DeMarcus Cousins: 'I still don’t feel I get the respect I deserve'

Yup that was after he won 57 games. Since Karl left, Denver has won 36,30 and 33 games. I'm not arguing that Karl didn't rub people the wrong way I'm just saying lets not act like Joerger is the missing piece that's going to turn it around THIS season.

I think the Joerger singing was a good one but he has never turned a NBA team around. He took over a good team that just went to the conference finals the year before and was never able to get them to that level again.

And this is where I have a problem with what your saying. I think when you promote Stevens (previously in another thread) and knock the signing of Joerger, however subtle, I and others are probably going to have a problem with it. And I consider Stevens a very good coach and the same for Joerger, who I consider an very good hire.

Same goes for any the defense of George Karl. Many, and myself included, feel very strongly against the job Karl did....it's been a topic that has been beat to death. Tired of it frankly. Looking forward to a coach who is going to instill defense and pride in defense for once.
 
And this is where I have a problem with what your saying. I think when you promote Stevens (previously in another thread) and knock the signing of Joerger

I don't consider Stevens and Joerger in the same tier of top coaches. I never said I didn't like the Joerger signing, I think he's a good coach. Stevens won 25 games his first season, nobody expected him to turn Boston into a playoff team his first season. Big ships take a long time to turnaround.
 
My point is assuming Joerger comes in and makes this team a playoff team because Karl forgot how to coach is unfair to Joerger. You still need talent to win
You need to be a good coach that matches the team (or is it vice versa?) to win. I get what you mean.

Last year I fully expected a playoff spot. Now I'm afraid to be that hopeful but, assuming we straighten out the pg spot, we should make the playoffs. There, I went and said it. :eek:
 
I don't consider Stevens and Joerger in the same tier of top coaches. I never said I didn't like the Joerger signing, I think he's a good coach. Stevens won 25 games his first season, nobody expected him to turn Boston into a playoff team his first season. Big ships take a long time to turnaround.

Talent is not our problem, or hasn't been.

its a much different situation than Stevens encountered, where the roster itself was barren and it was a fresh start.

Last year the Kings WERE talented. We beat anybody on any given night. We actually slapped a number of good teams around the court. Which made the underacheivement all the more maddening. For the most part we lost the season by dropping games to lousy teams. Just no focus, and a constant distracting coach/team split with the coach feuding or insulting half the roster. Even so we won 33, and were on pace for about 36-37 until we shut it down and tanked the last 3 weeks looking for better draft position (and actually trying to guarantee we kept our pick at all).

From a natural base of 36-37, it doesn't take much at all to be a .500 team, in fact just eliminating the actual feuding with the coach may have been enough to do it, let alone getting a good one in his place.

The interesting thing this summer is that on it s face we have been going backward in talent. Typically something I am not amused by, but I think underscoring the various meanings of the word "talent". We've been letting offensive talent walk in order to acquire defensive talent. And if rumors of Ben/Rudy/possibly Kosta (Papa's struggles throw doubt on the latter) being on the block are serious, we might take that revolution all the way in one summer. Because it has 100% been defense holding this franchise back for the last decade. We have the best center in the world on the roster, something Stevens most certainly did not have. You surround him with strong defenders and that's always been a formula for winning.
 
I don't consider Stevens and Joerger in the same tier of top coaches. I never said I didn't like the Joerger signing, I think he's a good coach. Stevens won 25 games his first season, nobody expected him to turn Boston into a playoff team his first season. Big ships take a long time to turnaround.
You were critical of Joerger not taking the team to Western Conference Finals.......what did you think of his coaching job last year?
 
You were critical of Joerger not taking the team to Western Conference Finals.......what did you think of his coaching job last year?

Sorry dude, you may be a little hyper sensitive. We aren't looking at it the same way. Joerger coached well last season and every season in Memphis. I think he's a good coach but not great (maybe he gets there one day). My point being thinking Joerger is going to come in with basically the same players as last season and all of a sudden this team is going to turn into a great defensive playoff team is high expectations. I don't think coaching is the last missing piece to make this a playoff team. I don't think this team is a playoff team with Joerger, Stevens, Malone, Karl whoever you want to coach. Maybe they exceed my expectations.......I'd be ok with that!!

