rekehavoc123
G-League
So apparently Christian Wood got waived! I wouldn't mind Kings bringing him in. What would you guys think. Seems like someone who could replace Willie
Christian Wood??
- Thread starter rekehavoc123
- Start date
The level of disrespect that Willie Cauley-Stein gets around here is quite astonishing. He's not perfect by any means, but he's legitimately a starting-level center who is going to be landing a large contract (like at LEAST $60M) this offseason. Christian Wood has played a grand total of 314 minutes in his career, almost certainly all in garbage time, and just got waived by a team going to the playoffs so they can sign a guard.
Yeah, let's hand the keys over to that guy.
I mean, it's one thing to say we should make a push for, say, Vucevic instead of keeping Willie. This is another thing entirely.
Yeah, let's hand the keys over to that guy.
I mean, it's one thing to say we should make a push for, say, Vucevic instead of keeping Willie. This is another thing entirely.
kingsfan1984
Starter
I just dont see a team going after WCS with a big offer. I think it's more likely he is under 10 mil a year than over it.
Kings_of_California
Starter
I wouldn't mind kicking the tires on Christian Wood. But him replacing Willie? That's borderline delusional.
He was a raw but intriguing prospect entering the league, but he hasn't been able to stick anywhere. That tells me there's something about his game teams don't like. Looks like he might be a career G-Leaguer.
He was a raw but intriguing prospect entering the league, but he hasn't been able to stick anywhere. That tells me there's something about his game teams don't like. Looks like he might be a career G-Leaguer.
I would put it this way: a lot of fans are already frustrated with his inconsistency and wandering focus right now while he's making less than $5 million a year. Keeping in mind past examples of highly paid Kings players, do you think the level of frustration will increase or decrease when he's making $15 to $20 million a year instead? I don't think that some journeyman young guy averaging 5 min a game on some other team's bench right now is going to be an upgrade but I do believe that player at $4 million a year or so is going to be infinitely less frustrating than Willie making starting C money. In other words, I agree that Willie is not going to be an easy player to replace as he does bring a unique package of skills and physicality to the team. But I don't personally want to invest $60 million plus on a wild card who has shown over the past 4 years that he may or may not show up for any given game.
kingsboi
Hall of Famer
if you feel Willie is a starting caliber center, then your team won't be winning much of anything. He would make an excellent backup though.
Okay, let's be overly optimistic and assume Willie's new contract is only 15 million a year for 4 years. Barnes makes 25 next year, Bogdan and Bagley make 8.5 each and so on. We're up to 87 million next year if we do nothing else then the following season we need to offer new contracts to Barnes, Buddy, and Bogdan. Paying Willie means this is the team, there is no money for anyone else. We could win 42 games this year. Next year maybe player growth gets us to 48. The problem I see is that we have no avenues left to improve the team by adding a key player. This is the last summer we can do it before we start having to pay all of our other rookies. Is this team capable of making a deep playoff run as presently constituted?
I don't want to dump Willie for nothing but I'm not sure we can afford to pay him either. I was in favor of it back in December when he looked like he'd turned a corner but since then he's reverted back to being unreliable. When teams overpay to keep somebody who is ancillary to the core because they don't want to lose them for nothing they usually end up regretting it before the end of the contract. Bagley is going to be a starter, it's just a matter of when. Giles is growing into being a solid rotation big and we have Bjelica too. If we can't find an obvious upgrade for Willie this off-season who wants to sign with us, throwing out a 1 year rental on a rotation big who fills a role (a rebounding specialist let's say) and retaining some degree of payroll flexibility in the future might be a better alternative than going all-in on this group of players and hoping they can develop into a contender. It's not about being too cheap to compete, it's about being prudent and considering the big picture.
The frustration I'm predicting isn't the overreaction to a bad game type. Rather it's what arises when you have a team that is clearly one piece away who has no avenues remaining to acquire that piece. The fans always turn on somebody and make them the skapegoat. For some people it's always going to be the coach. For some people it's the guy with the biggest contract but for the majority its whoever doesn't seem to be pulling their own weight. I want to see the lightbulb go on for Willie because he would be worth the 15 million a year if he played hard every game. But if he's not going to do that in a contract year when he's been handed a starting spot and the team has a chance to make the playoffs, why would he do it in the future?
