He's 5'9 and some guys here hate short people, thats what I gather, or they hate that the attention is not on Tyreke like it was his rookie year.
I mean, you'd think when the 60th pick in the draft plays so well and so above any expectation people will try and see the 99% positives of the story - but no, they have to focus on the 1% negative and obsess about the team PR campaign for their rookie (and if you go on and ask people around there will be MAYBE 0.5% who actually think he deserves ROY or will get it(considering all the others such as rubio/Irving are eligable).
Now the talk is our team sucks and if it was a winning team he wouldn't see time on the floor or play this good?
Well news flash - the beloved child of this forum would also not have his name up there with Lebron, Oscar and MJ or have anywhere close to the numbers he had his almighty rookie season on a normal winning team cause no one in his right mind would let the Tyreke-Ball that was going on here 2 years ago happen.
It's like people look for every small thing to obsess and hate on IT, I honestly just don't get it - especially when he's one of our own with such a lovely underdog story behind him being a nice person to top it all off aswell as a good player.
Haters gonna hate though I guess.
your context is incorrect. personally, i am quite fond of the little rocket engine. but in my estimation, thomas' size (not just his height, mind you) is a tremendous problem, defensively. stronger guards can and have run straight through him, and yes, taller guards can and have shot over him. i'd prefer a backcourt combination of evans and williams that can compete defensively on any given night, while running offensive sets through cousins in the high post. or, at the very least, i'd like to see a thomas/evans/williams starting combo that provides enough defense to compensate for weaknesses elsewhere. but continuing to start two defensive sieves in thomas and thornton is simply a no-win situation. i don't like this nonsensical ROY campaign because i find the elevation of thomas has come at the expense of better players, and i want what's best for the team. its not "hating" to point out that at least one of either thomas or thornton should be coming off the bench in a move to improve defensive balance in the starting lineup and offensive balance in the second unit. that's just good sense. i've been saying it all season long: you balance your rotation...
now, its quite fine and dandy to look at the positives, but i'm not terribly interested in ra-ra'ing a single player beyond his potential. its fortunate that thomas seems like a level-headed kid, because otherwise this overblown campaigning might be detrimental to his development. regardless, i'd rather look at the big picture in one of the most disappointing kings' seasons in recent memory. tyreke's rookie year was, for better or worse, an entirely different bag of tricks. he was the front runner for rookie of the year, and, outside of the promising but inconsistent and volatile omri casspi, the success of his unique skill set was the only bright spot of that season. this season was supposed to be much, much different. the fans were not supposed to see all of their ra-ra's locked up in the performance of a single player again. demarcus cousins and tyreke evans were supposed to be developed further, and the team as a whole was supposed to begin taking strides towards legitimacy. isaiah thomas' emergence should have been icing on that cake, rather than the entire three-course meal. significant progress has not occurred, and, payroll issues aside, i lay significant blame at the feet of the kings' head coach, who has, seemingly, exactly zero ideas about how best to utilize his two most talented players. i am not some embittered tyreke fan who can't stand to see the spotlight taken off of him. rather, i am bitter that the kings' most talented players are not being maximized in their usage. its shameful, to be perfectly honest. you do not sabotage the future of your team by consistently taking the ball out of the hands of cousins and evans, especially when you have an ownership group that's doing enough to sabotage the team already...
none of this is isaiah thomas' fault, though. he has performed admirably in the face of rising expectations. but this team will not live or die by his development. again, he's an icing on the cake kind of player. he's a nice underdog story. he's a bobby jackson type of sparkplug that you want on your bench and in your locker room. but i'm sorry, he's not meat and potatoes. news flash: the modern nba is a grown *** man's league. it just is. the nate robinson's of the league can find success, but its usually of a nomadic variety (played for new york, traded to boston, traded to oklahoma city, waived, signed by, guess who? the warriors). thomas has the right kinda me-against-the-trees attitude that will help him survive in the nba, but his success in sacramento is the result of a perfect storm. the kings began the season without a guard who can effectively complement tyreke evans' skillset. jimmer was never gonna fill that role, and has underperformed, either way, which then opened the door for thomas' rise. his head coach is also a former point guard, and runs an uptempo, smallball-oriented offense that depends on speed but forgoes honest defense in favor of reach-in tactics. i have no qualms with thomas' emergence as a rotation player, but it should not come at the expense of demarcus cousins and tyreke evans, who are being featured less and less in the kings' offensive schemes. if the kings were winning, it'd be one thing, but the losing has increased since the all star break, with a home-heavy schedule, and with thomas starting at pg. keith smart is running a gimmick offense that doesn't motivate players to compete on the defensive end. he, or somebody on his staff, needs to exercise some creativity in the half court set, while drawing up some honest defensive schemes. if you wanna perpetually restart your rebuild while you're already in the middle of it, then go ahead and continue the gimmick ball, alienating cousins and evans until they decide to go play for a team that would more consistently value their unique skill sets. the maloofs probably won't [be able to] pony up the cash to re-sign them, anyway...