Not everyone gets a trophy, someone has to miss the playoffs
 
Sorry dude, you may be a little hyper sensitive. We aren't looking at it the same way. Joerger coached well last season and every season in Memphis. I think he's a good coach but not great (maybe he gets there one day). My point being thinking Joerger is going to come in with basically the same players as last season and all of a sudden this team is going to turn into a great defensive playoff team is high expectations. I don't think coaching is the last missing piece to make this a playoff team. I don't think this team is a playoff team with Joerger, Stevens, Malone, Karl whoever you want to coach. Maybe they exceed my expectations.......I'd be ok with that!!

Not everyone gets a trophy, someone has to miss the playoffs

Hypersensitive? No, I just don't agree with you on many things. Call it opinionated.......And Joerger, if one was being honest, did a hell of a coaching job last year. Was one of the better coaching jobs last year by anyone.
 
Sorry dude, you may be a little hyper sensitive. We aren't looking at it the same way. Joerger coached well last season and every season in Memphis. I think he's a good coach but not great (maybe he gets there one day). My point being thinking Joerger is going to come in with basically the same players as last season and all of a sudden this team is going to turn into a great defensive playoff team is high expectations. I don't think coaching is the last missing piece to make this a playoff team. I don't think this team is a playoff team with Joerger, Stevens, Malone, Karl whoever you want to coach. Maybe they exceed my expectations.......I'd be ok with that!!

Not everyone gets a trophy, someone has to miss the playoffs

It is going to be interesting watching the Celtics this coming season. IT is going to have to share the ball a little more. I'm curious how Stevens handles Al Horford. I expect the Celtics to be tough to win against.

CelticsFan, How do you rank Coach Stevens compared to the other 29 Head Coaches in the NBA? I think there are 23 current NBA Head Coaches with a better career win %. But Coach Stevens has the excuse of the Celtics being horrible when he came on board in Bean Town.

I think Coach Joerger is about 8th in career win % but of course he did not have a tough go of it until last season.
 
As for Npliam, I respect that he has been here a long time and takes an interest in the Kings, but suggesting that Karl's effect on last years Kings team was exaggerated, or not huge, is a ridiculous statement. No reasonable person could argue against it.
The fact is that no one will ever know what the effect of Karl was on the Kings. The Kings were better than they have been in a while and while I think he made mistakes with his roster I also think the there are games that his philosophy won you the game. Would you have won more game with a different coach? Probably. How many? Who knows. What I said was that I think the general consensus that with a different coach that this team would have been a playoff team is overstated. That is actually what a "reasonable" person would say.

Same guy who spent about two seasons too long arguing that Favors was a better player than Cousins. Let's be honest here, Npliam has gotten a lot wrong about the Kings and continues to do so.
I never said that. I never even implied it. In fact, I have specifically said the opposite of that on many occasions.

What I actually said (and I still stand behind) was that Favors was helping his team win more than Cousins was. This was absolutely true at the time. Favors wasn't even starting for the Jazz at the time but was really efficient offensively and was really good defensively. Cousins was not really paying attention to defense at the time and was not efficient offensively. I believe at the time I said that Cousins had the potential to be a great, great player but he needed to improve on both the offensive and defensive end to realize his potential. He has done that and I have acknowledged as much on multiple occasions. BTW...Derrick Favors is a pretty awesome player and totally under-rated on by many on this board.

The fact that he is a good poster otherwise and makes his arguments without being a d**k (which is more than you can often say about me) doesn't mean that he doesn't take passive aggressive shots at the franchise.
What you call "passive aggressive shots" I call unbiased opinions. I have no reason to take shots at the franchise. I like the Kings and can relate to cheering for a small market team. I don't have purple glasses on and I have a completely different perspective because of that.

I'm not trying to say he shouldn't voice his opinions. It's always good to get perspective from other team's fans. That doesn't mean silly opinions should just be ignored (and no, not all opinions are born equal).

You can dismiss it as a silly opinion if you choose to do so but I would expect that you have something to back that opinion up with.

To be clear my opinion was that the effect of Karl on the team is overstated on this board.

