[Grades] Grades v. Blazers 04/15/12

Kings Player of the Game

  • Tyreke Evans

    Votes: 1 3.3%
  • DeMarcus Cousins

    Votes: 11 36.7%
  • Marcus Thornton

    Votes: 10 33.3%
  • Isaiah Thomas

    Votes: 5 16.7%
  • Other

    Votes: 3 10.0%

  • Total voters
    30
  • Poll closed .
#92
Hey, I'm going up there tomorrow morning for four days. I'm looking forward to it even though there is no TV and not much interest in the radio. Supposed to be great weather. I do hope the roof hasn't fallen in. You guys watch out for the Kings while I'm gone.
 
#93
I don't see how IT has been elevated to a point detrimental to the team. He's doing his role and doing it fine. He's no more in the way of others than TWill is right now. The only player on a higher scale is Cousins, who gets away with not running the floor more than others.

Seriously, how does IT get in the way of Cousins? He's helped Cousins more than any other player. IT is the first PG on the team to feed his big man the ball. The two man game of IT & Cuz on the pick n roll is one of the best plays this team has. How has IT gotten in the way of Reke? By taking over PG duty? That was never Reke's future to begin with. Tyreke needs to learn to play off the ball. The only player in Evans way is Evans right now. Tyreke has major issues in his game that he needs to resolve. Letting him dribble-death the ball has only let him off the hook.

And why would you expect .400 ball from a roster so misaligned and imbalanced? 1 undersized PG, way too many SGs, no decent, reliable NBA sized SF and not one shotblocking big man. No veterans on the team to get people together. Very few consistent players. Very little leadership. There's a lot of young talent but very little of it fits together.
again, i think you're conflating a couple of competing ideas. thomas is, indeed, "doing his role and doing it fine." he's not explicitly "in the way" of other players. but the kings' gameplan has changed to put the ball in his hands and take it out of the hands of cousins and evans. i think this is a mistake. and there has simply not been a consistent pick and roll game with cousins at all. they show flashes of what a cousins-centric pick and roll offense might look like (and it does look brilliant), but its not the first option, and it should be. instead, keith smart does very little to make his life easier. and i cannot for the life of me believe that people are still arguing that tyreke will only dribble the clock out. you all realize that this is a flaw in offensive schema, rather than a flaw in a singular player, correct? evans may not have won over the lot of you, but you certainly cannot deny his versatility. scoring, passing, rebounding, on-ball, off-ball, whatever. he's proved he can do many things on the court. putting the ball in his hands doesn't mean he has to be playing point guard, if you're so caught up in such distinctions...

if paul westphal or keith smart were capable of drawing up anything more sophisticated than a clear-out iso play for tyreke evans, we would not have seen so much of the "dribble-death" kind of basketball we've seen the last couple of seasons. iso play can be really effective, but it should be one weapon in a larger arsenal. one only need look at a rick adelman offense to understand how to effectively approach the half court set. you mix it up. iso play for evans to draw defenders towards the basket. then a pick and pop with cousins to pull the defenders back. cousins with the ball in the high post, cutters toward the basket to create passing lanes. drive and kicks to thornton. cousins on the low block. ****, play evans at SG and post him up on smaller guards, similar to how adelman would occasionally use bonzi wells. see what evans can come up with. neither westphal nor smart has attempted to exercise this kind of creative, thoughtful coaching. they experiment in all of the wrong ways. and make no mistake, it absolutely is a head coach's job to coach his team into a position to succeed. yes, the occasional fast break is useful, as well. yes, there is a time to run and gun. but you cannot concentrate all your team's effort on one side of the ball, and in a one-dimensional way. its about dynamism. adelman's offenses have it. phil jackson's offenses have it. gregg popovich's offenses have it. did anybody watch the spurs/lakers game last night? holy ****. the spurs are playing some incredible offensive basketball right now. watching so many kings games, i had forgotten what a truly creative coach can do to enhance a team's plan of attack...