Ozymandias
All-Star
This thread had a chance to be decent til u threw it off the rails with the Willie comment. I really dont like this thread cuz it's not rso much about Christian Wood, and the responses are mostly nto about Christian Wood, this is another misguided thread about Willie
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Ozymandias
All-Star
Despite the awful presentation of this thread ima try to continue this discussion.
Wood had a real nice showing vs us in Preseason or Summer Leauge I think. He is very talented, he's also probably not the smartest kid. He used to be rail-thin though and he's done a decent job adding weight past few years.
Wood had a real nice showing vs us in Preseason or Summer Leauge I think. He is very talented, he's also probably not the smartest kid. He used to be rail-thin though and he's done a decent job adding weight past few years.
Easy solution? Ignore the Willie stuff and comment about Wood.
I'm amazed at how often Kings fans suffer from resurrection syndrome. Sometimes there's a very good reason why a player is no longer on a team. A nice showing in a pre-season or summer league game means next to nothing. Add in the "not the smartest kid" and you've got a potential Justin Williams.
Ozymandias
All-Star
Easy solution? Ignore the Willie stuff and comment about Wood.
I'm amazed at how often Kings fans suffer from resurrection syndrome. Sometimes there's a very good reason why a player is no longer on a team. A nice showing in a pre-season or summer league game means next to nothing. Add in the "not the smartest kid" and you've got a potential Justin Williams.
Ignore it?...
...I'm certain the truth is on my side of this absurd running argument that carries on here about Willie..... so you think i should just turn away from the truth just to appease the sadists --- so they can have another turn at their whipping boy?...
...There's also plenty of not very good reasons that cause teams to pull the trigger too... Look at Harrison Barnes and what the Mavs just did to him, lol.
Look no further than how the Kings handled Hassan Whiteside. Look at this insane thing Magic Johnson did to the Lakers with D'Angelo Russell!!!! I'm sure Magic (and almost all Lakers fans) thought "There's a very good reason why this player is no longer on this team", Magic said he was looking for a real leader right?! LOL... CLassic case of people letting siliness get in the way of on-court performance, which is what the mob mentality here is so bloodthirsty for..
Everyone in the NBA, sans the Warriors, is bound to be searching every nook and cranny, leaving no stone unturned, to try and put the most competitive roster they can out there... Enter Christian Wood stage right...
Actually ya know what I'm gonna join u guys, but only for a moment, so enjoy it. I was gonna drop several paragraphs on Christian Wood and his season in the G-League, but I presented pages on rationale on why the Kings should sign Zach LaVine before they did so and gt nothing but hate here --- so what do y'all know anyways? 65% of this place had Doncic over Marvin, but i dont know what im talking about ?? lol. gonna just jump 2 feet first into the echo chamber and talk bad about Willie (aka repeat myself from all the other threads...);
"Willie is only grabbing 8.5 boards in his 27.6 minutes. horrible. Can you believe it? I'm a perfectly reasonable fan and anyone with a 70-iq can tell that if he wasnt so lazy he'd average 15-20 boards per night like Moses Malone in the late 70's..... There has gotta be at least 10,000 centers, aged 14 to 45 years old, better than him. In fact I was watching Iowa beat Cincinnati the other day and Luka Garza made every shot, he can barely jump a foot off the ground, but who cares, he plays the game the right way(or at least i think he does in the few games i caught of his [lol]). I think we should gamble the franchise on a 6'8" C like that, because clearly the Kings would've won 60 games and secured home-court advantage this season if they had just anyone than willie, who is robbing the Kings blind with his $4,700,000 salary. Willie is the only player in the history of the NBA who's stats get better every year but he gets worse, how could the Kings be this cursed?!!! THEY SHOULD"VE DRAFTED EMMANUEL MUDIAY --- I WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG!!!"
