Did the Kings give up too early?

  • Thread starter Thread starter LWP777
  • Start date Start date
L

LWP777

Guest
While watching the NBA Playoffs and seeing so many ex-Kings who are in the spotlight, I couldn't help but wonder what kind of team we would have if we wouldn't have imploded the roster for a rebuild. Consider this possible lineup:

SF: Ron Artest
PF: Brad Miller
C: Spencer Hawes
SG: Kevin Martin
PG: Mike Bibby

Bench: Francisco Garcia
Bench: John Salmons
Bench: Jason Thompson
Bench: Eddie House
Bench: Mikki Moore

Obviously, who knows if JT would have fell to us had we not dumped Bibby to Atlanta for a bag of potato chips but most likely he would have since Petrie drafted him much earlier than he was projected. I know Eddie House has been gone for a while, but I threw him in there for fun.

That is a pretty decent looking team there. No, they probably wouldn't win an NBA championship but I think they could win 45-50 games if everything fell together. They would also be in a position to pick up a quality free agent in 2010 with Kenny and Brad expiring. Also, I hate to say it, but trading Bibby led to a horrible signing of Beno. That never would have happened if we held on to Mike.

I think I'd rather run with that group and try to improve with later 1st round picks, good trades, and maybe a decent FA signing. Instead, I think we are looking at a 3 year rebuilding process at a minimum and that doesn't guarantee that the team will be a contender.
 
LWP777 said:
While watching the NBA Playoffs and seeing so many ex-Kings who are in the spotlight, I couldn't help but wonder what kind of team we would have if we wouldn't have imploded the roster for a rebuild. Consider this possible lineup:

SF: Ron Artest
PF: Brad Miller
C: Spencer Hawes
SG: Kevin Martin
PG: Mike Bibby

Bench: Francisco Garcia
Bench: John Salmons
Bench: Jason Thompson
Bench: Eddie House
Bench: Mikki Moore

Obviously, who knows if JT would have fell to us had we not dumped Bibby to Atlanta for a bag of potato chips but most likely he would have since Petrie drafted him much earlier than he was projected. I know Eddie House has been gone for a while, but I threw him in there for fun.

That is a pretty decent looking team there. No, they probably wouldn't win an NBA championship but I think they could win 45-50 games if everything fell together. They would also be in a position to pick up a quality free agent in 2010 with Kenny and Brad expiring. Also, I hate to say it, but trading Bibby led to a horrible signing of Beno. That never would have happened if we held on to Mike.

I think I'd rather run with that group and try to improve with later 1st round picks, good trades, and maybe a decent FA signing. Instead, I think we are looking at a 3 year rebuilding process at a minimum and that doesn't guarantee that the team will be a contender.
Click to expand...

id want artest on our roster if it wasnt for his nutso behaviour...

a front court of miller and hawes... thats kind of scary how both big men would camp the perimeter and our offensive rebounds and post play suffers..

bibby on the other hand i would love his shooting skills replace benos uhh benoing lol. but he isnt quick enough to guard other guards and he is more of a shoot first guard than a pass first distributing guard.

there are reasons why we let those guys go and im kind of happy we did now we can really rebuild rather than stay in the 8th 7th seed knocked off in how many games get late picks and not get the right talent.

but if you want to talk about giving up on something it has to be rick Adelman not players :)
 
Nice list of players but not such a good team. Mike was expensive and Brad was terrible and expensive (I was sooo ready to have him go). Ron and Kevin did not coexist well no matter what either of them said in the press.

I was a die hard Ron fan all along, but imo he does not get along well when the primary scorer is some other guy at SG. He needs to be a starting SG and get his shots to stay happy and productive. Surrounded by the right guys he is so devastating in that role. But competing with Kevin for main scoring duties - not such a great fit.

I'd rather have the present state than the scenario above.
 
Too expensive and the thing is we wouldn't be championship calibre. We'd probably get to the conference semi's at best and after which brad and mike would be getting a tad old. IMO we started the rebuild at the right time or even a bit late
 
Kenny, Brad, and Mikki would all be expiring come 2010.

Mike and Ron Ron would be expiring this year.

Eddie has a PO this offseason, and could possibly exercise if his brother-in law wasn't on board.

So given the options, would I rather have a team barely miss the playoffs this year and overpaying these veterans while not developing my rookie, just so they could all walk away and push the rebuild back two more years? Hmm... no. Also, Beno was here when Bibby was, so I wouldn't be surprised if he was still on our team. Beno might not have struck out and got that nice contract we so desperately despised, but someone was going to step in to fill in for Bibby after he leaves this year. In other words, we'd have cap space in 2010, but nothing more. We'd still be the same team (assuming we shoot for cap space and don't resign these old guys).
Roster going into the 2010 season (without any FA signings) -
PG - ??? (Beno?)
SG - Martin
SF - Salmons
PF - Thompson
C - Hawes
Bench: Garcia
Bench: 2009 low lottery pick.
Bench: 2010 middle lottery pick

Look familiar? And that's our same lineup one year from now. In the end, I don't mind what Petrie did.
 