sure, its nice to score a lotta points. it looks pretty, and it gives fans a false sense of team progress. keith smart's offensive attitude focuses all of his team's mental and physical energy on one side of the court. but when was the last time the kings held an opponent under 100 points? in april, the kings have given up 108, 109, 93, 109, 104, 110, 105, 115, and 103, and they're not scoring nearly enough to keep up with this atrocious defensive pace. of those nine games, the kings scored less than 100 in five of them. once you figure out how to stop a team that tries to score quickly and on the break, you've taken away their entire game plan, especially if the refs are feeling trigger-happy on your reach-in tactics. but either way, you're really telling me that the kings can't play at the level of minnesota, a similarly guard-heavy team without a consistent contributing SF and very little defensive help down low? adelman has done wonders with that team, with rubio and without. detroit may be in the eastern conference, but they're still playing .377 ball right now as a team with very little impact talent. do you think the kings can't manage that? i don't care how mismatched this roster is, there is enough talent here to see much more improvement than we've seen. a better coach would squeeze so much more out of these players. however, right now, the kings are playing like the wizards, and i scoff at anybody who thinks this is acceptable. cousins/evans/thornton alone is enough talent to get any team to .375, at the very least, provided a coach knows how to use them correctly...
 
#94
He would consistently need the ball in his hands in order to do that, no?
No he doesn't. He can get the ball on the wing drive and pull up. He's taking 14.5 shots a game this year at .472 shooting on 2 pts shots. He's still getting his shots, he just not running the offense. Deng is getting 14 shots a game does he need the ball more in his hands to get more shots? DeRozen is at 14.5, Pierce 14.9, Amare 14.1, P. Gasol 14.1, Batum 10.9, Now a surprising one Stuckey 11.3
 

Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
#95
No he doesn't. He can get the ball on the wing drive and pull up. He's taking 14.5 shots a game this year at .472 shooting on 2 pts shots. He's still getting his shots, he just not running the offense. Deng is getting 14 shots a game does he need the ball more in his hands to get more shots? DeRozen is at 14.5, Pierce 14.9, Amare 14.1, P. Gasol 14.1, Batum 10.9, Now a surprising one Stuckey 11.3
Scoring on fastbreak runouts is not getting his shots. Scoring on off the ball movment is somehting 100 guys in the league can do better than him. Its wasting the entire brilliance of his game.

There might be FIVE guys in the entire league, MAYBE, who are as good as he is going to the rack, with the ball. Ther might be 5 guys in the entire league capable of putting up 20-5-5 type seasons with the ball in their hands. And we have him running out as fastbreak SF and playing off the ball. There is a reaoisn that Smart's winning percentage fits in nicely with Westphal and every other coach we have had other than Adelman.
 
#96
Scoring on fastbreak runouts is not getting his shots. Scoring on off the ball movment is somehting 100 guys in the league can do better than him. Its wasting the entire brilliance of his game.

There might be FIVE guys in the entire league, MAYBE, who are as good as he is going to the rack, with the ball. Ther might be 5 guys in the entire league capable of putting up 20-5-5 type seasons with the ball in their hands. And we have him running out as fastbreak SF and playing off the ball. There is a reaoisn that Smart's winning percentage fits in nicely with Westphal and every other coach we have had other than Adelman.
Have done it and still can
LBJ
Kobe
Wade
Pierce

Should do it in the future
Durant
Westbrook (.4 ast away last year)
D. Will
Griffin
Rose
Irving

Has a shot
Love
Melo
Ellis
CP3
Jennings
J. Johnson
Wall
Harden
Curry

The reason most don't do it is lack of rebounds. Most are a rebound away, but they have a dominant rebounder on their team. What's surprising is Kobe did it with Gasol and Bynum eating up rebounds too.

The main reason Evans was able to get his was a lack of rebounding big men. JT lead the team at 8.7, Hawes at 6.1 and Landry part season at 5.9. If you put a dominant rebounder like Cuz on that team then Evans would have come up short.
 