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Hassan Whiteside took YEARS to develop. Using him as an example of why we should keep Willie is just silly.
As far as the rest of your post goes, it's not just folks on this board who are complaining about WCS. You see it all over social media. Quoting his averages is part of the problem. 18 boards one night and ZERO the next gives you a 9 board average. Unless you look at each performance, you tend to minimize the vast differences.
Willie Cauley-Stein is capable of very good borderline great performances. For some reason. however, we never know which WCS is gonna take the court. You know me. I try to find the good in every single Kings player. WCS, though, has drained me of any and all hope that he'll ever be a consistent performer at the level he's capable of being.
MOD NOTE: If you're hoping for a flamefest, which is what I think you alluded to in your post, you're going to be disappointed. I'll close the thread before that happens.
As far as the rest of your post goes, it's not just folks on this board who are complaining about WCS. You see it all over social media. Quoting his averages is part of the problem. 18 boards one night and ZERO the next gives you a 9 board average. Unless you look at each performance, you tend to minimize the vast differences.
Willie Cauley-Stein is capable of very good borderline great performances. For some reason. however, we never know which WCS is gonna take the court. You know me. I try to find the good in every single Kings player. WCS, though, has drained me of any and all hope that he'll ever be a consistent performer at the level he's capable of being.
MOD NOTE: If you're hoping for a flamefest, which is what I think you alluded to in your post, you're going to be disappointed. I'll close the thread before that happens.
bajaden
Hall of Famer
No one has defended Willie more than me. But I also said that he had to show improvement and consistency this season if he wants to make the big bucks. Well, he has shown improvement, but not the consistency I wanted. I think what frustrates people, is that we've seen what Willie can do when he's on his game. As a result, we raise our expectations, myself included. And then the zero rebound game happens, and were disappointed. Look, I have no problem with people being critical of Willie. Especially after a game like that. But as I've said before, I think the punishment has to fit the crime.
It doesn't have to be either/or. But that's how a lot of fans look at it. Your either living up to my expectations, or I'm getting rid of you. Here's a fact. There have been multiple games this year that we wouldn't have won without Willie. Problem is, the naysayers want to ignore those games. Well they all count in the end, especially when your evaluating him for his worth to the franchise. I'll leave it to the numbers guys to figure out what he's worth to the Kings, but if you replace him, it should be to improve the team, not just replace him to replace him.
As for Christian Woods, I really liked him coming out of UNLV. I had him ranked higher than Looney. In college he was a very good rebounder, and a pretty good shot blocker, averaging over 2 blocks a game his sophmore year. Unfortunately he's had a checkered professional career, and to some extent, he hasn't been in the right place for him to succeed.. And I'm not saying that Sacramento is that place. But to me, Willie and Wood is apples and oranges. One has proved he belongs, and the other is still trying find his way.
If you want to sign Wood's to a ten day and kick the tires as they say, sure, why not. Lets kick the tires on every possibility. But the idea of replacing Willie with Wood's is not going to happen. Like I said, if your replacing Willie, it has to be an upgrade. Someone like Vucevic or DeAndre Jordan, or Cuz. Right now, Woods would be happy to catch on as a back up center, and maybe he has a future there. Someone mentioned Jordan Bell, but I'm not sure that he's a total upgrade. Maybe!
Folks want to make a big issue out of Willie not averaging double digit rebounds. If memory serves, only 13 players out of the entire NBA averaged double digit rebounds last season, and one of them was a guard (Westbrook). So the idea that every player that's 6'11"or over averages over 10 boards a game is an illusion. Nice when you have one of those players though.
To my mind, what Willie is worth would depend on who I might be able to sign at his position. If I can sign Vucevic, then Willie becomes worth backup center money, maybe 8 to 10 mil a year. If I have to resign him as my starting center, then I'm offering something starting at 12 to 15 mil. Personally, if another team offers him around 18 mil a year, I'm saying goodbye. I still like Willie, but I don't like him 18 million dollars worth.
