Draft position thread
- Thread starter Big Cuz 15
- Start date
theclash4u5
Starter
Unless we win on Wednesday...
theclash4u5
Starter
And the Suns just lost tonight and they're officially out of the playoffs, which means we'll probably win now. Yay?
K
KingMilz
Guest
There goes probably the only above average shot blocker who is a elite athlete
Big Cuz 15
All-Star
we'll be lucky if hes there when we pick
bajaden
Hall of Famer
whozit
Starter
Since you haven't seen him play, how do you get that conclusion? Not that it matters since he has tweeted he is going back to school.
That might be the case, but those types of guys: Larry Sanders, DeAndre Jordan, JaVale McGee etc average around $11 million a year. It'd be nice to have one locked up for around $3 or $4 million per.
Glenn
Hall of Famer
This will probably be an unpopular opinion on a Kings forum but, if there's any justice, Phoenix will get the #1 pick.
whozit
Starter
Why because they screwed up their tank? Talk about incompetence.
Now putting the sarcasm aside, they have themselves sitting pretty. Near miss at the playoffs and a bunch of assets for this summer. And I guess justice in this case is in the eye of the beholder (confirming at least one for the unpopular opinion option).
You're assuming that they tried to tank at all. I would like to see the Suns be rewarded for actually trying to win, all season long; teams that game the system to try and get ping-pong balls don't deserve to win the lottery.
bajaden
Hall of Famer
Sooooo, your saying that the Kings tried to tank? If so, they did a lousy job of it. Considering that when we had the worse record in the NBA we ended up picking 4th, and that we've moved backwards every single year we've been in the lottery, I think if any team deserves to win the lottery, its the Kings. Just my humble opinion......
We deserve to win the lottery in the sense that our FOs have been largely incompetent in putting together a good team, so it would be nice to get a lucky break.
The Suns deserve to win the lottery in the sense that they came into the season widely penciled in as a tanking team, played hard and unfortunately narrowly missed the playoffs, and so deserve to be rewarded for their commendable efforts.
What? I have gone on record in Kings Rap, multiple times this season, as having said that I do not think that the Kings tried to tank. I'm not really sure how you're reading my post in this thread to say anything to the contrary.
See, at least one other person gets it; he didn't actually say as to whether or not he agrees with it, but he gets it...
rainmaker
Hall of Famer
I'd actually like to see a reversal of who gets the most lottery balls and have the most balls go to the best team not in the playoffs, then work back from there with the dead-last place team getting fewer balls than any non-playoff team.
Keeps the focus on winning and moving towards the playoffs. And, I think teams should be rewarded for inching closer to the postseason more than the utter crap we see at the bottom. Right now there's a dead zone, basically between not quite being a playoff team and being completely awful. I want to do away with that. A team moving in the right direction who's focused on winning fully deserves a high pick more than teams which throw crap out there with poor coaches and GM's who haven't a clue how to build a team and that includes us. We don't deserve a high pick. We're only in the conversation for a high pick because last off season was terrible, the Maloofs prior to that were horrendous and both Petrie and PDA have stacked a bunch of ill-fitting talent.
We could have re-signed Reke and still have done the trade for Rudy. If we did that and had a Reke/Rudy/Boogie core and were at 35-40 wins, heading in the right direction, that type of a situation deserves getting a high pick more than our current.
Yes, tanking or sucking works. It's worked time and time again. But that's also teams doing what they must in the system created by the league. Change the system, teams will adapt and we won't see this terrible basketball from numerous teams every March/April.
whozit
Starter
I'm not assuming anything, just wasn't clear. I should've put a smiley after the incompetence comment. They don't need any help with the lottery. Intentional or not (I don't know what their motivations were at the start of the season), the Suns organization have themselves in a good spot.
I don't like the "intentional" tank but some teams simply aren't that good and do need the help. Hopefully the Kings will have a better off-season than last. There can't be any excuses this time 'cause most of the roster is now from their acquisitions and they should now know what they have and what they need.
whozit
Starter
And what about the scenario of the team slipping out of the playoffs? This would give them the advantage of being able to re-tool quicker and put a roadblock on any team that is trying to correct past mistakes. It seems like it would go from one extreme to the other. Need balance somehow.
