Suicide King
Starter
I think the issue may be you can only bring players up to a point dictated by their individual talents.
Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
I do variations on this periodically, and people just don't seem to absorb it very well, but here we go again. Since it is not terribly reasonable to expect a guy to elevate teammates when a) he's a kid; b) there is a circus as the owners are trying to steal the team and penny pinching in Major League fashion; and c) the dumbasses in charge refuse to hand the team over to him....let's just look at the fates of all the former Kings players since Cousins was anointed The Franchise to kick off the Vivek era in 2013-14 (i.e. his 4 years of superstardom). I'll group them according to fate. He's had 50 teammates in that span. 15 guys currently. So 35 former teammates form the last 4 years:
Guys out of the league (23)
Jason Thompson
Carl Landry
Reggie Evans
Travis Outlaw
James Anderson
Ryan Hollins
Jimmer Fredette
Aaron Gray
Andre Miller
John Salmons
Greivis Vasquez
Caron Butler
Chuck Hayes
Hamady N'Diaye
Eric Moreland
Jared Cunningham
Orlando Johnson
Quincy Miller
Sim Bhullar
Davis Stockton
Royce White
David Wear
Duje Dukan
Guys on fringes of league (have been in and out this year) (3)
Ray McCallum
Quincy Acy
Jordan Farmar
Guys in league, doing worse (3)
Derrick Williams
Rajon Rondo
Marcus Thornton
Guys in league, doing same (2)
Patrick Patterson
Luc Mbah a Moute (I guess, looked good in his brief 9 game stint for us, been nothing since, now is back to contributing)
Guys in league, doing better (5)
Nick Stauskas (was rookie with Cuz)
Isaiah Thomas (although was a 20ppg scorer here too, just not the same number of shots available with Cuz and Rudy)
Marco Belinelli
Seth Curry (was rookie with Cuz, and actually was more efficient in Sac, just more minutes in Dallas, obviously Karl's decision, not Cuz's)
Ramon Sessions
Lion and tigers and scrubs oh my. But I do feel, sincerely and deeply feel and have conviction, that Boogie was holding back Marco and Ramon from leading us to greatness.
Guys out of the league (23)
Jason Thompson
Carl Landry
Reggie Evans
Travis Outlaw
James Anderson
Ryan Hollins
Jimmer Fredette
Aaron Gray
Andre Miller
John Salmons
Greivis Vasquez
Caron Butler
Chuck Hayes
Hamady N'Diaye
Eric Moreland
Jared Cunningham
Orlando Johnson
Quincy Miller
Sim Bhullar
Davis Stockton
Royce White
David Wear
Duje Dukan
Guys on fringes of league (have been in and out this year) (3)
Ray McCallum
Quincy Acy
Jordan Farmar
Guys in league, doing worse (3)
Derrick Williams
Rajon Rondo
Marcus Thornton
Guys in league, doing same (2)
Patrick Patterson
Luc Mbah a Moute (I guess, looked good in his brief 9 game stint for us, been nothing since, now is back to contributing)
Guys in league, doing better (5)
Nick Stauskas (was rookie with Cuz)
Isaiah Thomas (although was a 20ppg scorer here too, just not the same number of shots available with Cuz and Rudy)
Marco Belinelli
Seth Curry (was rookie with Cuz, and actually was more efficient in Sac, just more minutes in Dallas, obviously Karl's decision, not Cuz's)
Ramon Sessions
Lion and tigers and scrubs oh my. But I do feel, sincerely and deeply feel and have conviction, that Boogie was holding back Marco and Ramon from leading us to greatness.
K
KingsFan80
Guest
Cousins and Rudy Gay are the only two players on the team who are legit NBA stars. Temple is ok and maybe a couple others but the team is mainly full of garbage talent. No idea how Cousins is suppose to win with this mess. Put LeBron or Kobe here and you would have the same result. If LeBron played on this team and went through the last draft (Papa, etc etc etc) he would have demanded a trade. DMC IS NOT the problem
K
KingsFan80
Guest
Boogie deserves some criticism. His attitude at times is out of control. I was at the Warriors game and he literally killed and momentum. After his T it was a disaster going forward. I just think he isn't the core of the problem. The problem is bad draft decisions, bad free agency signings, the inability to get a trade done that will benefit the roster, lack of talent, etc. which has nothing to do with Boogie. And the longer the FO continues to mess up and not get stuff done, the longer and more Boogie gets blamed for all of it because he is visibly frustrated with losing over and over.
