Can the Kings get to the playoffs?..
- Thread starter Merdiesel
- Start date
When the Kings can jump out and get on a team in the first quarter and don't stop until the game is over in the fourth quarter, I would say for this team..No, they wont make the playoffs. They haven't shown that they can jump on a team and dominate them from start to finish.
It's like in horse racing, the really good horses win from start to finish..the one's that win coming from last place to win the race are basically flash in the pan type of horses.
It's like in horse racing, the really good horses win from start to finish..the one's that win coming from last place to win the race are basically flash in the pan type of horses.
Unless they can manage a quick fix for the team (make a groundbreaking trade, sign someone that's comeback material), manage to get on a hot streak late in a season and make a playoffs run of stellar lower seed teams (1998 New York Knicks, last year's Edmonton Oilers, 2006 St. Louis Cardinals, the first New England Championship team), they could be a surprise in the west.
Otherwise, the Kings may be better off playing some David Stern Powerball and see what they can get out of what should be a fertile draft class.
Otherwise, the Kings may be better off playing some David Stern Powerball and see what they can get out of what should be a fertile draft class.
I understand the fear, but I don't believe one last-minute-heroic, come from behind win in front of a crowd that did everything but actually take the court for the Kings is gonna do anything to turn the season around.
Can they get to the playoffs? Sure. They can buy tickets like the rest of us. And, being NBA players already, they'll probably be able to get better seats. And that's the ONLY way I want to see this current team playing after April 18.
Can they get to the playoffs? Sure. They can buy tickets like the rest of us. And, being NBA players already, they'll probably be able to get better seats. And that's the ONLY way I want to see this current team playing after April 18.
It gets infinitely harder if you make the playoffs vs. getting a top lottery seed this year. Infinitely. A lottery pick in the Top 3 this year would literally be the single most valuable commodity this franchise had. Worth more to both us and anybody else than any single player on our team (and the flip being that no player on our team could be traded for a Top 3 pick). To lose the single most valuable asset your franchise could have to go chasing playoff windmills once more is kind of like saying that Kevin blowing out his knee tommorow and retiring wouldn't set us back. Oh yeah it would.
And no, this is the NBA, "anything" basically does not happen in the modern NBA. The only remotely surprising team to win the title in my entire basketball watching lifetime were the '95 Rockets, who were only the defending champions led by the best polayer in the world at that time who's season had just been decimated by injury. Otherwise, great teams win titles. Everybody else is playing for scraps. And in the West in particular we are so far down the totem pole you would have better odds of winnign the lottery. Much better odds.
And no, this is the NBA, "anything" basically does not happen in the modern NBA. The only remotely surprising team to win the title in my entire basketball watching lifetime were the '95 Rockets, who were only the defending champions led by the best polayer in the world at that time who's season had just been decimated by injury. Otherwise, great teams win titles. Everybody else is playing for scraps. And in the West in particular we are so far down the totem pole you would have better odds of winnign the lottery. Much better odds.
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I saw a new Nike commercial over the weekend with Lebron, Kobe, Nash, Amare, and about eight other big name players playing basketball in the commercial and it got me thinking...where is OUR superstar? Where is OUR player who makes the allstar team year after year and is the face of our franchise? Where is OUR guy who commands a double team? Where is OUR guy who when he is on fire, the other team is DONE?? In the top picks of the draft.
I wish that the Kings lost last night. Winning 30 games to 40 games (maybe even a playoff seed) per season will not get this team anywhere.
I rather the Kings suck so bad that they get one of the top two picks and rebuild around a superstar potential big man. After two to three years rebuilding, the Kings will be back as a title contender. Having a chance to truly contend for a title is much better than perpetual mediocrity.
I rather the Kings suck so bad that they get one of the top two picks and rebuild around a superstar potential big man. After two to three years rebuilding, the Kings will be back as a title contender. Having a chance to truly contend for a title is much better than perpetual mediocrity.
yeah yeah but c'mon, dont u wanna keep the playoff streak alive and well
I'd love to see this particular streak end in the most emphatic and extreme manner. I'd even tolerate losing the Lakers games if we could lose all the others, too. Until the rebuild is complete, we are going to be paying interest on every win, and for the next 15 months the interest rates will be at a record high. Best is to take effective action and get it over with as quickly as possible.
The problem is this: the Kings are still too good to have a realistic chance of getting a high pick, and even if they get a high pick, that doesn't necessarily mean that the kings will have a good team for years to come. They could get really lucky, but they could also get really lucky and make the playoffs and maybe even go deep. The question is which is more likely, and which is more worthwhile?
