are bigs? Kinda hard for bigs to have an impact if they don't get the ball and/or have an offense that makes them a facilitator. The biggest reason Cuz hasn't had that much difference is the one on one ball the coaches used on offense.
The number is greater than zero, is the point.
I feel like people are reading my posts, and what they think I'm typing is, "DEMARCUS IS TEH SUX0RS~! WHY YOU NO MAKE PLAYOFFS?!", when all I really want to know is why the team didn't even get one win better? Look, I hear all this talk about eras, and nineteen year-olds, and whatnot, so I just did a little research, and confined my search parameters to the one-and-done era (2005-present). Since 2005, twenty-one big men have been taken Top 5 in the draft*. Some of them have had bigger roles on their respective teams than others. Some have been complete non-factors in their respective teams' success or failures. Some of them got the ball, and some didn't. Some of them went to teams that were already flush with talent, and some of them went to ****ty teams. But the following is fact: regardless of extenuating circumstances, of those twenty-one big men drafted in the Top 5 since 2005 (the one-and-done era), every single one of them, in their rookie season, made their team at least one win better than the season before... except for one.
Somebody's going to have to explain that to me.
* - I'm talking about guys that have played; I didn't count, like, Embiid.
CuzistanKing
G-League
Long-time lurker, first-time poster here (hello!)
I feel like, when discussing why DMC has never gotten his teams further than he has, people are focusing on the wrong side of the court. Kings teams lost their games with defense (or lack of thereof) first and foremost. And while a great talent absolutely can single-handedly get you buckets (and there were many, many times in this past season where DMC had done just that), I simply cannot see how one can defend 1-on-5 which is exactly what happened more times than I can count in the games I watched. The incompetent FO consistently gave our superstar supporting cast that was not only bad at complementing his skills offensively, but also was completely disinterested in defending their man or helping with rotations at all. If I'm DMC, I'm not sure what else I can do beside stand there and watch as my point guard lazily hugs his screener and expects me to guard two people at once; or when my wings leave their 3-pt shooters so open they can set up their own lemonade stands. The only time when a coach was able to get the entire team to buy into the defensive mindset (and what do you know, we started winning!) and the "DMC for MVP" whispers started gaining some momentum, that coach was promptly canned because defense was considered an STD in Sactown.
Bottom line, give DMC any sort of supporting cast that is at least capable defensively, and he'll get you 10+ extra wins, easily. Otherwise, no matter how great he is, he cannot prevent all 5 of the opposing players from scoring at once.
I feel like, when discussing why DMC has never gotten his teams further than he has, people are focusing on the wrong side of the court. Kings teams lost their games with defense (or lack of thereof) first and foremost. And while a great talent absolutely can single-handedly get you buckets (and there were many, many times in this past season where DMC had done just that), I simply cannot see how one can defend 1-on-5 which is exactly what happened more times than I can count in the games I watched. The incompetent FO consistently gave our superstar supporting cast that was not only bad at complementing his skills offensively, but also was completely disinterested in defending their man or helping with rotations at all. If I'm DMC, I'm not sure what else I can do beside stand there and watch as my point guard lazily hugs his screener and expects me to guard two people at once; or when my wings leave their 3-pt shooters so open they can set up their own lemonade stands. The only time when a coach was able to get the entire team to buy into the defensive mindset (and what do you know, we started winning!) and the "DMC for MVP" whispers started gaining some momentum, that coach was promptly canned because defense was considered an STD in Sactown.
Bottom line, give DMC any sort of supporting cast that is at least capable defensively, and he'll get you 10+ extra wins, easily. Otherwise, no matter how great he is, he cannot prevent all 5 of the opposing players from scoring at once.
Similar threads
