[Grades] Grades v. Cavs 2/11/2014

[enigma99a]

Do you think it would be possible to trade Demarcus Cousins for Anthony Davis?

I didn't suggest that DMC is the problem. But if he is, my point is that even with a MVP, you can't win if you don't have a team. But, I would accept the trade

 

[HereWeBoogie]

So Cousins has 3 bad games where he looks lazy (averaging 22ppg 12.6rpg in those 3 games) and now we are looking at trade options for him? ok

 

[KingMilz]

The whole "average" (not big) 3 need to find a balance, less stupid shots by Thomas and Cousins and Rudy has to do back to posting/1-2 dribble attacks at the rim rather than doing back to taking long contested 2's.

The team even though we can score literally there's never a easy basket for us and we have to work hard to score since we have zero ball movement with the "average 3"being massive ball stoppers. All three as of late have been AWFUL passing out of a double team. Other than JT/Acy/Gray I can't think of another player who actually plays defence on a regular basis what I'm seeing out there is a disgrace. Honestly some of the players don't even pretend to try you can literally see they don't give a crap about winning.

Our talented players are overly soft and prone to quitting while our untalented players try hard but have to many limitations.

 

[KingMilz]

So Cousins has 3 bad games where he looks lazy (averaging 22ppg 12.6rpg in those 3 games) and now we are looking at trade options for him? ok

While I'm not saying trade him, this is why to me numbers are and will always be useless, ok so he's averaging 22/12 (probably shooting well below 50%) in those three games.

For the last three games:
Has he made any of his teammates better? No
Has his defence even been average? No
Was his effort both ways good? No
Did he help keep us/win us games? No

That 22 and 12 means zero without those four questions all being a yes. Who cares if your putting up numbers if the team is losing cause of you and everyone else. You can also apply those to Thomas and Gay.

 

[SacKings2002NBAChampions]

Too bad there's age regulations in the NBA.
We could have drafted this guy (

) who is already more NBA ready than Ben Mac

 

[enigma99a]

So Cousins has 3 bad games where he looks lazy (averaging 22ppg 12.6rpg in those 3 games) and now we are looking at trade options for him? ok

I think it is a little premature to talk about trading. But I was saying in a hypothetical situation if DMC was affecting team morale, then I think a trade would be in the teams best interest. This has nothing to do with his numbers because we all know he's the most dominant Center in the league

 

[Bricklayer]

I think it is a little premature to talk about trading. But I was saying in a hypothetical situation if DMC was affecting team morale, then I think a trade would be in the teams best interest. This has nothing to do with his numbers because he's the most dominant Center in the league

Ok, everybody please stop with this nonsense.

 

[swisshh]

I only saw most of the first half, but I felt Demarcus was more lively than he has been the previous two games. I am not sure what is going on, but the team got out of a funk with his return and then got right back into when it went on the road.

 

[ParniValjak]

Ok, everybody please stop with this nonsense.

Its amazing just how fickle "fans" are!

The dude is a franchise level player at the position that is hardest to fill. You just don't trade that. He looks flat and distracted in his last 3 games but he is still putting up 22/11. Wait until he engages again!

 

[Bricklayer]

JT, Cuz, Thornton, IT grades up

 

[Bricklayer]

Acy, McLemore up

 

[Bricklayer]

Landry, McCallum, Gray & Fredette are up

 

[KingMilz]

So wait some of you are saying Cousins is not playing well cause his minds not there cause of the All-Star snub? Yet at the start of the season he said he wanted to be here and take the TEAM to the playoffs. Why does it bother him than when his team's struggling about getting some token INDIVDUAL award? If it's about the team first wouldn't he just not worry and try help the team win by playing hard at both ends on a regular basis rather than spurts?

 

[Chubbs]

A professional team this is not. If starts with Cuz and trickles down. Things are falling apart quickly. When he goes into pout mode, the team follows. I thought he'd grown up but he's reacting to the the all star snub in the worst way possible. Disinterest. He just doesn't care right now. Take a dominant engaged cousins out of the mix, and, well, you get a very bad team. They measure engagement levels in the corporate world. Basically, do you care about your job? Do you do the right things cause it's the right thing to do or are you going though the motions? Right now, he's going through the motions.

