Defenders Still Available as Free Agents

bajaden

bajaden

Hall of Famer
#31
#31
andremiller07 said:
Balkman had a excellent showing at the America's games, his shot looked a bit better and his athletic ability/speed is still elite as is his hustle. I still think Ebanks is worth a gamble if he lives up to his potential could be our starting SF this season (which is not hard to do). He's still fairly young @23/24 just never really got a chance in LA.
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Of the two, I'd probably go with Balkman. As a SF, he fits! But as PF, which is how he was originally used when he came into the league, it would be a big no. But he's been around the block a few times now, and has both NBA and European experience, as well as D-Leauge. His offense has improved, and he has always been a hustle guy that plays defense, and rebounds. I've never been a big Ebanks fan. Didn't like him in college, and he's done nothing since to change my mind. Biggest knock on him in college was his inconsistency across the board. Not saying he can't turn it around. He's still young, but if the Kings are going to take gambles on someone, it needs to be someone with upside. Don't see much in Ebanks at the moment.
 
K

KingMilz

Guest
#32
#32
bajaden said:
Of the two, I'd probably go with Balkman. As a SF, he fits! But as PF, which is how he was originally used when he came into the league, it would be a big no. But he's been around the block a few times now, and has both NBA and European experience, as well as D-Leauge. His offense has improved, and he has always been a hustle guy that plays defense, and rebounds. I've never been a big Ebanks fan. Didn't like him in college, and he's done nothing since to change my mind. Biggest knock on him in college was his inconsistency across the board. Not saying he can't turn it around. He's still young, but if the Kings are going to take gambles on someone, it needs to be someone with upside. Don't see much in Ebanks at the moment.
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I would not mind Balkman either at this point even if it is just for this season, Ebanks got picked up by Dallas so he's off the table
 
K

KingsCitizen

Starter
#33
#33
I'm not sure if our FO has been scouting the FIBA games lately.
Seems like the world of basketball is gonna get some new bloods.

Argentina is no longer FIBA America Champ.
FIBA Asia and Africa got some new shoe-ins.
And the Euros games are looking very competitive now.
 
Kingster

Kingster

Hall of Famer
#34
#34
bajaden said:
I believe that with Tyreke, there was more to it. I know this is an unpopular view, but I believe that they didn't think Tyreke fit into what they were trying to do. D'Alessandro said that he wanted to change the culture of the team, and what he wanted was a less selfish team that moved the ball along with playing good team defense. Malone when asked about the changes that needed to take place, he restated almost exactly what D'Alessando had said. Then yesterday, Mullin basically said the same thing again. Unselfish play! More passing! Keep everyone on the team involved and a part of whats going on. Little or no isolation play. When you take everything they've said into consideration, and you look at Tyreke's strengths, its easy to see that they didn't think he fit what they wanted to do. Then when you add his big salary on top of that, it was probably a no brain'er for them. Unpopular on this forum for sure, but if you take the emotion out of it, you can see their point. Even if you don't agree with it.

The truth is, that if you wanted to move Tyreke and get equal value for him, it should have been done before the trade deadline. Unfortunately, they didn't have control of the team then. I think they're looking at the team the same way you just looked at it. It hasn't been able to win even 30 games since, it feels like forever. So your the new GM and coach! How do you get excited about keeping all the core players that haven't been able to win anything. You probably don't, and so now you have to decide who you want to keep and who you want to get rid of. Its easy for us as fans to say this player or that player has to go. Its not that easy to accomplish that. You don't want to just give money away if you don't have to. The stretch provision is a nice tool, but it doesn't totally clear you of all the financial responsibility, and your still paying a player for doing nothing. I think its a tool that you use only if you need extra space for another deal. I don't think you do deals just to do deals.

I think they want to rebuild through the draft, and by bringing in players that for the most part fit the type of team they want to build.. There aren't many perfect players that fit on both sides of the ball. Case in point, James Johnson. Good defender, but terribly selfish, and poorly skilled player on the offensive side of the ball. He might have been tolerable if had stayed out of the way and not been a ball stopper. How much of that was Keith Smarts fault is unkown. Point is, the time for bringing in other teams rejects in the thought that just maybe we'll strike gold because a light suddenly goes off his head should be over. Its time to make good draft choices, and bring in proven players that know how to play the game. Its one thing to spend the time and money to develop your young players, but its quite another to try and develop another teams failure that's been in the league for 5 or 6 years already. Only contending teams with an already established core can afford those moves. Example: Its one thing for the Miami Heat to bring in a Michael Beasley, and quite another for a team like the Kings to bring him in.