Some people here certainly would argue that it's much more likely that we could suck enough this year to get a high pick to do well. They might be right. But I think they're overrating the difference sucking now could make. Here is a list of whatifs that must all be fulfilled in order for such a scenario to occur:
1. The Kings must suck a lot, or get really really lucky in the lottery to ensure a high pick, or a comination of the two.
1a: sucking a lot: The 2 people people are salivating after, that people think might actually make a big difference, are Oden and Durant. Well, is in the once-in-5-years range, whereas Durant is a typical-or-maybe-slightly-below-average-no.1-range. So let's look at how much the Kings must struggle for the Kings to get a top-2 pick. The sixers, the 2nd worst team in the league right now, is 11-30, so on pace for 22 wins. The second worst team in the NBA averaged 21 wins in the last 5 seasons. The Kings have 16 wins in 39 games. To get to 22 wins or less, the Kings must go no better than 6-37 in their last 43 games.
1b: getting lucky in the lottery: I can't find the 2007 odds, so I'll use the 2006 ones--they shouldn't be too different. The 8th worst team had 5% of getting a top-2 pick, the 9th worst team 4.8%, and the 10th worst team 2.4% last year.
1c: combination of the two: i'm too lazy to do more math, but if you multiply the prob of the Kings doing really poorly (saying going 12-31 to win 28 games AND get lucky to get a top-2 pick) is, well, not really much better.
In other words, getting someone like Oden and Durant is really just a hope. We shouldn't expect anything more.
2. Oden or Durant must actually turn out to be the dominant force people hope they turn out to be:
Let's look at the top 2 picks since 2000, and see how many played well since rookie year, and how many have eventually become stars. That's 14 players I'm looking at, and see how well they've done. I would categorize them as follows:
Star from year 1: (1)
Lebron James
Decent rookie season, have developed into a star since then: (2)
Dwight Howard
Yao Ming
Very strong rookie season, little development since: (1)
Emeka Okafor
Decent young players, no great impact early, may or may not be very good players down the line, but unlikely to be great stars: (4)
Bargnani
Aldridge
Bogut
Williams
Potential never realized even after much of rookie contract is over, no great impact. Seems to be decent players at best, unlikely to be stars: (3)
Darko Milicic
Kwame Brown
Tyson Chandler
Have never been a star and seems highly unlikely will never be a star due to injuries or just lack of performance even when healthy: (3)
Jay Williams
Kenyon Martin
Stromile Swift
How many of these players were actually good enough to turnaround a bottom-2 team? I count Lebron, Yao, and Dwight Howard--that's about it. Of the young players who haven't broken out, there's a slight chance we might see 1 turn out to be a star. But overall, chances are not good.
Are Oden and Durant such great prospects that they should be looked at differently? Oden, maybe. Durant, certainly not. Remember, every year top prospects get hyped--certainly, we get players hyped to be "once-in-a-generation" ones much more often than, well, once every generation. So it's hard to tell whether Oden is in the same league of prospect as a Duncan or a Yao Ming at this point.
3. Finally, it's easy to say we should lose games to get a high pick, but it's not easy to actually do it. Here are several ways of doing this: 1) trade. But who can we trade? Miller is untradable with his contract. Trading Martin will likely only hurt the Kings' future. Bibby also has a huge contract to trade, and most teams are saying no to Artest (see Clippers and Nets) because of his baggage. The Kings don't have someone like KG to trade to get worthwhile future pieces in return. 2) stop playing / limit the PT of veterans like Miller or Bibby or Artest. They have too much stature to be benched--it's easy to say we might bench them, it's hard to actually do it. 3) I think the most realistic view is that if they get any nicks, they could stay "injured" and sit out a few more games than usual. That's what the Celtics are doing with Pierce, I think. But the Kings aren't a team built around one big star, so one or two players sitting out due to injuries will not make as big of a difference.
Some people here certainly would argue that it's much more likely that we could suck enough this year to get a high pick to do well. They might be right. But I think they're overrating the difference sucking now could make. Here is a list of whatifs that must all be fulfilled in order for such a scenario to occur:
1. The Kings must suck a lot, or get really really lucky in the lottery to ensure a high pick, or a comination of the two.
1a: sucking a lot: The 2 people people are salivating after, that people think might actually make a big difference, are Oden and Durant. Well, is in the once-in-5-years range, whereas Durant is a typical-or-maybe-slightly-below-average-no.1-range. So let's look at how much the Kings must struggle for the Kings to get a top-2 pick. The sixers, the 2nd worst team in the league right now, is 11-30, so on pace for 22 wins. The second worst team in the NBA averaged 21 wins in the last 5 seasons. The Kings have 16 wins in 39 games. To get to 22 wins or less, the Kings must go no better than 6-37 in their last 43 games.
