Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
When we sign a vet for the SG position, we blow the last 2 firstround picks in the process.
You wont build a sucessful franchise if you dont trust your players and help them to develop.
Some people act like players like Leonard came into the league as the player they are now, which is completely off the charge.
Drafting a player is only the first step. Developing a player is what really makes the difference and the Kings have been historically bad doing this.
From Tyreke Evans, over Omri Casspi, Trob or even Dmc to some extent, we never did a good job to develop the players. We throw away almost every potential we aquire via the draft and are lucky, that Dmc is so talented, that he developed regardless of the mess in this organisation.
Aquiring a veteran Sg just means we give up on our young players once again. We would repeat the same mistake again, while our biggest need is clearly the Pf position, where we play a veteran, that brings nothing to the table outside of solid man defense and gets outplayed by every starting Pf in the league and most backups.
Let me add, that I'm confused, that some people here think that guys like Danny Green are mediocre. In a league dominated by the pick&roll the role of the SG has changed and players like Green are among the best SG's of the league, cause this position doesn't require ISO-skills to the same amount like in the early 2000's anymore. Of course a SG, who is able to score out of isolations is valuable, but it isn't necessary and we talk about max players, when we want this skillset. Even Bradley Beal, who is one of the best SG's of the league, admitted, that scoring out of ISO's is only the next step in his development.
It's the same thing with the center position. The game has changed and modern era centers are more about defense, passing and finishing the pick&roll than they are about post up play and isolation. That doesn't mean, that they are worse, than their equivalents some time ago. They are just very different.
Young players are anathema to winning. We need to win. Not so hard. I don't really give a hoot if one day Ben becomes a solid SG in the league 4 years from now. Irrelevant to our problem. I care about what happens next year and the year after, because that's our Cuz window. Lose Cuz and Ben is completely irrelevant.
People keep trying to group "young players" all together as if there are one singular group all entitled to the same respect. You get a young player, better keep him! He's young! But that's not the deal. At one point on this team we had young Jimmer and young DeMarcus. Those were not REMOTELY the same thing. One entitled to absolutely all the respect in the world talentwise, the other just a rookie contract from out of the league. When you talk about oh, "young players" you are talking about the search for the homegrown special players. Not mediocrities, not scrubs. You bring them in, hope that you have found a special player, but as soon as that is not true they aren't magically protected by their youth. Mediocre guys of any age can be easily acquired every single year. "Youth" is about the search for stars. The Spurs didn't wait on "youth" with Kawhi, they waited on a star. If they had drafted Jimmer instead and waited on him they would be idiots.
Now circling back to Ben and the need to sacrifice yet another Kings season waiting on him.
Per 36 min:
Ben Yr1: 11.9pts (.376 .320 .804) 3.9reb 1.3ast 0.7stl 0.3blk 1.6TO PER 7.7
Ben Yr2: 13.4pts (.437 .358 .813) 3.2reb 1.9ast 1.0stl 0.3blk 1.9TO PER 10.4
Furthermore, before/after the All Star break (and with a new coach):
Before Break: 33.2min 11.7pts (.444 .362 .837) 3.0reb 1.5ast 0.8stl 0.3blk 1.6TO
After Break: 31.5min 12.9pts (.426 .350 .784) 2.8reb 2.1ast 1.3stl 0.2blk 1.8TO
progress? A bit. But other than an encouraging jump in steals after Karl arrived -- Karl likes gambling defense, while Ben has been one of the least disruptive defensive guards in the league in his early career, so likely a response to coaching -- its near stagnation. The sort of rounding of rough edges you expect out of a guy in his prime years who's already fully develoiped, not the quantum leap you'd expect out of a rising star.
Last year Ben was in serious running for the very worst major minute player in the NBA. This year his 10.4 PER ranks 152nd amongst all guards and guard-forwards, sandwiched nicely in between Austin Rivers at a 10.3PER and Ben Gordon at a 10.6 PER. This is what people sound so desperate to preserve. Now let me put two minutes restrictions on my search of all guards and guard-forwards (at basketball-referece.com): #1 guys need to have played 1000 total minutes. #2 guys need to have averaged 20+min a game. So again, looking at major minutes rotation guys, and doing that on purpose because almost every single guy below Ben on the initial list is a scrub getting no minutes because his team knows he's a scrub. We're the only team, the perpetual losing team, playing these guys big minutes. So anyway, here's the search of all major minute guards in the NBA this year, sorted by PER:
Ben McLemore ranks #101 of 108 total players. Ahead of only Austin Rivers, Quincy Pondexter, Joe Ingles, Lance Stephensen, Matthew Dellavedova, Kirk Hinrich, Dante Exum. It is, and has been, such an unnecessary self inflicted wound to continue throwing him out there as a starter. Even the uninspiring names thrown about to replace him like Mayo (#61) Gordon (#66) Hendersen (#63) Bellinelli (#70) Morrow (#47) etc. are a full level of more effective.