If Cousins is to be our rock. Our foundation player, then we need to build from the ground up with pieces that fit the best around him. Helping to make Cousins a great player, an all star player won't make us a winner, but it will give us credibility and be a huge step in that direction. As the movie said, build it and they will come. Right now, we're just starting, so its going to take time. Its in an entirely different direction, and some may not like that direction. But the fact remains, that the direction we were going in, wasn't adding up to winning seasons. For the last 4 or 5 years, we started every season hoping we could just win 35 games or so. When you stop and think about it, that's pathetic. So I'm not saying that this group is going to be successful. That remains to be seen. But one thing is for sure, what we've been doing hasn't been successful. So I'm willing to wait and see.
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I agree with the post, except for maybe a minor quibble when you bring up the unselfishness the Kings org talks about and then imply that Tyreke was selfish, hence one of the reasons they didn't like his game. I think Tyreke was unselfish. I don't believe that was the problem for the Kings management.

Malone talks about running "with discipline". Safe to say, Tyreke didn't do that. He may be incapable of doing that. Also, Tyreke doesn't fit as the prototypical shooting 2-guard. When the Kings picked McLemore they signalled that they want an outstanding outside shooting 2-guard who can spread the floor. Tyreke is a hybrid 1-2 guard with not enough 1 in his game to fit into what the Kings wanted from a point guard. All in all, the Kings org just didn't value the skill-set of Tyreke as much as others on this board.
 
bajaden

bajaden

Hall of Famer
#35
#35
Kingster said:
I agree with the post, except for maybe a minor quibble when you bring up the unselfishness the Kings org talks about and then imply that Tyreke was selfish, hence one of the reasons they didn't like his game. I think Tyreke was unselfish. I don't believe that was the problem for the Kings management.

Malone talks about running "with discipline". Safe to say, Tyreke didn't do that. He may be incapable of doing that. Also, Tyreke doesn't fit as the prototypical shooting 2-guard. When the Kings picked McLemore they signalled that they want an outstanding outside shooting 2-guard who can spread the floor. Tyreke is a hybrid 1-2 guard with not enough 1 in his game to fit into what the Kings wanted from a point guard. All in all, the Kings org just didn't value the skill-set of Tyreke as much as others on this board.
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All I was doing was quoting what they said, to best of memory, and then applying Tyreke's game to that. Its funny that if your a big fan of Tyreke, he's just a talented player that has to, and should have the ball in his hands to be effective. If someone else dominates the ball, then that player is selfish, not Tyreke. Personally I think you can have his style of play, and not be selfish. Its just that his style of play requires him to have the ball in his hands a lot. So its just semantics. Unfortunately, if he has the ball in his hands a lot, then someone else doesn't. And that was my point. Not that Tyreke was a selfish player.

So as I said, I think they looked at Tyreke, and decided his style didn't fit what they wanted to do. Particularly at that price. I agree with you that when they drafted McLemore, Tyreke's days were numbered. It would have been nice to see how they might have used Tyreke. I wanted to see what would happen with a good coach. But alas, it was not to be, and when you consider that the biggest loss is on the defensive side of the ball, and we were last in the league in defense, I guess they thought we certainly can't get any worse without him. If they thought they can make up for Tyreke offensively with Thornton, and McLemore at the SG position, then that means they'd be paying him 11 mil a year for what he brings defensively. Which individually, wasn't enough to make us respectable last season. Not saying that was his fault! Its just that you have to put a value on things.
 
Kingster

Kingster

Hall of Famer
#36
#36
bajaden said:
All I was doing was quoting what they said, to best of memory, and then applying Tyreke's game to that. Its funny that if your a big fan of Tyreke, he's just a talented player that has to, and should have the ball in his hands to be effective. If someone else dominates the ball, then that player is selfish, not Tyreke. Personally I think you can have his style of play, and not be selfish. Its just that his style of play requires him to have the ball in his hands a lot. So its just semantics. Unfortunately, if he has the ball in his hands a lot, then someone else doesn't. And that was my point. Not that Tyreke was a selfish player.

