[Grades] Grades v. Cavs 2/19/12

[Glenn]

It's got to the point that every time he gets the ball in the post I'm confident he'll score, last season you could always feel a turnover coming.

Now if he could just stop them crazy dribbles from the top of the key. I know he fancies himself a bit of a point guard but come on lol.

Last year I said he needed to keep trying all the outrageous acts he tries to perform until he figures out what he can and cannot do. That mainly had to do with ill conceived passes. This is another area yet sometimes he can do it. He may need to get to know his opponents and know who he can do this against and who he can't. He's a fast learner. I wouldn't tell him not to do these things but would enforce in his mind which guys he can't do that against.

 

[UK_King]

there aren't too many big men who can step outside, handle and shoot like he can.

Imagine if he is able to do it consistently. The upside is scary.

 

[Mass]

I have a question: do we need to add some salary to reach the minimum by the trade deadline, or are we ok with our salary? I think we should be a little under the limit, am I correct?

Sorry if it's a little bit OT, but I didn't know where I could post it.

 

[Capt. Factorial]

I have a question: do we need to add some salary to reach the minimum by the trade deadline, or are we ok with our salary? I think we should be a little under the limit, am I correct?

Sorry if it's a little bit OT, but I didn't know where I could post it.

We are a bit more than $2M over the minimum.

 

[Padrino]

tyreke was the undisputed goat in this one. i was tremendously disappointed in that boneheaded foul on the final play. it was a far cry from this clutch move from his rookie campaign. it smacks of a player not comfortable with the role he had been handed against the cavs...

but i agree with brick, isaiah thomas' incredible performance seemed to come at the expense of the kings' more pronounced talents. now, that's not necessarily a bad thing. sometimes you just gotta ride the hot hand, see where it goes. and it took the kings so much farther than i expected. again, not bad news in the least. but its clear to me that this team is still deep into its discovery phase. i think kings fans would do well to recognize that fact. we saw some of the best that thomas has to offer last night. he's got that jeremy lin-esque, outta-nowhere headline-making potential (if the kings were winning like the knicks, that is)...

but the kings, as a team, still don't know what they have. not even close. we certainly haven't seen the best of jimmer yet. donte greene hasn't given the kings his best yet this season, on either side of the ball. salmons has been an absolute dud, and garcia's not far behind him. and we're nowhere near close to finding out if any of the kings' top talents can mesh together once each individual player teases out his talent. it is, to be perfectly vulgar, a massive cluster****. all of that said, the occasional blowout aside, the kings are in these games. they're competitive down to the wire of a lot of them, and if it weren't for some seriously dumbass mistakes (par for the course for a "youngest team in the nba" label), they'd be a lot closer to sniffing .500. i wish that this was the "breakout season" we all want to see from this team, but the lack of a training camp and a shortage of practice time is really starting to show in their inefficient execution, particularly down the stretch in games...

i see a roster that will only find its identity and consistency through the gentle massage of time, and a few key roster upgrades. demarcus cousins is obviously a keeper. and, kingsfans.com jeering section prejudices aside, i maintain that tyreke is a keeper, as well. thornton and thomas look like big time keepers in stretches, and that's a mighty dangerous three-guard rotation if they all remember to share the ball (its not a tyreke problem, remember. its a team-wide problem. but the kings are showing incredible strides in this aspect of the game). i don't know where that leaves jimmer, but i also think that he's not among the kings greatest concerns right now. i can wait to see how he's gonna pan out. the SF position is clearly an area of exceptional emptiness for the kings right now, and i, like others, would prefer to see greene start, for the potential in his defense, if nothing else...

more to the point, evans, thornton, greene, thompson, and cousins is a starting lineup i approve of. and substitute thomas for thornton if thomas continues to shine. either one off the bench is the kinda sparkplug this team needs. but i DO NOT want to see all three in the starting lineup. they can play together in stretches, but its not ideal, and it leaves the kings' bench wanting even more than it already is. there's little in the way of frontcourt consistency or rebounding on the bench, so the front office needs to work on it. and that goddamned SF problem will need to sort itself out through roster improvements, as well...

more than anything, though, the defensive effort needs to be ramped up big time. their transition d is still atrocious, and they also do not cover the wing effectively at all. they leave far too many shooters wide open, and those shooters KILL their momentum when they're down and coming back, or are ahead and attempting to hold a lead. seeing wide open back-to-back threes drilled so often gets tiresome. their paint defense, however, has shown some improvement. they don't give up that many easy baskets from post players, although they do allow a few too many uncontested layups, and i wanna see them foul the **** outta some of those rim drivers. i wanna see a "no easy buckets" policy instituted. it'd be nice to see the team find the differentiation between a good foul and a bad foul, rather than every foul being such an unfortunate crime...

in my opinion, these are the greatest obstacles in the way of the kings winning, at the moment. but again, they're still competitive in most games. modest improvement in even just a few of these deficient areas will add numbers to the win column. and a team that begins to win finds new ways to win further games...