My opinion was not:
Karl had no effect on the team
A better coach wouldn't have won more games
Karl used the players to the best of their abilities.
[/quote]
 
The fact is that no one will ever know what the effect of Karl was on the Kings. The Kings were better than they have been in a while and while I think he made mistakes with his roster I also think the there are games that his philosophy won you the game. Would you have won more game with a different coach? Probably. How many? Who knows. What I said was that I think the general consensus that with a different coach that this team would have been a playoff team is overstated. That is actually what a "reasonable" person would say.


I never said that. I never even implied it. In fact, I have specifically said the opposite of that on many occasions.

What I actually said (and I still stand behind) was that Favors was helping his team win more than Cousins was. This was absolutely true at the time. Favors wasn't even starting for the Jazz at the time but was really efficient offensively and was really good defensively. Cousins was not really paying attention to defense at the time and was not efficient offensively. I believe at the time I said that Cousins had the potential to be a great, great player but he needed to improve on both the offensive and defensive end to realize his potential. He has done that and I have acknowledged as much on multiple occasions. BTW...Derrick Favors is a pretty awesome player and totally under-rated on by many on this board.


What you call "passive aggressive shots" I call unbiased opinions. I have no reason to take shots at the franchise. I like the Kings and can relate to cheering for a small market team. I don't have purple glasses on and I have a completely different perspective because of that.



You can dismiss it as a silly opinion if you choose to do so but I would expect that you have something to back that opinion up with.

To be clear my opinion was that the effect of Karl on the team is overstated on this board.

My opinion was not:
Karl had no effect on the team
A better coach wouldn't have won more games
Karl used the players to the best of their abilities.
Good rebuttal.

I hope now that we have thoroughly investigated your soul and you have corrected the misimpressions and admitted to the true impressions, perhaps we can move on. Good job, dude. Many people would have just said "screw you" (like me, for one). How many fans of another team would have been so patient, folks? Npliam wants to belong and I still don't know why. :oops:
 
Good rebuttal.

I hope now that we have thoroughly investigated your soul and you have corrected the misimpressions and admitted to the true impressions, perhaps we can move on. Good job, dude. Many people would have just said "screw you" (like me, for one). How many fans of another team would have been so patient, folks? Npliam wants to belong and I still don't know why. :oops:
This board is pretty unique and fun. Also.....it is the middle of the summer and there is no football or basketball.
 
The fact is that no one will ever know what the effect of Karl was on the Kings. The Kings were better than they have been in a while and while I think he made mistakes with his roster I also think the there are games that his philosophy won you the game. Would you have won more game with a different coach? Probably. How many? Who knows. What I said was that I think the general consensus that with a different coach that this team would have been a playoff team is overstated. That is actually what a "reasonable" person would say.


I never said that. I never even implied it. In fact, I have specifically said the opposite of that on many occasions.

What I actually said (and I still stand behind) was that Favors was helping his team win more than Cousins was. This was absolutely true at the time. Favors wasn't even starting for the Jazz at the time but was really efficient offensively and was really good defensively. Cousins was not really paying attention to defense at the time and was not efficient offensively. I believe at the time I said that Cousins had the potential to be a great, great player but he needed to improve on both the offensive and defensive end to realize his potential. He has done that and I have acknowledged as much on multiple occasions. BTW...Derrick Favors is a pretty awesome player and totally under-rated on by many on this board.


What you call "passive aggressive shots" I call unbiased opinions. I have no reason to take shots at the franchise. I like the Kings and can relate to cheering for a small market team. I don't have purple glasses on and I have a completely different perspective because of that.



You can dismiss it as a silly opinion if you choose to do so but I would expect that you have something to back that opinion up with.

To be clear my opinion was that the effect of Karl on the team is overstated on this board.

My opinion was not:
Karl had no effect on the team
A better coach wouldn't have won more games
Karl used the players to the best of their abilities.
[/quote]
Honest question. How many Kings games did you watch this year? And to be straightforward, I still disagree with your original statement no matter how you answer.
 
Honest question. How many Kings games did you watch this year? And to be straightforward, I still disagree with your original statement no matter how you answer.[/quote]
Probably parts of 30-40. I also checked the board after most games and looked at the box score.
 