It doesn't have to be either/or. But that's how a lot of fans look at it. Your either living up to my expectations, or I'm getting rid of you. Here's a fact. There have been multiple games this year that we wouldn't have won without Willie. Problem is, the naysayers want to ignore those games. Well they all count in the end, especially when your evaluating him for his worth to the franchise. I'll leave it to the numbers guys to figure out what he's worth to the Kings, but if you replace him, it should be to improve the team, not just replace him to replace him.
As for Christian Woods, I really liked him coming out of UNLV. I had him ranked higher than Looney. In college he was a very good rebounder, and a pretty good shot blocker, averaging over 2 blocks a game his sophmore year. Unfortunately he's had a checkered professional career, and to some extent, he hasn't been in the right place for him to succeed.. And I'm not saying that Sacramento is that place. But to me, Willie and Wood is apples and oranges. One has proved he belongs, and the other is still trying find his way.
If you want to sign Wood's to a ten day and kick the tires as they say, sure, why not. Lets kick the tires on every possibility. But the idea of replacing Willie with Wood's is not going to happen. Like I said, if your replacing Willie, it has to be an upgrade. Someone like Vucevic or DeAndre Jordan, or Cuz. Right now, Woods would be happy to catch on as a back up center, and maybe he has a future there. Someone mentioned Jordan Bell, but I'm not sure that he's a total upgrade. Maybe!
Folks want to make a big issue out of Willie not averaging double digit rebounds. If memory serves, only 13 players out of the entire NBA averaged double digit rebounds last season, and one of them was a guard (Westbrook). So the idea that every player that's 6'11"or over averages over 10 boards a game is an illusion. Nice when you have one of those players though.
To my mind, what Willie is worth would depend on who I might be able to sign at his position. If I can sign Vucevic, then Willie becomes worth backup center money, maybe 8 to 10 mil a year. If I have to resign him as my starting center, then I'm offering something starting at 12 to 15 mil. Personally, if another team offers him around 18 mil a year, I'm saying goodbye. I still like Willie, but I don't like him 18 million dollars worth.
Kings_of_California
Starter
So...about this Christian Wood guy...lol.
KingsFanSince85
All-Star
He surely looked like a player against the KINGS. But the KINGS usually have a way of allowing marginal players look a lot better than they are too.
That said, this was the 2nd straight game he's produced at this level when given extended minutes. Perhaps he's an up and comer.
Agent23
Starter
I don’t know if he’s a center but he can sure play the 4/3 but can he defend well enough?
Gary
All-Star
I agree man. I love me some WCS. So if you're watching Willie, you have people here that love your energy and love for the team!
Kingz19
Hall of Famer
https://www.thescore.com/nba/news/1798386/report-pelicans-waive-late-season-standout-wood
Wood is available again.
Wood is available again.
Kangztillidie
Bench
Ouch, that one didnt age well Cap'n. To be fair, I also thought Willie was in line for at least a 10-12 mill per year payday. Guess he only fooled us Kings fans.
KingsFanSince85
All-Star
Talent wise, WCS probably is a 60M player in today's market. But his attitude and inconsistent motor is what likely kept that from happening.
Still, he's not a player to he cut several times like Wood. The comparison by others was silly.
KingsFanSince85
All-Star
Many of the know-it-all GMs like to claim that KINGS fans overvalue their players while I've consistently contended that the know-it-all GMs tend to overvalue non-KINGS players. Wood was just another example. Capable player that might eventually stick and do well, but nothing remarkable.
Don't get me started on Otto Porter and Kelly Oubre.
That is correct.
bajaden
Hall of Famer
Well, since I personally know the Capt, I can confidently say he aging quite nicely. Can't say the same for my self! Getting rid of all the mirrors in my house and replacing them with pictures of myself when I was 25 years old...
Section 101
All-Star
Suicide King
Starter
You mean paintings of yourself at 25, camera's weren't invented yet.
I kid of course Baja you know you are one of my favorite posters. ( Please don't kill me for releasing this to the forums
Telemachus
Starter
Do you have any that are in color? Or are they all black & white?
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