Darren Collison - Leadership - Keep the core together

[lawlman91]

2 center-sized players on the court at all times is intriguing. There's the "rule": big men beat little guys with size (there is no way to make up for size), and little guys beat big guys with speed (there is a way to make up for speed). Exhibit A: WCS. He breaks this "rule".

 

[Gilles]

The "core" really holds up when looking at the stats of their performance as a group early in the year. Yeah, I know, stats is stats, but in this case its applied to 5 players as a "core" or group making a big difference. Assuming Kings get Willy then the core has Rudy at the 4 and Willy and JT off the bench, not a bad idea. Eric Moreleand in the background but wait till summer league. You'll see him a year later and he will be on the roster in October.

Now the 3 (SF) becomes the key. Omri is great off the bench with energy, hustle and 3 pt shooting but who fits the "core" at the starting 3? DWill is not that guy but definitely a high end FA would be worth the big bucks to fill that in and have Omri, Nik, +new bench 3. Collison starts for sure with Andre and others off bench. Ben will be in his 3rd year and should be his breakout year or close to it. The most athletic guy on the team now needs to learn how to use that athleticism.

Question: Is Koufos a better backup than JT? Not sure........

This season, whenever Kings put two SFs next to Boogie, team immediately turned into one of the worst defensive units in the league. It didn't matter, who were those two (Gay-Casspi did as badly as Williams-Casspi), what coach they played for (almost equally bad under all three, same for that 4-win streak under Karl). In other words the idea should be thrown away and forgotten. Boogie needs his leutenant.

Defense depends on who you are guarding. You can yell "weenie smallball" all you like, but as more and more teams are putting perimeter players at the 4, the utility of guys like JT wanes. Especially guys like JT that aren't great at punishing smaller players who guard them, nor at protecting the rim.

That's why I like Koufos. As you say, he's skilled, physical center, who can protect the rim when Cousins sits. If we're going to go big, I want to see us go BIG, with some Koufos and Boogie lineups, and see how the small teams try to get away with that. Then use Rudy at the 4 for certain stretches, in certain matchups (which I do think is more often than it may seem at first--I remember putting together a list before but the short answer is 'not everyone has a Z-Bo').

Yes, there's a concern about allocating resources when you already have JT and Landry, but "stretching" Landry is certainly an option (opening up $4 million in space by my math).

All of this, of course, assuming Cauley-Stein is off the board at 6. I'm assuming in that scenario we draft someone like Winslow who can help with the perimeter D. If WCS is there, though, I agree that changes your priorities--there's certainly not enough minutes for Cousins/Koufos/WCS and JT all to be happy.

I don't think, Karl is as smallballish as some people make him out to be, but I'm sure he won't play Koufos-Cousins against bench units, let alone as starters.

Stretching Landry actually gives only $3.5 million in cap space, since $523,000 of that acquired space goes to cap hold. I think, a far superior play at this point is dumping Landry using removing protection altogether from the pick owed to Chicago, while acquiring up to $10 million in salary from a third team. Of course, Bulls wouldn't want Landry clogging their roster, so he will have to be re-routed to another team (Sixers, right? ), which would make it a pretty rare 4-team trade, but it's a much better option, since it can also be used to facilitate S&T, and using just 3 non-guaranteeds on the roster the incoming salary in such a trade can be expanded up to almost $14 million.

 

[IfAt1st]

Yep. By my read of the CBA FAQ (link), if we "stretch" Landry, we can spread his remaining $13 million over five seasons, leaving his cap hit at $2.6 a year. So, you can save that $4 million without using a single asset.

People should be talking about this more instead of crazy talk of trading down and the like. I'd be surprised if we don't do this, given how poorly Landry looks to fit in Karl's system.

I just don't see Landry as useless as everyone else here seems to think.
The guy is just too damn smart and savvy and has way too good of outside shot to be washed up already. He's only 31 years old. I think he can still contribute solid veteran play.

The problem with stretch-ing Landry is that you are paying all of his salary (that would be gone completely in 2 years). You aren't healing the problem - you are simply distributing it over 5 years instead of 2.
And you are gaining nothing from it - simply removing one of the smartest, seasoned players on the roster.
Landry is not an attitude problem - he's not a detriment to team morale in any way whatsoever.
You'd have to find someone significantly better than him, and the pickings are slim. Looking over the PF lists posted, I can't honestly say there's too many that are better than Landry. Guy was a solid backup on the Warriors playoff team and one of the few backups we could rely on for scoring and offensive rebounding.

What we should be talking about is having Vivek cough up the money to fix this mess he contributed to making.
We shouldn't be looking to remove a seasoned, vet leader just to cause a 5-year-long $2.6 million headache (that we'll have to get some other PF to fill backup minutes) that will stifle later roster flexibility -
if Landry's salary is really that vital over the next 2 years (a cap savings of only $3.6 mill but then paying $2.6 mill for 3 years longer!), then we should be expecting Vivek to pay the luxury tax to fix it.

 

[ParniValjak]

I just don't see Landry as useless as everyone else here seems to think.
The guy is just too damn smart and savvy and has way too good of outside shot to be washed up already. He's only 31 years old. I think he can still contribute solid veteran play.

The problem with stretch-ing Landry is that you are paying all of his salary (that would be gone completely in 2 years). You aren't healing the problem - you are simply distributing it over 5 years instead of 2.
And you are gaining nothing from it - simply removing one of the smartest, seasoned players on the roster.
Landry is not an attitude problem - he's not a detriment to team morale in any way whatsoever.
You'd have to find someone significantly better than him, and the pickings are slim. Looking over the PF lists posted, I can't honestly say there's too many that are better than Landry. Guy was a solid backup on the Warriors playoff team and one of the few backups we could rely on for scoring and offensive rebounding.

What we should be talking about is having Vivek cough up the money to fix this mess he contributed to making.
We shouldn't be looking to remove a seasoned, vet leader just to cause a 5-year-long $2.6 million headache (that we'll have to get some other PF to fill backup minutes) that will stifle later roster flexibility -
if Landry's salary is really that vital over the next 2 years (a cap savings of only $3.6 mill but then paying $2.6 mill for 3 years longer!), then we should be expecting Vivek to pay the luxury tax to fix it.

But with the salary cap set to significantly increase after next season what you are paying over thise years is basically a minimum salary of some $2m per season over 5 years.

Landry is a good veteran to have around but at that price you should be getting more than veteran leadership. You can get guys on a minimum deal for that. At $6.5 million, I would rather get 4 of that back to sign pick 6 and have the whole $10m for free agency. It will have a bugger impact on the team than Landry waving a towel from the rehab room.

 

[IfAt1st]

Holy crap - minutes after I post the only defense of Landry I've seen lately on KF's, Marc Spears tweets Landry is out for wrist surgery for a torn ligament for 4-5 months!
WTF?!

Was someone just sitting on that story the past 2 months, waiting for some sucker to post something remotely-positive about Landry on KF's, just to lower the boom and snuff out any possible optimism about the Kings retaining any benefit from the signing?

 

[VF21]

Was someone just sitting on that story the past 2 months, waiting for some sucker to post something remotely-positive about Landry on KF's, just to lower the boom and snuff out any possible optimism about the Kings retaining any benefit from the signing?

Yes.