I think we can safely say that if your looking just at stats, Towns is a star in the league. He certainly fills out the stat sheet. So then I assume that the reason for the critical eye is because his team doesn't win. So with that in mind, would you say that Cousins is a comparable comp when he was here on the Kings? Cuz certainly put up big time numbers, but the Kings didn't win. Was that on Cuz, or on his teammates, or perhaps the coaching staff? Or lastly, the cursed Indian burial grounds?
Just playing a little devils advocate here. Would you reject Towns if he wanted to play in Sacramento? Personally I like Towns. Do I think he has that toughness that Butler brings? No, I don't, but that's a unique trait in a super mulit-talented player, which Towns is, and Butler isn't. Remember where Butler comes from. His father split when he as a baby. His mother kicked him out of the house when he was 13 years old. He's been an underdog his whole life. He was the 30th pick in the draft. So yeah, he's tough! He had to be to survive.
Towns on the other hand had an entirely different life. He had a normal family life. His father was a basketball coach. His development took an entirely different path. Not saying he didn't have to work hard, but he had the facilities in which to do it. One wonders how differently Butler would have turned out if he had a similar career path? Would he still have that same toughness, or is it in his gene pool, and he would still be the same player. I certainly don't know, but I would take either of them on my team.
It's been a couple days so I'm not entirely confident about this, but I think the point I was trying to make is that big numbers have a stronger correlation to making All Star teams and All NBA teams than they do to winning championships. If a big man is putting up let's say 25, 13, and 3 with a block and a steal per game there is a 100% chance he's getting a max contract. Because the NBA has a salary cap, that contract is limiting your ability to add other players to your roster. If you instead sign a veteran who can average 12 and 10 with a block per game but who maybe plays a more active role on defense for a fraction of what this hypothetical star is costing you you're getting let's say 70% of the production for 40% of the cost. That sounds like the better deal to me.
What I'm suggesting is that stardom is more about name recognition than ability to win you games. DeMarcus Cousins was a star on the Kings but they didn't win with him. He went to New Orleans to form the most talented front court in recent NBA history and they didn't win either. Not at a level befitting two max players in the same lineup. I was a huge Cousins fan before he played a game in the NBA but I have to admit, knowing what I do now I'm not sure I would draft him again if given the same opportunity and that's not because of his well chronicled attitude concerns its because his skill set is replaceable at cost. If you wanted a shooter this off-season you had to shell out $50-70 million but if you want a starter level big man you could get one for far less. It just doesn't make sense in that context to build your team around a max money big man.
The reason I brought up Miami is that I think most people would have looked at their roster at the start of this season and said they had one star player. But they didn't just make it to the Finals, they dominated the Eastern Conference in the playoffs. They easily handled superstar Giannis and they did it with guys like Bam Adebayo, Duncan Robinson and Tyler Herro playing large roles. Maybe that's not sustainable and Bam is now a max player too so that clouds the picture somewhat but I look at that team and I see a model for success built around stellar team play on both ends and valuing players that no one else cares about. Call it the Spurs model. If my goal is to win a championship I don't need a Demarcus Cousins or a Karl Towns. I don't need a Blake Griffin. I need somebody who is going to be a star player in all the ways that don't earn you a max contract. Valuing possessions, high efficiency low volume scoring, max effort defensive rotations, etc. If I have 8 players who will give me that you can trot out your All Star lineup and I'll still beat you.
And as Kings fans, we should all have this tattooed into our brains by now. We had Cousins, Gay, and Isaiah Thomas in the same lineup and couldn't
sniff the playoffs. All the while we're arguing if they're really stars what we should have been arguing about is how having three guys who combine to suck 150% of the air out of the room doesn't allow much opportunity for anyone else to be a (pardon the pun)
Tyler Herro on a nightly basis. Well, I guess we did argue about that too but we argue about a lot of things here so it's easy to lose track.
So to answer your question, I would have to say no to Karl Towns if he came to us in free agency and said his life long dream was to play for the Kings unless he's willing to drop his price tag by at least $10 million per year. At the going rate for a Star player, you better be getting either All NBA defense or intangibles up the wazoo to make that level of salary commitment pay off in any tangible way other than jersey sales. I don't want to re-open the whole can of worms related to why big man aren't winning right now or whether you even need a good coach to win with the right players... I just wanted to throw the idea out there that it's quite possible what we lionize as qualities worthy of stardom might have more impact on Sportscenter highlight reels and box score worshiping fantasy hoops than actual on the court success. The NBA knows where it's money is made so they're going to continue promoting the same types of players but if we want to break the cycle of irrelevance we probably should start thinking smarter than that. Maybe Bagley developing into a Star is not the best case scenario for us. Maybe if he's merely a solid player at a more affordable salary who checks his ego at the door and plays to win we can invest those savings into another shooter or playmaker or wing defender and end up with a winning record to show for it.