#97
...
The main reason Evans was able to get his was a lack of rebounding big men. JT lead the team at 8.7, Hawes at 6.1 and Landry part season at 5.9. If you put a dominant rebounder like Cuz on that team then Evans would have come up short.
You're point is somewhat valid, though give Evans another minute and a half of playing time this year and he'll be averaging 5 rebounds a game. The 20-5-5 thing has always been a somewhat stupid measuring stick. 20-5-5 shooting >48% is worlds different than 20-5-5 shooting <45%.
 
#98
Tyreke does pretty well in the 20/5/5 venue without the ball and very well for a guy who hasn't an outside shot. We need to find a home position for him. He has been slow/inconsistent at picking up the SF position and he certainly was slow/inconsistent about picking up the PG position. He hasn't been tried at the SG spot yet at least on a regular basis. We could try him at PG again but what hint have we had that he would do it better this time? None that I know of. It might be worth another try but I cringe at the thought of it. I would guess that many on here would welcome another try at it.
 
#99
Tyreke does pretty well in the 20/5/5 venue without the ball and very well for a guy who hasn't an outside shot. We need to find a home position for him. He has been slow/inconsistent at picking up the SF position and he certainly was slow/inconsistent about picking up the PG position. He hasn't been tried at the SG spot yet at least on a regular basis. We could try him at PG again but what hint have we had that he would do it better this time? None that I know of. It might be worth another try but I cringe at the thought of it. I would guess that many on here would welcome another try at it.
He was getting better at it, finding open guys etc around that period when Keith Smart said he was working with Evans to map the floor etc. Then we moved him to SF. Game over.
 
He was getting better at it, finding open guys etc around that period when Keith Smart said he was working with Evans to map the floor etc. Then we moved him to SF. Game over.
This is probably what irks me the most. People call it a "failed experiment", yet the growth was there and the wins were slowly working its way into regularity. There must be something else about Evans they don't like...
 
This is probably what irks me the most. People call it a "failed experiment", yet the growth was there and the wins were slowly working its way into regularity. There must be something else about Evans they don't like...
I saw that progress too. And Reke was averaging at least 8 dimes a night on that run. Smart even touted that the team have one of the best sprinters in the league. Then probably due to consistent futility of the SF spot being burned every night, Reke was moved to SF. And BAM! Game over.

Or maybe the Magoofs realized that Reke could cost them millions at the rate he is dominating at PG. So they called up Smart to dope Reke and play him at SF so they could low-ball him on his next pay raise.

Whichever is true, I really hope to see Reke back at the guard spot and paired up with T-Will next season. We can run 2 sets and score 50 at least points on any game. Set 1: run and gun. Set 2: Set-up DMC down low.
 
Would the Tyreke fans please get off of IT's nuts
wait 3 years when IT is up for extension and he'll have to move aside for the new rookie hype so we can keep the minimal payroll whille continuing to feed the fans false hope so they keep paying good money for a bad product.
 
wait 3 years when IT is up for extension and he'll have to move aside for the new rookie hype so we can keep the minimal payroll whille continuing to feed the fans false hope so they keep paying good money for a bad product.
So write a letter too the Magoofs. Get off IT's case. It's not his fault he plays for a **** team that has little else to root for but a 60th pick doing well.
 
Pretty funny how the posters who drop in and say stop saying IT sucks, or stop bashing him, have yet to respond to the few stat based threads showing just how poor we are with IT at point and the 3 guard lineup, nor do they ever attempt to respond intelligently to the longer, well thought out posts such as the ones by Padrino yesterday, and others before.

It's like the entire situation goes right over your heads. Ignore stats, don't even attempt to state your case against them in those threads, and ignore all the well thought out posts detailing exactly what the problem is. SMH
 
Pretty funny how the posters who drop in and say stop saying IT sucks, or stop bashing him, have yet to respond to the few stat based threads showing just how poor we are with IT at point and the 3 guard lineup, nor do they ever attempt to respond intelligently to the longer, well thought out posts such as the ones by Padrino yesterday, and others before.