None of these guys individually is a bad player. But when you look around the league and see how much talent is out there and what it takes to compete in the playoffs these days, the bar has been raised so much higher in the last decade. Cousins/Gay/Collison as a core is good for about 35 wins in 2017. With great chemistry and effort maybe you could push it to 40. I wouldn't call them garbage, they're just not measuring up to the pace set by the top 15 teams.
Take Collison for instance: The PGs leading playoff teams pretty much top to bottom are All Stars and Hall of Famers. You could count the number of teams with less talent at the position than us with one hand. And I've always liked Collison. 10 years ago... solid starter. Now? If he's the best you've got, you're in trouble. And this year's draft is loaded with elite PGs so the few remaining "have nots" picking at the top of the lottery are going to widen the gulf even further.
Rudy Gay has had a nice career as a scorer. At his peak he could take over a game but he's never done it often enough to make an All Star team. Every year a couple future stars emerge at SF to the point where you can't even call Rudy top 10 at his position anymore. He's one of the most frustrating players I can remember. As soon as you buy into him as a legit star he'll disappear. Then you'll write him off and he'll score 30 without breaking a sweat. If he could do it consistently he'd have been a multiple All-Star by now. I haven't figured out what his deal is. It's like he's permanently locked into "Houston Rockets TMac" mode and can't find another gear.
The rest of the guys you mentioned would be a solid supporting class for a 3 star team but we're a 1 star team. I never meant to say that we have no talent, but "almost" gets you nowhere. You can't build on "almost good enough" because's there's only 1 ball; only 5 players on the court at a time. If you're almost good enough at 3 positions, mediocre at 1, and elite at the other what are your options? Maybe 1 of your "almosts" is a young player who improves into "sure thing" territory (we'll call this the Spurs method). There's been precious little of that kind of development here though. So we can tread water like we have been or we can consolidate a lot of "almosts" for 1 sure thing. That's the crucial step we haven't been able to manage yet.
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The Hammer
All-Star
Why can't you hold the teammates accountable for their own play being bad?
We have one player who is an HOF talent, and a bunch of mediocre players and you are telling me it's the best players fault the team is losing. Makes no sense man. Hold the bad players accountable, for playing bad. Don't hold the one great player accountable for the bad players. The bad players will never improve if you do that.
We have one player who is an HOF talent, and a bunch of mediocre players and you are telling me it's the best players fault the team is losing. Makes no sense man. Hold the bad players accountable, for playing bad. Don't hold the one great player accountable for the bad players. The bad players will never improve if you do that.
L
Lopes
Guest
You can but there is a difference in how you do it. A leader leads by example. Cuz is no example. So many flaws on defense and bad habits such as fouling and turnovers...and what does he do but says don't look at me it my teammates. He even has you doing it for him. Sad
K
KingMilz
Guest
Rudy Gay is not a star in the NBA honestly if he were not getting carried to the playoffs by Gasol/ZBo/Conley/Tony Allen and the elite Memphis D than tanking those Memphis teams in the first round everytime they got there with him he would be like that one Mike James season in Toronto where he average 20ppg a game and no one cared or remembered.
Rudy Gay at this point will actually be remembered for helping the Raptors play the best basketball in the history of the franchise by getting rid of him and in regards to us he's probably the key reason why we let "midget chucker" Isaiah Thomas go for nothing.
KingsFanGER
Starter
You mean the midget chucker, who is getting carried by Bostons elite defense and never got out of the first round in the Playoffs so far?
K
KingMilz
Guest
Very well played indeedYou mean the midget chucker, who is getting carried by Bostons elite defense and never got out of the first round in the Playoffs so far?
Sorry if my post goes OOT but take this as a personal response to your post. I speak on my behalf alone.
I agree with your post. My personal gripe with some posters on this board is the inconsistency in their stance. The vets are either proven winners or they're not. You can't say they are one moment, or say that the team has talent one moment, and then the next say that it's not Cousins' fault his team mates suck. You can't say that George Karl is to blame for bad defense and Joerger will turn things around, and then not say anything when the team continues to play bad D. You can't say it's stupid that the coach has Cousins' camping out at the 3 point line, and then praise Cousins for his versatility and offensive repertoire the next season when he shoots even more 3s. You can't say that the FO sucks at drafting and that no FAs want to come to Sac, and then say that the route forward is to keep Cousins and get top FAs to come to Sac. And the common denominator in all these inconsistencies is that everyone else is to blame, or that everything should change, except Cousins.
