Kingster
Hall of Famer
Probably so. So if Perry is going to retain Christie it's up to Perry to force the issue by getting rid of these vets. Otherwise........?
Last edited:
Christie returning
- Thread starter sactowndog
- Start date
ockingsfan
Starter
Hopefully Russ gets an offer from a contender to be a bench player. I would think he would like a chance at a ring to end his career
fansinceday1
Starter
Weren’t we Russ’s last stop before possibly heading to china to play?
kingsboi
Hall of Famer
re-sign Russ to help another tank season and the young dudes seem to get some of that feisty in them from his presence and let Christie cook and do what he's going to do.
ockingsfan
Starter
Not sure, but Russ showed he still has some gas left in his tank. If a contender offers him a role off the bench, hopefully he takes it.
SLAB
Hall of Famer
Deebo merely exists. The kids adore and love to play with their boisterous triple double flashy stats hero Russbrook.
Which seems odd considering how much the young guys got jerked around for no apparent reason.
I just hope he gets a deep assistant bench. He wasn't horrible immediately in the aftermath of Brown's departure. I don't know about his game plans and strategy but as long as he has the respect of the players there are worse things that can happen. It will be interesting what the lotto format changes are next year and also if any guys who get projected as late first rounders opt to stay in college for sweet NIL money and a chance to go top 10 next year? A guy like Koa Peat who was top 10 preseason and may be mocked around 20 right now would seemingly benefit, though I know these kids are going to chase their NBA dream and can't blame them.
btw you were totally right about Burries, when Bradley got into foul trouble and Burries had to run the offense that game was officially over.
TaxMan
Starter
I don't think Doug is a great coach, but I'm not sure it matters much right now. A bigger concern is where the mindset of the organization is at this point. Outside of Carmichael Dave proclaiming that team leadership decided it was time to rebuild, I'm not really so sure. Do we actually have a long-term plan? Or was Perry just "opportunistic" in shifting the focus for the year when injuries hit. If he thinks this is a quick turnaround once the gang gets healthy again, we are in for a lot of trouble.
And, I really don't agree with this premise that GM's get the players and Coaches coach. Heck no. Perry and Christie need to be in agreement on roster strategy and what our goals are next year. Hopefully the league addresses tanking rules this off season so we don't need to go through another year of cheering for losses; however, I absolutely cannot take a strategy of striving to be middling at the expense of long term vision.
And, I really don't agree with this premise that GM's get the players and Coaches coach. Heck no. Perry and Christie need to be in agreement on roster strategy and what our goals are next year. Hopefully the league addresses tanking rules this off season so we don't need to go through another year of cheering for losses; however, I absolutely cannot take a strategy of striving to be middling at the expense of long term vision.
The league should create an unbiased player ranking system and use that to distribute draft selections if they want to have any attempt at parity. I guess the other alternative is to end the lottery and award draft picks based on the past 3-4 year records of a team. Any of the noteworthy solutions they have proposed are just going to make the league more top heavy and permanently relegate teams to G-League developmental teams with NBA schedules, which is horrifying to fans who have to pay NBA ticket prices.
Maybe if they made a rule that teams that miss the playoffs have to charge half price of the league average ticket sales that would put a stop to tanking? Or take away any revenue sharing from any team that sits their star players? Preferably both.
Maybe if they made a rule that teams that miss the playoffs have to charge half price of the league average ticket sales that would put a stop to tanking? Or take away any revenue sharing from any team that sits their star players? Preferably both.
The kids beat the Mavs and the Warriors. The rest of the wins were on the backs of the vets. Some were against teams out tanking the Kings as well.
I will say that it's a bit difficult to analyze his coaching abilities because he pretty much fields two different teams with two completely different offenses and it's all dependent on whether the vets are playing or not. It's all about iso's with the vets and team ball with the kids. Doug is really just all over the place, which leads me to believe he doesn't have a firm grasp on what he's trying to accomplish. He went vet heavy for so long, then started sprinkling the kids in, then pulled them back out and went vet heavy again. Then went less vet heavy but still had the kids defer to them all game. Then he finally did what he should have done months ago and let the kids play freely.
The good is he and his coaching staff may have a better knack for developing players than what we've seen in the past. He clearly has issues with giving them minutes earlier in the season but most of the kids have shown good development as the season has gone on. Especially Cardwell on offense. My main gripe is we barely get a chance to see what they can do (outside of Max on offense) when the vets are out there because it's like he's more concerned with getting the vets their milestones than he is in developing the kids on court and securing his future as a coach.
gunks
Hall of Famer
I do wonder if part of the night and day between play styles with the vets vs kids is due to who the vets are rather than a Christie issue.
Deebo, Westbrook, and Zach have been playing the same way everywhere. It's all about them. And yes, DeRozen and Westbrook would pass the ball eventually after pounding away most of the shot clock, but that's not exactly pretty team basketball.
There's a reason nobody wants these goofs aside from our braindead owner.
The kids + Domas + our '26 draft pick (likely a PG if we drop out of the top 4) is an intriguing team, even coached by Christie. But we gotta get rid of Russ and the Bulls Broz.