Honest question. How many Kings games did you watch this year? And to be straightforward, I still disagree with your original statement no matter how you answer.
Probably parts of 30-40. I also checked the board after most games and looked at the box score.[/quote]
Fair answer, I watched 82 plus the preseason. I've rarely missed a game for as far back as I can remember. It's a lot of games watching this franchise. When you say that people on here overstate the effect that Karl had on this team, I think many, many here would agree that Karl failed in an epic way. I could go on but it's just beating a dead horse.
 
Probably parts of 30-40. I also checked the board after most games and looked at the box score.
Fair answer, I watched 82 plus the preseason. I've rarely missed a game for as far back as I can remember. It's a lot of games watching this franchise. When you say that people on here overstate the effect that Karl had on this team, I think many, many here would agree that Karl failed in an epic way. I could go on but it's just beating a dead horse.[/quote]

I watched every Kings game and cursed Karl from the 1st game:)

That said I like reading the posts of everyone here on Kingsfans.com. Even the posts I do not agree with. A variety of opinions is what makes it such a great place:D
 
Is your argument that Karl didnt have any negative affect on the Kings?
No, see post above yours. I'm not even making an argument any way - I'm questioning the idea that Karl had a huge negative impact on the team resulting in it grossly underachieving.

Fair answer, I watched 82 plus the preseason. I've rarely missed a game for as far back as I can remember. It's a lot of games watching this franchise. When you say that people on here overstate the effect that Karl had on this team, I think many, many here would agree that Karl failed in an epic way. I could go on but it's just beating a dead horse.

Yes, many might agree on it, but I have yet to be told - based on what? Failed yes, as everyone on an underachieving team has in a sense failed, but "in an epic way"? Just because many agree doesn't make it automatically correct, unless there's some underlying thing you can point to.

Here are some objective, factual points: Cousins had a good year. Omri had a great year. Rondo had a great year. Belinelli sucked and we traded him (moving away from objective - but that suggests that it wasn't only a matter of being misused by Karl or that we thought he'd be much better under Joerger). Cousins and Karl clashed. We won highest number of games in years. We had a streak where we matched Malone's glorified streak.

Obviously I've been selective in choosing these points, so feel free to add on to it to support an argument that Karl failed in an epic way. Here are criticisms made of Karl last season: Karl played Seth Curry too little, didn't give WCS enough minutes and freedom to showcase his offensive ability, gave Belinelli too much freedom, had Cousins on the perimeter too much, played Caron too little and chose to go small instead. They are all valid points, but excuse me if I am not convinced that the minutes of two 3rd string (at best) players and a rookie would be the difference between us winning 30 games and making the playoffs. If I were to make an argument that Karl "epicly" failed, it would be less about the Xs and Os and more about him losing the locker room resulting in subpar effort from the players - in which case there would also be a large indictment on said players and the FO for not doing anything about it (or perhaps even aggravating it by firing an assistant coach?).

As some posters more in line with my thinking have already said - there's no way of saying that with a different coach we would have certainly been so much better. This was not a case of Karl taking over a playoff team with promise and then only winning 30 games the next season. It's not like Gentry with the Pelicans or Hoiberg with the Bulls. If that were so you'd have a pretty easy metric to point to to justify Karl "failing in an epic way".
 
I watched every Kings game and cursed Karl from the 1st game:)

That said I like reading the posts of everyone here on Kingsfans.com. Even the posts I do not agree with. A variety of opinions is what makes it such a great place:D

I won't speak on your behalf, but personally I find that it's hard not to curse the coach or a certain player when you're deeply invested in the team. We all want the team to win! I was cursing at Malone for his subs and poor offense just as much as I was cursing at Karl for the bad D and stupid rotations.
 
Based on what, exactly? Based on Cousins' awesome 27/11 that gets quoted here ever so often? Based on Cousins making the all-star game? Based on us matching Malone's little 9-5 span? Based on WCS' awesome offensive performance in SL? Based on our highest win total in years?