I guess I just feel like it's more fun to be a fan even if the team is the 7th or 8th seed. You never know, everything could have come together with that group and they could have contended.

Blowing up the roster and rebuilding is not a guarantee for success. JT and Hawes could very well end up being above average NBA players and not the type of players to make a championship run with. Although it's way too early, Greene is looking like he's a huge project. I would just hate to go through all this pain for the next 3-5 years and still be a mediocre team. I don't think blowing it up is always the best option.

I find it funny that we've been discussing how we really need a PG and SF now. Well, we had a GREAT SF in Artest and we let him go for virtually nothing. Sure, he can be a nut job but his behavior has improved greatly since the brawl days. The guy can dominate both sides of the ball. If he and Kevin couldn't co-exist then mabye Kevin needs to take a hard look at his game. I think Artest is a more valuable player and more of an impact player than Kevin is anyway. Bibby is an adequate NBA point guard. Sure, he has his issues but he's 10x better than Beno. Bibby could have played another 3-4 seasons with us and we could have looked to the PG of the future in the draft. Instead, we are going to try and get a 19 year old PG and who we'll have to wait 3-4 seasons before he's developed.
 
LWP777 said:
Bench: Eddie House
Click to expand...

Eddie House? He hasn't been on the roster since Greg Ostertag was. There are 40 guys we've had playing for us at least as recently that aren't on your list,* so I have to regard it as... I dunno... using some of that 20-20 hindsight?

But anyway, to respond to the original question, no, I think that blowing it up came 2-3 years too late.

---
*Barnes, Booth, Bradley, Brown, Cassell, Christie, Daniels, Diogu, Douby, Evans, Gooden, Greene I, Greene II, Hart, Jackson, Johnson, Jones, Monia, Mobley, McCants, Nocioni, Ostertag, Potapenko, Price, Sampson, Simmons, Skinner, Solomon, Songaila, Stojakovic, Taylor, Thomas, Udrih, Watkins, Webber, Wells, Williams I, Williams II, Williamson and Wright.
 
Last edited:
Vlade4GM said:
No, they gave up too late.
Click to expand...

Bingo.

Basically you're pining for the 2007-2008 Kings+Jason Thompson. Yes, that's a fair collection of players, but the mix was terrible and they were depressing to watch. This year was no fun, but I enjoyed it a lot more than the previous two years where we were the franchise with arguably the worst roster/contract situaion in the league. Not necessarily for wins and losses in that given year, but for the the possible construction of a championship team.
 
LWP777 said:
While watching the NBA Playoffs and seeing so many ex-Kings who are in the spotlight, I couldn't help but wonder what kind of team we would have if we wouldn't have imploded the roster for a rebuild. Consider this possible lineup:

SF: Ron Artest
PF: Brad Miller
C: Spencer Hawes
SG: Kevin Martin
PG: Mike Bibby

Bench: Francisco Garcia
Bench: John Salmons
Bench: Jason Thompson
Bench: Eddie House
Bench: Mikki Moore

Obviously, who knows if JT would have fell to us had we not dumped Bibby to Atlanta for a bag of potato chips but most likely he would have since Petrie drafted him much earlier than he was projected. I know Eddie House has been gone for a while, but I threw him in there for fun.

That is a pretty decent looking team there. No, they probably wouldn't win an NBA championship but I think they could win 45-50 games if everything fell together. They would also be in a position to pick up a quality free agent in 2010 with Kenny and Brad expiring. Also, I hate to say it, but trading Bibby led to a horrible signing of Beno. That never would have happened if we held on to Mike.

I think I'd rather run with that group and try to improve with later 1st round picks, good trades, and maybe a decent FA signing. Instead, I think we are looking at a 3 year rebuilding process at a minimum and that doesn't guarantee that the team will be a contender.
Click to expand...

If your idea of success is winning 45 or so games a year and forever being mired in middle of the pack, you'd pretty much be guaranteed success.

If, however, you actually want to get back to the days - as short as they were - of seeing the Kings as an ELITE team, then the blow up was not only necessary, it was long overdue.

Running with that group wouldn't have gotten us out of the first round of the playoffs IF we had managed to get in.

So, in answer to your question, "Did the Kings give up too early?" I'm going to say, "No! Not only didn't they GIVE UP, they finally did what they needed to do to start us back in the right direction."
 
bajaden said:
Ditto that! And, Confucious say: " He who lives in the past, has no future "
Click to expand...

"He who stand on toilet high on pot."