So is most of the team.

That said, hardly the first nba team to take off the week before the all star break. Teams playing for nothing tend to show their true colors while they're busy planning their 3 day vacations.

The pro we brought in to regulate the locker room (Landry) doesn't even play enough minutes to get a grade. Someone help me out there. We are paying him a lot to be a non factor. If Acy is actually better, then we made a gargantuan mistake. Acy is not very good, an undersized, under skilled effort guy. Landry is also those things but supposedly a scorer. When will that be happening? Team is too deep to find him minutes? Really? Gray and Acy are nba filler, just taking roster spots. Williams is really not very good either and is wildly inconsistent and somehow gave up career highs to Bennet. Landry can't get minutes with those 3 on the team?

 

[Tetsujin]

I can only say that when you hit rock bottom, there's a certain comfort in knowing that the only way to go is up. I suspect we'll stay down here for awhile, while all the things we do/don't know about play out, but we can't get much worse so there's value in that.

This isn't rock bottom.

Rock bottom is being coached by Kenny Natt with Kevin Martin as your best player.

 

[Entity]

We think something BIG is going on and some have rumors or leaked info putting them into a funk. Trade deadline is 8 days away now. If something BIG is in the works, hard to imagine how they would react. Maybe this is how.

I agree with this

 

[Spike]

We think something BIG is going on and some have rumors or leaked info putting them into a funk. Trade deadline is 8 days away now. If something BIG is in the works, hard to imagine how they would react. Maybe this is how.

Or maybe nothing big is happening, and this is how they react...

 

[Spike]

I think it is a little premature to talk about trading. But I was saying in a hypothetical situation if DMC was affecting team morale, then I think a trade would be in the teams best interest. This has nothing to do with his numbers because we all know he's the most dominant Center in the league

Looking up and down this roster, I would still move everyone else before Cousins. We all knew this was a roster in flux, with very few players currently on likely to be here next year. Why the hell would we want to appease them over our irreplaceable franchise center?

 

[Toasty]

I would trade DMC bet it wouldn't be as easy as you think.

 

[Hadlowe]

I don't see why not. If anything it kinda shows you that Cousins is respected as a big man. It's not uncommon to ask players around the league what they think of young players, and more often than not those veterans being asked find something encouraging and positive to say. Not a very classy response from Cousins IMO. And that's one of the biggest "issues" with Cousins - he just doesn't do himself any favors in playing the politics game. If he ever wants to represent the USA on an international level these are the sort of things he needs to improve on. Athletes are as much PR figures as they are simply athletes.

If they asked DWade or Lebron about McLemore do you think they'd say Ben who? They'd give some answer like "He's a great athlete and is going to be a star in this league, he just has to keep working hard" or something to that effect. Even though everything about McLemore's play thus far really hasn't been impressive at all.

Yeah, because every NBA player must be an upstanding citizen/big brother to the entire world.

 

[Tetsujin]

I would trade DMC bet it wouldn't be as easy as you think.

I would trade Demarcus...



for Kevin Durant.

 

[Hadlowe]

I would trade Demarcus...



for Kevin Durant.

I would even throw in Quincy Acy's beard in that trade.

 

[KingMilz]

I would even throw in Quincy Acy's beard in that trade.

I would not it's currently the only thing worth looking at on this team

 

[whozit]

Amen.

Unfortunately, this will never happen.

A. Davis is also the only player that I would ever trade Cousins for besides Lebron, Durant, and such quality players in the near future.
Davis would be so nice to have. Automatic in rebounding, scoring, and all around defense. His passing sucks but if you bring a pass first point guard who controls the floor.... If we draft a Wiggins or Parker then we'd be a serious contender. Now, we're just a joke. You can't have a real team when your star player is a baby and everybody is afraid of him including his own teammates. If they aren't afraid, then they just don't like him. I have no doubt that IT and many others besides Gay dislike Cousins.