What I find time and time again about some posters here is that anything that paints Cousins/Karl in a light that they do not agree with is immediately dismissed without good reason, and more often than not shots are then taken at the poster or the argument, calling them stupid or idiotic and so on. Dude12 is one of said posters in my opinion (since it's okay to talk about Npliam I guess it's okay for me to raise my opinion on dude12). There are those who can hold an argument without resorting to name-calling, who can through the actual quality of what they say bring about the conclusion that "No reasonable person could argue against [their stance]". Name-calling is a lazy practice that adds no value to discussion other than making one feel better about his or herself.

I have yet to be shown irrefutable evidence that Karl's effect on last year's Kings team was huge, and so I cannot agree with you that no reasonable person could make an argument against it. The points I brought up earlier are of course tongue-in-cheek, but I believe that they go far enough to show that the argument isn't as clear cut as some make it out to be. I dare say that no reasonable person would argue that we underperformed based on expectations, but that's different from saying it was (or was not) primarily due to Karl, and the extent of underperformance is also questionable.

For the record, if memory serves me correctly Npliam hardly argued that Favors was better than Cousins, and if he did it was mostly at the start. The argument was always more along the lines that Favors did more for the Jazz than Cousins did to help the Kings win games.
Sweet!! Favors is more valuable for the Jazz because he does less. Great argument bud!!
 
No, see post above yours. I'm not even making an argument any way - I'm questioning the idea that Karl had a huge negative impact on the team resulting in it grossly underachieving.



Yes, many might agree on it, but I have yet to be told - based on what? Failed yes, as everyone on an underachieving team has in a sense failed, but "in an epic way"? Just because many agree doesn't make it automatically correct, unless there's some underlying thing you can point to.

Here are some objective, factual points: Cousins had a good year. Omri had a great year. Rondo had a great year. Belinelli sucked and we traded him (moving away from objective - but that suggests that it wasn't only a matter of being misused by Karl or that we thought he'd be much better under Joerger). Cousins and Karl clashed. We won highest number of games in years. We had a streak where we matched Malone's glorified streak.

Obviously I've been selective in choosing these points, so feel free to add on to it to support an argument that Karl failed in an epic way. Here are criticisms made of Karl last season: Karl played Seth Curry too little, didn't give WCS enough minutes and freedom to showcase his offensive ability, gave Belinelli too much freedom, had Cousins on the perimeter too much, played Caron too little and chose to go small instead. They are all valid points, but excuse me if I am not convinced that the minutes of two 3rd string (at best) players and a rookie would be the difference between us winning 30 games and making the playoffs. If I were to make an argument that Karl "epicly" failed, it would be less about the Xs and Os and more about him losing the locker room resulting in subpar effort from the players - in which case there would also be a large indictment on said players and the FO for not doing anything about it (or perhaps even aggravating it by firing an assistant coach?).

As some posters more in line with my thinking have already said - there's no way of saying that with a different coach we would have certainly been so much better. This was not a case of Karl taking over a playoff team with promise and then only winning 30 games the next season. It's not like Gentry with the Pelicans or Hoiberg with the Bulls. If that were so you'd have a pretty easy metric to point to to justify Karl "failing in an epic way".
Here's one for you, a competent coach wouldn't have continually played Collison, Rondo and Bellinelli together for long stretches with a small forward at PF, especially when that lineup was continually ineffective. What kind of egotistical coach would refuse to make adjustments? Karl. His answer to better defense was to put his worst defensive lineup on the floor. you know this is true. This had already been pointed out over and over. crapty defensive schemes already pointed out. It's not really hard to figure out.
 
Yes, many might agree on it, but I have yet to be told - based on what? Failed yes, as everyone on an underachieving team has in a sense failed, but "in an epic way"? Just because many agree doesn't make it automatically correct, unless there's some underlying thing you can point to.

sure, how about the coaching staff's utter ambivalence to the defensive side of the ball? or the "strategy" to perpetually sag off three-point shooters in a league that is increasingly adept at shooting them across all five positions on the court? or the lip service being paid to defense never being reflected in the results on the court? or the leaks that indicated the coaching staff spent little time on defense during practice?

karl's season-and-a-half failure in sacramento was hardly unique, of course, nor should it have been surprising. it was a marriage doomed to fail, because it represented just another in a long string of franchise failures to give even the slightest consideration to defensive effort and principles. god bless 'em, they tried with mike malone, but then immediately sabotaged the gains the team was making on that side of the ball before they'd managed to stick. now they're giving it another shot with dave joerger. i sure as sh*t hope it works, but it's not easy to come back from a decade-long "ignore button" to defense.
 