 

[rainmaker]

tyreke was the undisputed goat in this one. i was tremendously disappointed in that boneheaded foul on the final play. it was a far cry from this clutch move from his rookie campaign. it smacks of a player not comfortable with the role he had been handed against the cavs...

but i agree with brick, isaiah thomas' incredible performance seemed to come at the expense of the kings' more pronounced talents. now, that's not necessarily a bad thing. sometimes you just gotta ride the hot hand, see where it goes. and it took the kings so much farther than i expected. again, not bad news in the least. but its clear to me that this team is still deep into its discovery phase. i think kings fans would do well to recognize that fact. we saw some of the best that thomas has to offer last night. he's got that jeremy lin-esque, outta-nowhere headline-making potential (if the kings were winning like the knicks, that is)...

but the kings, as a team, still don't know what they have. not even close. we certainly haven't seen the best of jimmer yet. donte greene hasn't given the kings his best yet this season, on either side of the ball. salmons has been an absolute dud, and garcia's not far behind him. and we're nowhere near close to finding out if any of the kings' top talents can mesh together once each individual player teases out his talent. it is, to be perfectly vulgar, a massive cluster****. all of that said, the occasional blowout aside, the kings are in these games. they're competitive down to the wire of a lot of them, and if it weren't for some seriously dumbass mistakes (par for the course for a "youngest team in the nba" label), they'd be a lot closer to sniffing .500. i wish that this was the "breakout season" we all want to see from this team, but the lack of a training camp and a shortage of practice time is really starting to show in their inefficient execution, particularly down the stretch in games...

i see a roster that will only find its identity and consistency through the gentle massage of time, and a few key roster upgrades. demarcus cousins is obviously a keeper. and, kingsfans.com jeering section prejudices aside, i maintain that tyreke is a keeper, as well. thornton and thomas look like big time keepers in stretches, and that's a mighty dangerous three-guard rotation if they all remember to share the ball (its not a tyreke problem, remember. its a team-wide problem. but the kings are showing incredible strides in this aspect of the game). i don't know where that leaves jimmer, but i also think that he's not among the kings greatest concerns right now. i can wait to see how he's gonna pan out. the SF position is clearly an area of exceptional emptiness for the kings right now, and i, like others, would prefer to see greene start, for the potential in his defense, if nothing else...

more to the point, evans, thornton, greene, thompson, and cousins is a starting lineup i approve of. and substitute thomas for thornton if thomas continues to shine. either one off the bench is the kinda sparkplug this team needs. but i DO NOT want to see all three in the starting lineup. they can play together in stretches, but its not ideal, and it leaves the kings' bench wanting even more than it already is. there's little in the way of frontcourt consistency or rebounding on the bench, so the front office needs to work on it. and that goddamned SF problem will need to sort itself out through roster improvements, as well...

more than anything, though, the defensive effort needs to be ramped up big time. their transition d is still atrocious, and they also do not cover the wing effectively at all. they leave far too many shooters wide open, and those shooters KILL their momentum when they're down and coming back, or are ahead and attempting to hold a lead. seeing wide open back-to-back threes drilled so often gets tiresome. their paint defense, however, has shown some improvement. they don't give up that many easy baskets from post players, although they do allow a few too many uncontested layups, and i wanna see them foul the **** outta some of those rim drivers. i wanna see a "no easy buckets" policy instituted. it'd be nice to see the team find the differentiation between a good foul and a bad foul, rather than every foul being such an unfortunate crime...

in my opinion, these are the greatest obstacles in the way of the kings winning, at the moment. but again, they're still competitive in most games. modest improvement in even just a few of these deficient areas will add numbers to the win column. and a team that begins to win finds new ways to win further games...

Padrino, you're the best poster who rarely posts. Need you around here more.

I don't agree with everything you posted,but agree with most. The highlighted part is spot on. An IT/Reke/Thornton 3 guard rotation has the potential to be very good. However, the potential is there for it to screw everything up as well if we start all three, kill the bench, negate Reke effectiveness, and have little to no hope on defense.

IT or Thornton has to be the 6th man. Reke is not a sf. Not at all. With the way IT is playing, Thornton has to be the odd man out and moved to the 6th man role, which really could help this team. The SF spot is killing us. Putting Reke there doesn't solve anything, and actually makes our guard rotation worse, as two of our three guards can't get into a rhythm. We need an upgrade obviously, but the clear answer for most is to put Donte at SF.

And this is where I start to question Smart. I think he thinks Donte is a pf. He's ran Salmons, a true sg, at pf recently. If we had AK on this roster, I'm not certain Smart would even play him as a sf. Smart is a great teacher, but there's something about his philosophy I really don't like. He doesn't appear to value size, rebounding or defense. Hell, how often has our starting pf in JT played great, and then been benched the entire 4th in favor of JJ, Outlaw or Salmons at the 4? It's crazy. He all about the offense. But what's weird about that, is by playing the three guard lineup, he's neutralizing two of our guards as there simply aren't enough shots for all three plus Cousins in the same lineup together, as well as negating any consistent firepower coming off our bench. Smart seems to have good ideas, but doesn't execute them properly.

 

[IfAt1st]

If the Kings REMOTELY institute a "no easy buckets policy", DMC and JT will foul out before halftime every game.

The Kings guards give up SO much penetration between gambling on steals and pick-and-rolls and losing their man, the big men have to defend 2 people most plays.

 

[rainmaker]

If the Kings REMOTELY institute a "no easy buckets policy", DMC and JT will foul out before halftime every game.

The Kings guards give up SO much penetration between gambling on steals and pick-and-rolls and losing their man, the big men have to defend 2 people most plays.

Kind of need a backup center on the roster for a no easy bucket philosophy. Also a backup pf who won't dislocate his shoulder trying to enforce that rule.