It's like the entire situation goes right over your heads. Ignore stats, don't even attempt to state your case against them in those threads, and ignore all the well thought out posts detailing exactly what the problem is. SMH
I may not be as prolific a poster as you, but I still don't mind "dropping in" to let you know your comments about a hard working player on my team, are getting tiresome.
 
Pretty funny how the posters who drop in and say stop saying IT sucks, or stop bashing him, have yet to respond to the few stat based threads showing just how poor we are with IT at point and the 3 guard lineup, nor do they ever attempt to respond intelligently to the longer, well thought out posts such as the ones by Padrino yesterday, and others before.

It's like the entire situation goes right over your heads. Ignore stats, don't even attempt to state your case against them in those threads, and ignore all the well thought out posts detailing exactly what the problem is. SMH
I responded to Padrino. He really has no case. He makes assumptions and asserts them as truths. Like saying IT is too ball dominant for the good of others. That doesn't hold up when actually looking at the team play. There's ball dominant in a bad way and ball dominant in a running the team way. If you can't tell the difference then don't comment on it. A lot of people don't understand the PG position. It's nothing to be ashamed of. Just don't join a conversation you don't belong in. It's annoying. Just like this blame everything on IT horse****.

Complain about the Maloofs. Complain that Petrie can't assemble a sensible roster. Complain about cheaping out on coach hires. But non-stop bitching about IT? Please.
 
I responded to Padrino. He really has no case. He makes assumptions and asserts them as truths. Like saying IT is too ball dominant for the good of others. That doesn't hold up when actually looking at the team play. There's ball dominant in a bad way and ball dominant in a running the team way. If you can't tell the difference then don't comment on it. A lot of people don't understand the PG position. It's nothing to be ashamed of. Just don't join a conversation you don't belong in. It's annoying. Just like this blame everything on IT horse****.

Complain about the Maloofs. Complain that Petrie can't assemble a sensible roster. Complain about cheaping out on coach hires. But non-stop bitching about IT? Please.
For someone whose spent 2+ years complaining on this board about a singular player I find these comments about other's being frustrated by how someone is playing...ironic. I also love the statement from one of the Reke haters that its ok to be ball dominant now as long as you aren't Reke. Ultimately this sums it all up. You say he makes assumptions and asserts them as truths, then you mae a broad general statement about him just not understanding the non quantifiable difference between good and bad ball dominant. Then you coclude that because he doesnt agree with your "assumptions" (your term not mine) he really has no business having an opinion because he just doesn't get it (or just doesn't agree with you)
 
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I may not be as prolific a poster as you, but I still don't mind "dropping in" to let you know your comments about a hard working player on my team, are getting tiresome.
Has nothing to do with being a "prolific" poster, or anything of the such. A number of us, and Padrino was a great example yesterday, have taken the time to explicitly state exactly how we feel, why, what we see as the larger problem, and backed it up with stats(when applicable). We do that so others who label us "haters" know exactly where we stand. Yet those posts/threads are ignored, everything we've stated is ignored, and some just pop in and act like we hate IT.

I think if you're(not you inparticular) are going to go around labeling people IT "haters", at least take the time to know where we stand. We took the time to explain it thoroughly, and when we do, or as last night when Padrino did, rarely does anyone disagree.

BTW, in no way do I think any less of you or anyone else based on number of posts. Some with thousands I regularly disagree with, and some with a couple hundred I find myself agreeing with more.
 
I responded to Padrino. He really has no case. He makes assumptions and asserts them as truths. Like saying IT is too ball dominant for the good of others. That doesn't hold up when actually looking at the team play. There's ball dominant in a bad way and ball dominant in a running the team way. If you can't tell the difference then don't comment on it. A lot of people don't understand the PG position. It's nothing to be ashamed of. Just don't join a conversation you don't belong in. It's annoying. Just like this blame everything on IT horse****.