'Besides Gay' makes it sound like you know something for fact that Gay dislikes Cousins. If so, what are you basing it on. Everybody is afraid of him? Again, that is stated as fact. What facts? Yes, you slightly retracted the afraid part and then inserted they must not like him. Nice conclusion.

Cousins seems to be in a funk along with the rest of his teammates. I could guess a whole lot of reasons but since they aren't saying, I can only guess. I hope the roster is shook up shortly and one guess is the team assumes this too and that could be a contributing factor.

 

[Kingster]

What if DMC is the reason the team is unhappy?

The thought had crossed my mind, especially after recalling the incident with Thornton.

 

[theclash4u5]

Meanwhile.....can't wait for the draft

I'm tired of the draft. I'm tired of looking forward to it every year and ending up picking a dud. I'm tired of the All-Star break not even being here yet and everyone hoping to skip the rest of the season to get to the offseason already. I'm not asking for wins, I just want to see improvement. Effort. Anything. Something we haven't seen alot of recently. Right now I honestly hope Rudy opts out, we trade B-Mac to rid one of MT23/Landry/JT and just start over from the start. Give this ownership group a clean slate and see what they can do. So far in the draft, they are 0-1-1. They got a great deal for a good player in Gay, but we need more to get this team on the right track.

 

[mac]

Yeah, because every NBA player must be an upstanding citizen/big brother to the entire world.

Mm no, that's kinda extending what I was saying. You don't have to be an upstanding citizen to be supportive of fellow players and encouraging to young players, the same way other veterans were to you. And again, I'm applying it exclusively to wanting to be a popular All-Star or representative on an international level. Bennett didn't trash talk Cousins or say he's better than him or anything like that. If that were the case then I think Cousins' response would be perfectly normal. Anthony who? Basically I'm saying you don't make friends that way, and if Cousins is really so concerned about All Star selections and things like that the reality is that he needs to a have a more likable reputation, especially because the Sacramento Kings are such a bad team right now.

 

[mac]

'Besides Gay' makes it sound like you know something for fact that Gay dislikes Cousins. If so, what are you basing it on. Everybody is afraid of him? Again, that is stated as fact. What facts? Yes, you slightly retracted the afraid part and then inserted they must not like him. Nice conclusion.

Cousins seems to be in a funk along with the rest of his teammates. I could guess a whole lot of reasons but since they aren't saying, I can only guess. I hope the roster is shook up shortly and one guess is the team assumes this too and that could be a contributing factor.

I think he meant that Gay was the only who didn't dislike Cousins, not that the rest, in addition to Gay, disliked Cousins. That was my interpretation at least.

 

[Kingster]

Maybe there's a trade in the works and the FO has told certain players they may be on the move? Or that quote could be directed directly at Demarcus. Whatever it is something changed between the home game vs Toronto and the Celtics game. Even in the 7 game losing streak the team played hard. These past few games we have looked like the Kenny Natt/ Keith Smart Kings(granted i didn't even bother watching this one).

An imminent trade might have something to do with it. Or:

1) I've got to hand it to Kayte. After the Cousins All-Star snub she said she would be looking to see how Cousins would react - play that much harder or lick his wounds (my paraphrase). It looks like it's the latter. The past three games are fairly convincing.

2) Kayte also brought up the fact that this is the time of year immature players have more of tendency to think about getting home after the All Star break than playing the game. This could also be a factor.

3) Some have speculated Gays' achilles is still bother him.

4) The incident Cousins had with Thornton, as well as some other reactions to his teamates after the All Star selection, may imply that he's taking out his dissapointment on his teamates, who in turn may not be inspired in playing the game.

Maybe all of the above?

 

[whozit]

I think he meant that Gay was the only who didn't dislike Cousins, not that the rest, in addition to Gay, disliked Cousins. That was my interpretation at least.

You could be right, I interpreted it the other way. The original post was pretty negative in terms of Cousins other than the trade him restrictions that I interpreted it negatively. I hope I'm wrong.