So as I said, I think they looked at Tyreke, and decided his style didn't fit what they wanted to do. Particularly at that price. I agree with you that when they drafted McLemore, Tyreke's days were numbered. It would have been nice to see how they might have used Tyreke. I wanted to see what would happen with a good coach. But alas, it was not to be, and when you consider that the biggest loss is on the defensive side of the ball, and we were last in the league in defense, I guess they thought we certainly can't get any worse without him. If they thought they can make up for Tyreke offensively with Thornton, and McLemore at the SG position, then that means they'd be paying him 11 mil a year for what he brings defensively. Which individually, wasn't enough to make us respectable last season. Not saying that was his fault! Its just that you have to put a value on things.
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I totally agree. It doesn't seem like we have the language to distinguish a player who is *really* selfish - out for himself and not the team - versus a player who needs the ball in his hands to be effective for himself and his team. We very often describe the latter player as selfish, like he's morally wanting, when it has nothing to do with his performance on the floor.

I have another speculation on Tyreke, which dovetails with what you've said. I think it's tough on any coach to make a player fit into the team when that player doesn't have a defined skillset that fits into the team. Tyreke is one of those players imo. I don't think the FO wanted the coach to go around and around with Tyreke trying to find his proper place; they had seen the prior regimes and were not enamored with the results.
 
bajaden

bajaden

Hall of Famer
#37
#37
I think the only way to have Tyreke at his best, would be to build the team around him. Make him the centerpiece. That's what I originally envisioned when I advocated drafting him. At the time, our star player was Martin, and I didn't think he was the type of player you could build a team around. I saw Martin as more of a supporting player. A good one, but a supporting player none the less. I also thought that Martin and Tyreke would able to play together. Martin could spread the floor, and Tyreke could do what Tyreke does. I still think it could have worked if we had a decent coach at the time. Water under the bridge now. Time to move on. Confucius say, "He who lives in the past, has no future".
 
K

KingMilz

Guest
#38
#38
With Emeka Okafor going down with what appears to be a serious injury the prospect of getting Ariza could open up again, the Wizards could look to trade for a PC/C (Jason Thompson) making us a viable partner.
 
S

sdballer

Starter
#39
#39
andremiller07 said:
With Emeka Okafor going down with what appears to be a serious injury the prospect of getting Ariza could open up again, the Wizards could look to trade for a PC/C (Jason Thompson) making us a viable partner.
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I think Ariza would be a slight upgrade at the 3 but it leaves our frontcourt shockingly small, weak rebounding and defensively inept.
 
K

KingMilz

Guest
#40
#40
sdballer said:
I think Ariza would be a slight upgrade at the 3 but it leaves our frontcourt shockingly small, weak rebounding and defensively inept.
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JT does not help any of those area's other than size, Landry is a better rebounder than JT anyway. I also forgot to mention with all of Nene's injury problems as well I'm sure Wizards would love JT as insurance or even Patterson since Wall wanted a stretch 4 to play with.
 
S

sdballer

Starter
#41
#41
andremiller07 said:
JT does not help any of those area's other than size, Landry is a better rebounder than JT anyway. I also forgot to mention with all of Nene's injury problems as well I'm sure Wizards would love JT as insurance or even Patterson since Wall wanted a stretch 4 to play with.
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JT has consistently been a better defender and rebounder than Landry and PPat. Not really debatable.

Ppat for Ariza would be something to consider though but we'd have to include Outlaw or Jimmer to make the numbers work.
 
K

KingMilz

Guest
#42
#42
sdballer said:
JT has consistently been a better defender and rebounder than Landry and PPat. Not really debatable.

Ppat for Ariza would be something to consider though but we'd have to include Outlaw or Jimmer to make the numbers work.
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Better rebounder than Patterson yes, Landry no he's not but yeah I would prefer not to trade Patterson he' has high IQ and can shoot which is what we need with Cousins. But again not here to debate if JT is better at anything just throwing out some potential idea's for acquiring another SF who is capable on both ends of the floor.
 