LPKingsFan
All-Star
I still maintain that the current system isn't that far out of whack, and that if you want to reduce the importance of the draft, you need bigger structural changes to the salary cap and the CBA regarding free agency rather than just changes to the lottery.
theclash4u5
Starter
I don't think we tried to tank at all, but we certainly should have. We had a few games that we could have, and should have easily won, that would have pushed us to a 9 or 10 spot, or even could have lost our pick altogether. Having a top 5 lottery pick could have really changed this team going forward, and now we just have to cross our fingers and hope we stay at #7 (provided we lose against the Suns).
What I do think is that GM's shouldn't be bailed out for their ineptitude. If you suck at your job in other professions you don't get a lucky break to turn things around, which is basically what the lottery is for certain teams that are perennially in the lottery. Teams like the Suns prove that it doesn't have to be that hard to be a fairly competitive team. Heck, even the D-League Lakers proved that. With all their injuries and talk of tanking and whatnot they're still only a few games behind us. While some don't want to judge PDA because of what he was handed, I look at our win total and I say with confidence that the exact same team under the same coach would have been able to match it or at most deviate by a few (insignificant) games. Progress isn't made in a day, but some of it should definitely have been made in a year. I'd rather hold PDA accountable now than keep postponing doing so .. if the team does well next year it'll be every bit as much to his credit as this year was to his discredit.
bajaden
Hall of Famer
I wasn't saying that's what you mean't, I was asking. You'll have to excuse me for responding to a post in this thread. I don't read every post in every thread, and even if I did, I can't remember who said what about what. You implied that the Suns should win the lottery because they weren't trying to tank, along with almost making it to the playoffs. Therefore its not much of a leap to think that the implication is that all the other teams in the lottery don't deserve to win because they were tanking. Which would include the Kings. Therefore the question.
I can't even remember my damm name at times, so for you to expect me to remember what you may have or have not said in another thread is wishful thinking to the extreme. So my next question is, if the Kings aren't tanking, then why would you want the Suns to win the lottery and not the Kings? Especially since the Suns appear, at least at the moment, based on their record, to have a better team. I thought the idea of the lottery was to help teams that are at the bottom of the heap, improve by giving them a shot at some of the top players in the draft.
bajaden
Hall of Famer
I bit harsh don't you think? I mean PDA inherited the team with only a few weeks before the draft. He had no scouting dept and no staff. He had little time to familiarize himself with the players on the roster, and said as much when he stated that a large part of the season was going to be finding out what he had. To think that a team can go in the wrong direction for 6 or 7 years and then turn it around in one year is crazy. This time around he has no excuses. There are a couple of ways you can attack the problem. One is to build for the long term, which takes longer, because your usually building with younger players that in many cases need experience and time. The other way is to go the Dallas route. You clear out the roster and refill it with experienced players, some of which are in the twilight of their careers, but are still good competitive players. You'll win more games with the latter, and maybe make the playoffs, but your run near the top will be short lived. It appears the Kings are taking the long term approach.
My personal opinion is that the Kings would like to have a good competitive team by the time the new arena opens.
whozit
Starter
I agree. If memory serves, the short term approach was what the Kings did the first year in Sacramento and netted the team the honor of being swept in the first round.
Unlike others I personally don't think that our team heading into last offseason was that bad. If the Suns could win 47 games this year after only winning 25 last year (+22), if the Blazers could win 53 games this year after only 33 last year (+20), the good ol Charlotte Bobcats could win 42 after only 21 last year (+21), Raptors (+14) taking on half of our supposed toxic players... Wizards have been below .500 since 2008, this year won 43 games. Meanwhile, we at best can win one more game than we did last season, and this is with the supposed best center in the NBA future HOFer DeMarcus Cousins. The Lakers have literally been a D-league team this year, and still only loss 2 more games than we did.
Of course the easy thing is to just shrug and say "DAMN YOU MALOOFS YOU SCREWED US OVER!". The fact is that we had potential on the team. Sure, Petrie screwed some things up, but let's not act like the GMs of all the other teams I mentioned were perfect either. There is absolutely no excuse for our team to have done as poorly as they did this season. Blame it on the players, on the coach, on the GM, whatever. Just don't tell me that I can't have expected us to win 10 more games than last season when all these other teams are doing so, one of which with 3 of our rotation players from the start of the season. Phoenix also just got a new coach - they seem to have turned things around pretty quick.
As I said before, maybe next season things turn around and whatever moves PDA made this season pay off for us in the long run. Maybe this time next season we're sitting on at least 40 wins. If that's the case, like I said, PDA would deserve credit every bit as much as he deserves discredit right now.