Now, to your point, Cousins is definitely not the biggest problem with this team in terms of basketball talent and production. And I personally try to stay away from getting into subjective debates as to whether Cousins is a bad team mate, whether his emotions are good or bad, whether he's efficient or not etc. At the end of the day I care about results, and nobody can say that this team is showing any results unless they're delusional.
To me, the question is not whether Cousins is a good/elite player or not. That's unquestionable. The question is how do we move forward? Some here are taking the approach of just throwing any and everything at the wall that is Cousins until you find something that sticks. I can understand that approach although I don't agree with it. To me, that's the definition of insanity when you keep doing the same thing year after year and get the same results year after year and still expect a different result the next time around. You could make a case that you can really only take 1-2 years as a sample size due to all the instability the Kings organisation has faced, and that's a fair argument, although again not one I necessarily agree with. My position then, is that moving Cousins needs to be an option and consideration. Yeah, we might end up winning 20 games for a season or two, but is that really any worse than sub 40 games year after year? Maybe our franchise just has no hope, and all of us are trying our best to cling on to whatever hope we can find. To thus write off anyone who thinks we should trade Cousins, or to call them idiots or trolls, is just as bad to me as someone who's sole intention is to trash Cousins.
Another way to look at it - if the rest of the roster sucks, are on short term deals and aren't going to be here in the foreseeable future, what's the point of talking about their performance on the court? If Cousins is the only key piece and everyone else is just bad then we should only bother focusing on Cousins' performance and behavior. That doesn't mean Cousins is the core problem, it just means that the core problem is a given and there's no point in talking about it. We're not going to become a significantly different, better, or worse team by moving Ben McLemore. Our future isn't going to be determined by whether Koufos remains on the team or not. So if the core problem is a bad roster sans-Cousins, how are we going to change that?
I think you highlight the issue pretty well. The problem is how we get out of it. Maybe I'm taking the easy way out here, but I don't see us creating or developing legit assets out of nothing. So my stance is to bite the bullet, use your one big asset to give yourself a chance and hope that 5 years down the road it pays off. Because as it is, we aren't gonna get anywhere. Best case scenario is we get a first round exit for a few years, and then end up having to rebuild any way.
Of course, this post is conveniently ignored by the Cousins bashers
K
KingMilz
Guest
We had big 3's of IT/Evans/Cousins and IT/Cousins/Gay and they all went below 500. and all those guys on other teams went to the playoffs as 1/2/3 options. IT/Evans the year after they left lead there teams as basically #1 options (while Davis was the Pelicans best player Tyreke was the engine that made them go when Monty let him play the point).
Flopi
Bench
I admit I didn't read the whole thread.
Just one point that amazes me : Despite his reputation and after almost 7 seasons, I still haven't found ONE former Cousins' teammate saying something really bad about him. And, thanks to Kings management, Boogie had PLENTY of them. I mean, in the Twitter/social media age, it shouldn't be that difficult to find...
On the other hand, I have MANY examples of DeMarcus backing up his teammates, even the less famous and talented ones (hello Pooh Jeter).
That, for me, speaks volume. Much more than a 30 seconds video where Boogie rightly yells at a teammate, in the heat of a game, for missing several times his defensive assignment.
Just one point that amazes me : Despite his reputation and after almost 7 seasons, I still haven't found ONE former Cousins' teammate saying something really bad about him. And, thanks to Kings management, Boogie had PLENTY of them. I mean, in the Twitter/social media age, it shouldn't be that difficult to find...
On the other hand, I have MANY examples of DeMarcus backing up his teammates, even the less famous and talented ones (hello Pooh Jeter).
That, for me, speaks volume. Much more than a 30 seconds video where Boogie rightly yells at a teammate, in the heat of a game, for missing several times his defensive assignment.
That is certainly an option, but we don't know what other teams are offering us for Cousins either. Could be the offers are extremely underwhelming. I look at it this way: for all his flaws, Cousins is an elite franchise level talent. The new CBA makes us the overwhelming favorite to re-sign him. He'd be walking away from a huge chunk of guaranteed money by signing elsewhere. Something like $80 million. It's taken us 10 years to find one franchise level talent, it could take another 10 if we let him go regardless of how many lottery picks we get in return. There are always opportunities to acquire good players. In the draft, in trades, in free agency. By and large we're not making good on those opportunities right now. We also haven't had a stable culture where players could develop up to now. I still think there's a way out of no-man's land, 35 win territory, that doesn't require us to start over...
In Free Agency, don't go shopping for "a SG" and settle on the best we can get. Target specific players with complimentary skills. Don't sign 3 mediocre players, sign 1 really good one. And if those opportunities aren't there for us? Take a shot on a young player or an international star who's under the radar but could outperform their contract.