S

sdballer

Starter
#43
#43
andremiller07 said:
Better rebounder than Patterson yes, Landry no he's not but yeah I would prefer not to trade Patterson he' has high IQ and can shoot which is what we need with Cousins. But again not here to debate if JT is better at anything just throwing out some potential idea's for acquiring another SF who is capable on both ends of the floor.
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Not trying to argue but why do you think Landry is a better rebounder than JT? There is absolutely nothing to suggest that. Career wise:

Landry
Reb %-12.4
Reb/36-7.8

JT
Reb %- 14.8
Reb/36-9.4
 
K

KingMilz

Guest
#44
#44
sdballer said:
Not trying to argue but why do you think Landry is a better rebounder than JT? There is absolutely nothing to suggest that. Career wise:

Landry
Reb %-12.4
Reb/36-7.8

JT
Reb %- 14.8
Reb/36-9.4
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Career wise yeah your right but last season Landry improved a lot on the boards and in less playing time nearly pulled down the exact same amount of boards but yeah career wise I would give JT the edge but right now imo they are similar.
 
R

randymoss1881

Starter
#45
#45
bajaden

bajaden

Hall of Famer
#46
#46
andremiller07 said:
Career wise yeah your right but last season Landry improved a lot on the boards and in less playing time nearly pulled down the exact same amount of boards but yeah career wise I would give JT the edge but right now imo they are similar.
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When I heard of the injury, Ariza jumped into my mind as well. Not only did they lose Okafor, but Singleton went down with an ankle injury as well. In truth, I'd rather have Singleton. He's going to be out for 6 to 8 weeks, but I really liked him at Florida St. He's a very good defender and decent rebounder for a SF, who can play some PF is needed. He has legit size at 6'9", and was arguably the best athlete in his draft. He's still very young, and his 3pt shot is improving every year. I doubt he'll ever be a scoring threat, but I believe he can be creditable. Plus the price is cheaper.

As for who we would trade? Well Chuck Hayes springs to mind. I know our opinion of him is somewhat diminished, but he is a very good post defender and rebounder. Okafor played center for them, so Hayes wouldn't be a bad place holder in his stead. Unfortunately, it doesn't make financial sense for them. They're sitting at 70 mil in team salary right now, and the owner doesn't want to take on anymore salary.

I'm not a fan of trading JT for Ariza, but I would trade Hayes for him. I ran it through trade checker, and it works. It even saves them around 2 mil in salary. It would leave them a little thin at the SF position, with Webster and Porter left healthy, but it would give them a chance to throw Porter into the fire. The plus for us, besides getting a legit starter, is that he comes off the books at years end, and Hayes wouldn't.
 
K

KingMilz

Guest
#47
#47
bajaden said:
When I heard of the injury, Ariza jumped into my mind as well. Not only did they lose Okafor, but Singleton went down with an ankle injury as well. In truth, I'd rather have Singleton. He's going to be out for 6 to 8 weeks, but I really liked him at Florida St. He's a very good defender and decent rebounder for a SF, who can play some PF is needed. He has legit size at 6'9", and was arguably the best athlete in his draft. He's still very young, and his 3pt shot is improving every year. I doubt he'll ever be a scoring threat, but I believe he can be creditable. Plus the price is cheaper.
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Coming out of college I thought Singleton like yourself was going to be a very decent player, I think he had a serious knee injury early in his NBA career and has struggled since, I honestly thought Singleton was capable of being a top 10 defender in the NBA, I would not mind at all taking a punt on Chris Singleton if it came down to it but he's got to show more.
 
S

sdballer

Starter
#50
#50
Aldrich signed with Knicks so he's out too. Hard to believe we are heading in to this season with no backup center and no low post defenders.

Not that Cole was a game changer but odd, especially when we have the worst defensive backcourt in the league.
 
Bricklayer

Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
#51
#51
Hmm...this may be quickly obsolete if the report is wrong. But an early report from the Gortat/Wizards trade says the Wizards are going to release Marshal, Lee and Shannon Brown after the trade. The other two are scrubs. But Shannon Brown is an athletic defender with champsionship experience. We are already guard glutted, but damn if we don't need exactly the things he brings.
 
bajaden

bajaden

Hall of Famer
#53
#53
In the spirit of the previous post, here's a list of players that have been released yesterday and today.