sure, how about the coaching staff's utter ambivalence to the defensive side of the ball? or the "strategy" to perpetually sag off three-point shooters in a league that is increasingly adept at shooting them across all five positions on the court? or the lip service being paid to defense never being reflected in the results on the court? or the leaks that indicated the coaching staff spent little time on defense during practice?

karl's season-and-a-half failure in sacramento was hardly unique, of course, nor should it have been surprising. it was a marriage doomed to fail, because it represented just another in a long string of franchise failures to give even the slightest consideration to defensive effort and principles. god bless 'em, they tried with mike malone, but then immediately sabotaged the gains the team was making on that side of the ball before they'd managed to stick. now they're giving it another shot with dave joerger. i sure as sh*t hope it works, but it's not easy to come back from a decade-long "ignore button" to defense.

Yes those are all signs of bad coaching, but the point that I'm arguing is not conclusively proven isn't "Karl did a poor job on the defensive end", but rather "Karl had such a huge cumulative negative impact on the team that we didn't make the playoffs", or something along those lines. For the former in itself does not necessitate a bad season, as Phoenix and Houston have shown. I think Brick's post somewhere above gave some pretty good reasoning in favor of the latter, but wouldn't the very fact that we were somewhat in playoff contention around the AS break suggest that for all the valid points about coaching flaws the team was still doing alright? I simply don't see a fool-proof logical reasoning that makes the jump from the various markers of our season, both as a team and for individual players, to a conclusion that Karl's huge negative impact is not overstated on this board, and that anybody who argues against it either has "no ****ing clue", or that the idea that Karl's impact is not overstated is "a ridiculous statement" that "no reasonable person could argue against". Don't get me wrong, I am not arguing in favor of either stance - I am simply suggesting that there really isn't much reasonable conclusive grounds to dismiss one side altogether as some have done.
 
Yes those are all signs of bad coaching, but the point that I'm arguing is not conclusively proven isn't "Karl did a poor job on the defensive end", but rather "Karl had such a huge cumulative negative impact on the team that we didn't make the playoffs", or something along those lines. For the former in itself does not necessitate a bad season, as Phoenix and Houston have shown. I think Brick's post somewhere above gave some pretty good reasoning in favor of the latter, but wouldn't the very fact that we were somewhat in playoff contention around the AS break suggest that for all the valid points about coaching flaws the team was still doing alright? I simply don't see a fool-proof logical reasoning that makes the jump from the various markers of our season, both as a team and for individual players, to a conclusion that Karl's huge negative impact is not overstated on this board, and that anybody who argues against it either has "no ****ing clue", or that the idea that Karl's impact is not overstated is "a ridiculous statement" that "no reasonable person could argue against". Don't get me wrong, I am not arguing in favor of either stance - I am simply suggesting that there really isn't much reasonable conclusive grounds to dismiss one side altogether as some have done.

the fact that the kings were still in playoff contention around the all-star break despite their numerous f***-ups says a lot more about the state of the western conference last season than it does about the kings. when the entry requirement for the eighth seed was 50 wins, sure, you can forget it. but when it slips to .500, you can sneak in, and had karl and co. paid even half as much attention to the defensive side of the ball as they did to "pushing the pace," then perhaps the kings could have snuck in. i largely hold karl (and vivek) responsible for last season's failure, because putting points on the board simply hasn't been problem enough for this team to justify the utter lack of emphasis on stopping the other team from putting points on the board.

i'll agree with you that there's a considerable amount of hyperbole regarding the extent to which karl's tenure in sacramento was a failure. but that also doesn't make it a wrong position to hold. yes, a player like big cuz put up the most impressive raw numbers of his career under karl, offensively speaking, but karl's use of cousins came at the expense of efficiency and defensive focus. that's not a net positive, in my book, nor is running a 270-pound big man ragged and at risk of injury. i believe that karl's approach on both sides of the ball did actual, tangible damage to the kings' playoff chances, and if that's the case, then his negative impact on the team isn't a terribly huge overstatement.
 
Back
Top