1b: getting lucky in the lottery: I can't find the 2007 odds, so I'll use the 2006 ones--they shouldn't be too different. The 8th worst team had 5% of getting a top-2 pick, the 9th worst team 4.8%, and the 10th worst team 2.4% last year.
1c: combination of the two: i'm too lazy to do more math, but if you multiply the prob of the Kings doing really poorly (saying going 12-31 to win 28 games AND get lucky to get a top-2 pick) is, well, not really much better.
In other words, getting someone like Oden and Durant is really just a hope. We shouldn't expect anything more.
2. Oden or Durant must actually turn out to be the dominant force people hope they turn out to be:
Let's look at the top 2 picks since 2000, and see how many played well since rookie year, and how many have eventually become stars. That's 14 players I'm looking at, and see how well they've done. I would categorize them as follows:
Star from year 1: (1)
Lebron James
Decent rookie season, have developed into a star since then: (2)
Dwight Howard
Yao Ming
Very strong rookie season, little development since: (1)
Emeka Okafor
Decent young players, no great impact early, may or may not be very good players down the line, but unlikely to be great stars: (4)
Bargnani
Aldridge
Bogut
Williams
Potential never realized even after much of rookie contract is over, no great impact. Seems to be decent players at best, unlikely to be stars: (3)
Darko Milicic
Kwame Brown
Tyson Chandler
Have never been a star and seems highly unlikely will never be a star due to injuries or just lack of performance even when healthy: (3)
Jay Williams
Kenyon Martin
Stromile Swift
How many of these players were actually good enough to turnaround a bottom-2 team? I count Lebron, Yao, and Dwight Howard--that's about it. Of the young players who haven't broken out, there's a slight chance we might see 1 turn out to be a star. But overall, chances are not good.
Are Oden and Durant such great prospects that they should be looked at differently? Oden, maybe. Durant, certainly not. Remember, every year top prospects get hyped--certainly, we get players hyped to be "once-in-a-generation" ones much more often than, well, once every generation. So it's hard to tell whether Oden is in the same league of prospect as a Duncan or a Yao Ming at this point.
3. Finally, it's easy to say we should lose games to get a high pick, but it's not easy to actually do it. Here are several ways of doing this: 1) trade. But who can we trade? Miller is untradable with his contract. Trading Martin will likely only hurt the Kings' future. Bibby also has a huge contract to trade, and most teams are saying no to Artest (see Clippers and Nets) because of his baggage. The Kings don't have someone like KG to trade to get worthwhile future pieces in return. 2) stop playing / limit the PT of veterans like Miller or Bibby or Artest. They have too much stature to be benched--it's easy to say we might bench them, it's hard to actually do it. 3) I think the most realistic view is that if they get any nicks, they could stay "injured" and sit out a few more games than usual. That's what the Celtics are doing with Pierce, I think. But the Kings aren't a team built around one big star, so one or two players sitting out due to injuries will not make as big of a difference.
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Just remembered what ths topic of this thread was. :embarrassed:
The point is, some people argue that it's more likely that we can turn around this team by blowing it up and rebuilding through the draft, and they might be right. But I think they underrate the likelihood and difficulty of such a route, compared with the likelihood and difficulty of the Kings getting into and maybe going 1 or 2 rounds deep.
If all one cares about is winning championships, then maybe they have a point. But at least for me, I don't just care about winning championships, because there's so much luck involved. No shame, imo, to the Malone-and-Stockton Jazz for example--never won a championship, but consistent success for many years. And even getting consistent success by rebuilding from the draft just this year is very hard. If we really suck for 3, 4 years, then it might be more plausible. But then we have to consider whether it's worth doing really poorly for so long.
The point is, some people argue that it's more likely that we can turn around this team by blowing it up and rebuilding through the draft, and they might be right. But I think they underrate the likelihood and difficulty of such a route, compared with the likelihood and difficulty of the Kings getting into and maybe going 1 or 2 rounds deep.
If all one cares about is winning championships, then maybe they have a point. But at least for me, I don't just care about winning championships, because there's so much luck involved. No shame, imo, to the Malone-and-Stockton Jazz for example--never won a championship, but consistent success for many years. And even getting consistent success by rebuilding from the draft just this year is very hard. If we really suck for 3, 4 years, then it might be more plausible. But then we have to consider whether it's worth doing really poorly for so long.