Deebo, Westbrook, and Zach have been playing the same way everywhere. It's all about them. And yes, DeRozen and Westbrook would pass the ball eventually after pounding away most of the shot clock, but that's not exactly pretty team basketball.
There's a reason nobody wants these goofs aside from our braindead owner.
The kids + Domas + our '26 draft pick (likely a PG if we drop out of the top 4) is an intriguing team, even coached by Christie. But we gotta get rid of Russ and the Bulls Broz.
QWERTYLICIOUS
Starter
He's somewhere significantly beyond being "braindead"...
The Deebo ball seems pretty deliberate to me but you never know what's going on behind the scenes.
I don't usually group Zach in with Deebo and Russ because he doesn't really hold on to the ball for very long in iso situations. He seems to shoot or drive if he has a look or swing it around if he doesn't. Even though he takes his fair share of shots, they seem to be within the flow of the offense. The other guys stagnate the offense and make it all about them. Either way, Zach doesn't really fit.
I'm not even looking at next year's lineup to try and shake out the best team possible. I think we need another draft or two before a step can be taken. It can maybe be done quicker but some of the young guys would have to take a massive leap between now and then in order to make it happen.
gunks
Hall of Famer
gunks
Hall of Famer
Yeah, this is fair.
I think it's just so easy to lump Zach in thematically with the other ISO vets (especially with the Bulls/Deebo connection). But totally right to call me out on play style since that was the meat of my complaints haha.
Zack's vibes and defense are yuck though. Horrible vet presence for the youngsters. At least Deebo and Russ are professional (but also horrible on defense haha).
Again, not disagreeing on the usage of Russ and DDR this season at all. But virtually all of those games still had a least one good Max/Cardwell/Nique game in there too.
ShastaKingsFan
Hall of Famer
This is the problem when the head coach is in place, before the new GM is brought in. Who knows if their thinking, visions, and opinions are really aligned.
When a GM gets to pick his head coach, he's looking for someone that he clicks with and really thinks is the right one for the job
SacTownKid
Hall of Famer
Considering how long it took it sure seemed more like can't hold back the mudslide any longer even more than being opportunistic. haha. Well, that's kind of the thing with the potential lottery changes because once again the league is almost coming to the Kings in a sense. The Kings have had one time in their history where they were ahead of the curve, that was with the Webber millennium team. Petrie was on the cutting edge of where the league was heading although that team was completely unique and couldn't really be replicated personnel wise. Since then, the Kings have always been about trying to serve two masters. Win but have youth coming up the backside to fill in the gaps later but always kind of being out of the positions they needed to be to get that high end young talent. Now, the league gives teams like the Kings all the reason in the world to continue to sit in the middle. It took 20 years but the wheel is coming back around to where the Kings have always wanted to be, lol. No mans land. If the Kings are going to do it anyway I guess this is better.
Haha it wasn't meant to be call out. Just a difference of opinion. I find Zach to be more palatable to watch than Russ and DDR but I'm in full agreement with you that he doesn't need to be here and is just a waste of time and money for this franchise.
Yeah I just think it's irrelevant because the games were won on the backs of the vets with help from the younger players. If you take the huge games that Russ, DDR and Monk had post ASB and you divvy 50% of their minutes out to McBuckets, Plowden, Baldwin Jr, Hayes etc, the Kings are easily sitting 2nd to last in the standings right now. There was never a need to cut any of the kid's minutes in any of the games but there was certainly a need to cut the vets minutes and Doug just let them cook when they had big games going.
Folsomkingsfan
Starter
On one hand his decision to play DeRozan and Monk heavy minutes down the stretch cost us draft position and has the potential to haunt this franchise for years to come (what else is new). So on that basis I never want to see him again. On the other hand I've seen enough out of Vivek over the years to know that he probably had a lot of influence in this stupid decision. As conflicted as I am about this, the tie breaker here is whether or not he did a good job developing the young players and to his credit he did. So I think he does deserve another year. It's just going to be brutal watching him if we fall in the lottery.
QWERTYLICIOUS
Starter
Doug responding to someone who is likely on his way out of town the only way Doug can possibly respond to someone who is likely on his way out of town without burning any bridges or hitting any sensitive spots, lol.
TaxMan
Starter
This is the main problem in my mind. This organization is light years behind the smart NBA teams now, let alone being visionary. Even if Perry is a good communicator and professional GM, I just don't look at him and see a forward looking strategic thinker that is going to build an "outside of the box" roster philosophy that gives us any sort of competitive advantage (and that Christie will unleash in a novel way on the court). If we end up being good again, it will rely a lot on lucking into talent in the draft and not doing dumb things.
Not sure if this was mentioned elsewhere but I recall that Dipesh was a controversial topic among one of our departed members.
MizzouKing
Starter
He hasn't brought any more flamethrowers ("I know how hard I work, I know when I get up in the morning...") to his postgame media sessions, so that should count for something!
Full Disclaimer: I actually loved every minute of that one.