Complain about the Maloofs. Complain that Petrie can't assemble a sensible roster. Complain about cheaping out on coach hires. But non-stop bitching about IT? Please.
"Blame everything on IT" crowd is a fabrication on your part.
 
For someone whose spent 2+ years complaining on this board about a singular player I find these comments about other's being frustrated by how someone is playing...ironic. I also love the statement from one of the Reke haters that its ok to be ball dominant now as long as you aren't Reke. Ultimately this sums it all up. You say he makes assumptions and asserts them as truths, then you mae a broad general statement about him just not understanding the non quantifiable difference between good and bad ball dominant. Then you make the amazing assertion that because he doesnt agree with your "assumptions" (your term not mine) you conclude that he really has no business having an opinion because he just doesn't get it (or just doesn't agree with you)
Its fine to criticize... but a good portion of us don't agree with alot of the criticisms being tossed around, for instance he's too ball dominant, or he's shooting too much, blah blah blah. What i see is a point guard who is playing like a point guard should. So if your going to throw these things out there we have every right to refute them.
 
I'm seeing it and others are seeing it. It's a theme that invades multiple threads. The ratio of how much its talked about to how big a deal it is is rather out of whack.
We're a worse team with IT at the point, surrounded by more talent, then with Reke at point surrounded with less talent, under Westy. Doing something repeatedly which makes us worse, is not a big deal? Maybe to you.

I'd love for someone to start a well thought out thread and enlighten all of us as to how we're better with IT at point.
 
For someone whose spent 2+ years complaining on this board about a singular player I find these comments about other's being frustrated by how someone is playing...ironic. I also love the statement from one of the Reke haters that its ok to be ball dominant now as long as you aren't Reke. Ultimately this sums it all up. You say he makes assumptions and asserts them as truths, then you mae a broad general statement about him just not understanding the non quantifiable difference between good and bad ball dominant. Then you make the amazing assertion that because he doesnt agree with your "assumptions" (your term not mine) you conclude that he really has no business having an opinion because he just doesn't get it (or just doesn't agree with you)
I'm critical of all the players. People just get hung up on the Reke criticisms.
 
Its fine to criticize... but a good portion of us don't agree with alot of the criticisms being tossed around, for instance he's too ball dominant, or he's shooting too much, blah blah blah. What i see is a point guard who is playing like a point guard should. So if your going to throw these things out there we have every right to refute them.
My point was if you're going to try to refute something don't talk out both sides of your mouth, and don't tell people they only make assertions and then provide no statistical reasons for your argument other than "you just dont get the difference between good and bad ball dominant so you shouldn't have a stake in this debate"

But to the point, am I understanding that in your mind the Kings are better suited with IT being ball dominant on this team and taking lots of shots with Evans as a role player than they are with Evans being ball dominant and taking lot's of shots with IT as a role player?
 
This is not the Blazers game thread. Keep that discussion where you found it, and don't transpose it where it is not occurring.
I brought up Padrino's posts from yesterday as an example of those who have taken time to explicitly explain the situation as a whole, and why we're frustrated with the IT situation as a whole, is largely ignored, and then some would rather label any criticism as "IT hate", when the stance has been thoroughly explained elsewhere, but ignored.
 

Mr. S£im Citrus

Doryphore of KingsFans.com
Staff member
I brought up Padrino's posts from yesterday as an example of those who have taken time to explicitly explain the situation as a whole, and why we're frustrated with the IT situation as a whole, is largely ignored, and then some would rather label any criticism as "IT hate", when the stance has been thoroughly explained elsewhere, but ignored.
Don't take this the wrong way, rainmaker, but I don't care. The discussion was off-topic where it was being conducted. Now, it's not.

Everyone feel free to return to your previous contentious discussion. Just not in the Spurs Game Thread.
 
Don't take this the wrong way, rainmaker, but I don't care. The discussion was off-topic where it was being conducted. Now, it's not.

Everyone feel free to return to your previous contentious discussion. Just not in the Spurs Game Thread.
That's fair. If it was against the rules that's why I was stating I was the one to bring it up so others don't get blamed.