Sorry - don't mean to derail the thread, but I had to throw that out there....
 
hammystyle said:
Bingo.

Basically you're pining for the 2007-2008 Kings+Jason Thompson. Yes, that's a fair collection of players, but the mix was terrible and they were depressing to watch. This year was no fun, but I enjoyed it a lot more than the previous two years where we were the franchise with arguably the worst roster/contract situaion in the league. Not necessarily for wins and losses in that given year, but for the the possible construction of a championship team.
Click to expand...

Yes, that'd be a great example of the whole not equalling the sum of its parts.
 
The main point of the thread actually is sound. That would be a decent nucleus, and the team would most likely even be able to draw a star and become a contending team. The problem is that all those players were seriously underacheiving on the Kings and are now getting back to their potential on their new team, with their new coach and team mates. Bibby and Miller were spent as Kings and really needed to go. Artest was just keeping them from getting a better draft pick, and had already managed to alienate most of the fans.

For me it is more exciting to see the huge potential in youth and watch a team grow from the start then it was to see overpaid/undermotivated Bibby and Miller disgrace defensive minded BBall on a nightly basis.
 
Kingzrool said:
and the team would most likely even be able to draw a star and become a contending team.
Click to expand...

No it wouldn't -- that roster is pressing $60mil in salary as is, before Ron Ron's necessary extension. There might not even be room for Petrie's annual MLE let alone a star.

And of course all of this is horribly revisinist -- that team sucked. It did not work. It was boring, dysfunctional, defenseless (Bibby, Kevin and Brad together is a freakin' joke) and full of 3rd tier players posing as more. You wouldn't have gotten Jason BTW, and the only reason you would have gotten Spencer was because of just how lousy that crew was. I would take Memphis's current roster over that one. At least they have a future.

Never EVER aim for a #8 seed with anyone over the age of maybe 26 or so.
 
bajaden said:
Ditto that! And, Confucious say: " He who lives in the past, has no future "
Click to expand...

and those who do not remember the past are bound to repeat it :D

you are right and recalling my economics: there is no such thing as free lunch (i dont know how to explain it... its like the for gone alternative)

we could revel in the could have should have and would have.

but bottom line is we would get to this point of the rebuild sooner or later.. and the right time is now. we cant wait for the next lebron, or carmelo then decide to tank that season. if your going down hill ride that momentum then use that momentum to jump back up. in two years time were in better shape than the mavs, the spurs, and the jazz..
 
Ron Artest and Bonzi Wells was an interesting tandem. There might have been something there. Ron and Kevin had potential with the right pieces around them, but it would have taken 2 years at least to clear cap space for acquiring those pieces and considering how volatile the team chemistry was already, they might not have survived waiting that long. I think Ron Artest could have worked for this team under different circumstances. He is a terrific player when he plays within himself. Mike Bibby's time with the Kings was up. His lack of mobility on defense was killing the team year after year. He gets away with it in Atlanta only because he's surrounded by super-athletic wing players. I'm happy for Brad and John and Mike and Ron in the playoffs this year. They've all shown that they have game left. But that doesn't mean I want them back. It was time for everyone to move on and allow this franchise to make a new identity. I am sad that Rick Adelman isn't there to steady the ship anymore, but he's done well in Houston. Nobody can live in the past forever.
 
Francisco d'Anconia said:
I was a die hard Ron fan all along, but imo he does not get along well when the primary scorer is some other guy at SG. He needs to be a starting SG and get his shots to stay happy and productive. Surrounded by the right guys he is so devastating in that role. But competing with Kevin for main scoring duties - not such a great fit.
Click to expand...

Ever heard of a guy named Reggie Miller? They got to the conference finals together (w/ O'Neal) until Mr. Beer Man rained on their parade.
 
rhythmless said:
Ever heard of a guy named Reggie Miller? They got to the conference finals together (w/ O'Neal) until Mr. Beer Man rained on their parade.
Click to expand...

lol you're reminding me of the Barkely commerical about the video game "old school" where you get to play the old school legends, when they're old.

Reggie Miller averaged 10 ppg in '03-04. Ron averaged 18.

Reggie took 594 shots. Ron took 1112.

Reggie was 38 years old. Ron was 24.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

MelTurpin
Huerter likely starting when cleared
2 3 4
Replies
96
Views
15K
MizzouKing
MizzouKing
Spike
What Do The Kings Mean to You?
Replies
9
Views
804
Jdbraver137
J
Caccia
Monk as Starter
2 3 4
Replies
99
Views
7K
ESP47
E
King Baller
This is why we love the Kings
Replies
9
Views
1K
MizzouKing
MizzouKing
Capt. Factorial
  • Poll Poll
Return of the Desert Island Draft?
2 3
Replies
77
Views
1K
Capt. Factorial
Capt. Factorial
Back
Top