In the draft, don't worry about immediate production. None of the guys we drafted last year were ready to help us this season and that's okay. Even if it takes you 3 or 4 years to develop them, a homegrown star is better than no star. Teams in our situation need to squeeze as much talent as possible out of the draft.
In trades, look for players with untapped potential that could be a lot more productive with a different team situation. Topics Harris was rotting away on the end of Milwaukee's bench when Orlando picked him up and he quickly became a go-to scorer once he got touches. Kyle Lowry was in Kevin McHale's doghouse and Toronto got him for practically nothing. Those are the kinds of trades that propel you forward. If we can trade a nickel for a dime every time-- incrementally building value -- eventually we'll stumble across a hidden gem or at least improve our outlook enough to sustain a playoff run and start rebuilding our brand.
None of these are quick fixes but we need to get away from that mentality as soon as possible. A Cousins extension this summer means we have him for 6 more years through his athletic prime. Taking big risks for short-term success with no long-term benefit isn't going to get us anywhere. We should be stockpiling talent, especially young talent, so we're ready to make a big trade or signing when those opportunities arise. It can be done. It just takes patience, persistence, and years of hard work.
You didn't address the list that Brick posted...and as for IT and Tyreke...you blaming Cousins for playing Tyreke out of position? And for the IT era, you blaming Cousins for Malone getting fired? More of a head coach front office problem...no?
CelticsFan
Bench
Rudy Gay isn't a star. He never was and I don't envision him becoming one anytime soon. The guy has never even made an all star team but yet at this point in his career some consider him a star. Gay is a nice player but lets not consider him a star just because he's the second option on this team.
CelticsFan
Bench
Sorry I read other posters explaining that Gay isn't a star after I posted this ^^^^^^^
Telemachus
Starter
I would also point out that Temple was interviewed by James Ham in his recent podcast. He is known as a straight shooter, and he said that Cousins is a great teammate.
kupman
Starter
I really hate all the finger pointing. I grew tired of it long ago. I think we all know who DMC is as a player by now - the good, the bad, the ugly and the great.
All I really care about are 2 things - the future and wins. There are differences of opinions on how to obtain wins in the future. However, to spend time assigning fault to the past 7 years is just a waste of energy because, in truth, everyone in the organization is at fault with the exemption of Slamson and Joan from reception.
All I really care about are 2 things - the future and wins. There are differences of opinions on how to obtain wins in the future. However, to spend time assigning fault to the past 7 years is just a waste of energy because, in truth, everyone in the organization is at fault with the exemption of Slamson and Joan from reception.
Good thought. However there is a different take on ho to describe the situation. Considering those factors which lead to our losing games Cuz is at least an equsual contributor. It not the "HOFer" vs the "bad" players. In that sense they are all bad players. The theme of this thread seems to say the big problem is that Cuz draws them down. A gross over simplification.
You mean the midget chucker, who is getting carried by Bostons elite defense and never got out of the first round in the Playoffs so far?
No the midget chucker who's going to be an All-Star this year while averaging the most pts in the 4th of any player on the league while carrying the Celtics' offense on his back.
bajaden
Hall of Famer
bajaden
Hall of Famer
I don't have a problem with the star player of a team holding others accountable for their play. Michael Jordan, Magic and many other have done it. However, to be credible, you have to make sure your doing your job properly as well. You can't argue with a ref while the ball is live, be late getting back on defense, and then criticize one of your teammates for a defensive breakdown. All Cuz needs to do is clean up his own act a bit, and everything else will fall into place.
In his interview with Carmichael Dave, he admitted he does stupid things at times, but that at the time, they seemed to make sense. So Cuz is aware of his problem, and I think he's trying his best to break some bad habits. Bad habits can be hard to break. I'm living proof of that.
Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
You mean the midget chucker, who is getting carried by Bostons elite defense and never got out of the first round in the Playoffs so far?
Still not entirely untrue. But a real lesson in a way in how to fit a roster. IT actually has an overall negative +/- (-2.8) his defense is so bad compared to everybody on Boston. But he provides exactly what the rest of the roster can't and they have cleared the table for him to be him in spades. They really have no clear way forward from what they are, but they are near maximizing their model.
On the other hand, if Boston were Sac they'd have half a roster of non-NBAers and blown draft picks, several ball dominant guys to fight with IT for the ball, a 2nd rate coach, and maybe 1 defensive player on the roster, tops. And not surprisingly, they would lose. Winning is a team/franchise thing.
Double-K
Starter
Slim isn't the only one.
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