D. J. Kennedy - SG/SF - 6'6"
Devin Ebanks - SF- 6'9"
Fab Melo - Center - 7'0"
Dewayne Dedmon - Center/PF - 7'0"
Seth Curry - PG - 6'2"
Vander Blue - PG/SG - 6'4"
Jeremy Tyler - PF - 6'10"
Chris Douglas-Roberts, or CDR - SG/SF - 6'7"
Ike Diogu - PF - 6'9"
C. J. Leslie - SF - 6'9"
Adonis Thomas - SF - 6'7"
Jermaine Taylor - SG - 6'5"
Elliot Williams - SG - 6'5"
Desagana Diop - Center - 7'0"
B. J. Young - SG - 6'3"
and, Josh Powell - PF - 6'9"

I've always thought that Jemery Tyler had a lot of promise. Very athletic and has great size for the PF position, and can play a little center as well. I've always like CDR. We should get Seth Curry just so he can guard his brother. Diop is a journeyman center thats been in the league a long time. Dewayne Dedmon should have stayed in school, but he does have potential and great length. I've never liked Leslie. Hasn't progressed one iota in college. Ebanks is a borderline player for me. He's like, almost there as an NBA player. Couldn't shoot a lick in college, but has improved a little.
 
steelevt

steelevt

All-Star
#54
#54
bajaden said:
In the spirit of the previous post, here's a list of players that have been released yesterday and today.

D. J. Kennedy - SG/SF - 6'6"
Devin Ebanks - SF- 6'9"
Fab Melo - Center - 7'0"
Dewayne Dedmon - Center/PF - 7'0"
Seth Curry - PG - 6'2"
Vander Blue - PG/SG - 6'4"
Jeremy Tyler - PF - 6'10"
Chris Douglas-Roberts, or CDR - SG/SF - 6'7"
Ike Diogu - PF - 6'9"
C. J. Leslie - SF - 6'9"
Adonis Thomas - SF - 6'7"
Jermaine Taylor - SG - 6'5"
Elliot Williams - SG - 6'5"
Desagana Diop - Center - 7'0"
B. J. Young - SG - 6'3"
and, Josh Powell - PF - 6'9"

I've always thought that Jemery Tyler had a lot of promise. Very athletic and has great size for the PF position, and can play a little center as well. I've always like CDR. We should get Seth Curry just so he can guard his brother. Diop is a journeyman center thats been in the league a long time. Dewayne Dedmon should have stayed in school, but he does have potential and great length. I've never liked Leslie. Hasn't progressed one iota in college. Ebanks is a borderline player for me. He's like, almost there as an NBA player. Couldn't shoot a lick in college, but has improved a little.
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Two names that caught my eye when I saw who was released today were Jeremy Tyler and diop. Malone has seen Tyler and what he can/can not bring to the table. I dunno how much diop has left in the tank but we really need a backup center
 
MassachusettsKingsFan

MassachusettsKingsFan

All-Star
#58
#58
I'd rather have Fab Melo than Ndiaye. Melo is incredibly immature, like Javale McGee was in a lot of ways. I still like his size and ability to block shots. He wouldn't be a rotation player this year, but I'd like to see what Malone could do with him for a year. If he never pans out, no big deal.

I also think Jermaine Taylor is pretty freaking underrated. Same with Ike Diogu.
 
miltonap

miltonap

Starter
#59
#59
fat NO to Royce White. That guy is such a mess and definitely would not fit in with the new culture here. Same goes to Spongebob (Fab Melo) . He's just not good
 
D

dude12

Hall of Famer
#60
#60
MassachusettsKingsFan said:
I'd rather have Fab Melo than Ndiaye. Melo is incredibly immature, like Javale McGee was in a lot of ways. I still like his size and ability to block shots. He wouldn't be a rotation player this year, but I'd like to see what Malone could do with him for a year. If he never pans out, no big deal.

I also think Jermaine Taylor is pretty freaking underrated. Same with Ike Diogu.
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Those 2 guys have had opportunities but haven't stuck. Both have shown abilities to score, must be something else about them.
 
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