[Grades] Grades v. Celtics 12/31/2014

[gunks]

This team will be a laughing stock for as long as Chris Mullin is part of this franchise. He is the cancer eating this franchise from within

Oh yeah! How could I forget Mullin! Send him on the short bus outta town!

 

[Chubbs]

You would give our star an A for pouting his way through a game? Sorry, I was grading the actual on-court performance, not whether or not he might have sabotaged a game to carry out a juvenile act of retribution against a front office you don't like.

I give this a thousand dislikes.

Nah, make it a million.

I'm fine with the grade, but if this turns into a blame Boogie party...

The juvenile act of retribution was a back stabbing FO that took out the only person in the Kings entire organization our mercurial star ever trusted. And didn't bother telling him about it, not even considering the close father/son relationship that had developed that anyone even casually watching this team was well aware of and knew was the glue holding this together. Everyone but the FO.

Boogie is reacting like a kid who has been let down a lot and now doesn't know where to turn. It's heartbreaking. Truly. I'm not enjoying any of this. He's acting out cause he doesn't know who to trust or who to turn to. It's painful to witness his mental destruction at the hands of an extremely incompetent front office. If there wasn't intent, then there was a grievous miscalculation.

I hope and expect he will eventually pull through. But it's a grieving process. Make no mistake about it. And there's going to be a long hangover.

 

[King Baller]

I just read your Sig line Chubbs, which inspired this post

Chubbs Sig line - "We had a Sousa marching band, which was needed when there was chaos. But now we need to shift to a jazz band, where people can be individually showcased and improvised. What we need is a jazz director."-Vivek Ranadive

So without further ado.........A Souza Marching Band:

 

[ParniValjak]

How would firing PDA fix this?

This is a serious question. No matter how much culpability you put in PDA's hands over the Malone firing (and I don't doubt that Vivek was fully on board), firing PDA does not undo it. Malone is gone, and he's not coming back. Firing somebody else doesn't fix that.

While we're at it, let's at least acknowledge Cousins' tweet this morning in response to PDA, calling him a "G" and giving him a big thumbs up for scheduling a radio appearance with Carmichael Dave to address the issues surrounding the team. Does Cousins want PDA fired? I don't know, but it doesn't sound like it. It almost sounds like he likes PDA. Do we really want to fire another guy Cousins likes?

On top of that, PDA has made some pretty good moves during his tenure. Nobody is perfect, and there are contracts like Sessions' and Landry's that are not working out. But this is the GM that traded spare parts for our #2 player in Gay. This is the GM that brought Gay back on a sub-market extension. Ben McLemore? Check. Darren Collison? Check. Omri Casspi? Check. There are other guys who have looked good for stretches. Ray McCallum was a second-rounder and was the apple of everybody's eye until his recent struggles. Nik has some potential. Derrick Williams has certainly shown flashes of ability, both before the Gay acquisition and for much of this month. Everybody seems to love the idea of Eric Moreland. Outside of the Malone firing, there's a lot to like here on the personnel side. And it is rumored that PDA is (or at least prior to removing Corbin's interim title was) in favor of hiring Karl, the one move that could do more than anything else I can imagine to actually fix this mess.

So I ask, do you envision a clear path towards fixing our problems that starts with firing PDA? If you do, what is that path? Or are you calling for his head merely out of vengeance?

IMHO, the absolute root of these problems is that the philosophy that Vivek, Mullin and PDA, who was Mullin's under study with the GSW have is flawed and has never been a successful philosophy at NBA level. This is at the core of the issue. If they do not realise this, then we are going to be in limbo for as long as they are leading this franchise.

Malone had it right. He knew what it takes to win in this league but he got fired for his troubles. Finding a good coach that has a great relationship with your franchise player is REALLY REALLY hard. We as Kings fans should know this better than anyone. We have seen this script so many times before....we know it off by heart by now.

They could hire George Karl and it might work with him and Cousins but there is absolutely no guarantees that he connects with Cousins like Malone did. The saving grace with someone like Karl is that he has a track record of uniting the locker room in Denver that had the likes of Melo, K. Martin, J.R. Smith et al and got them to perform at a high level together. Of course Mullin will let his personal issues with Karl from some 30 years ago impact the decision.

 

[Glenn]

I just read your Sig line Chubbs, which inspired this post

Chubbs Sig line - "We had a Sousa marching band, which was needed when there was chaos. But now we need to shift to a jazz band, where people can be individually showcased and improvised. What we need is a jazz director."-Vivek Ranadive

It's interesting that a band paying tribute to Sousa uses tubas and not sousaphones. I now return you to whatever you were doing.

 

[Krunker]

From http://scores.espn.go.com/nba/recap?gameId=400578767

NO ACTION

Corbin didn't start F Jason Thompson, who didn't play at all, and inserted F Ryan Hollins into the starting lineup because "we needed to change something." Hollins scored four points with three rebounds in just over 11 minutes.

 

[Chubbs]

Here is what I think is a good sign from Boogie. There's still a child inside the man, but there is a man there.

"We have to come together as a team -- myself included," Cousins said. "I'm the leader of this team. I have to get my stuff together. I can't have games like I had tonight. We have to come together and figure this thing out."

 

[KingMilz]

I'm just sick of excuses it's either the refs/front office/coaching it's always someone else other than the players and the fault is 100% on the players.You can control how much effort you give and how badly you want to win and I just have not seen it. Style of play does has nothing to do with it either, playing selfish stupid basketball is not a style of play. Why would guys want to play hard for Rudy and Cuz when they dome nothing on D (hell they don't even cross halfcourt to get back) lately and take stupid shots and no one else is involved?

Out of our starting 5 we have 2 guys who are professionals in Darren Collison and Ben who no matter what give you there all both ends. I honestly feel bad for these two likeable hard-workers who are consistently frozen out and forgotten so we can watch Rudy Wonder.

If guys don't want to play cause of the coaching change that's cool come out and say it instead of calling other people out who are actually competing. If these guys don't want to represent that Kings we can always trade them it's that simple. There is just no excuse for the effort over the last 5-6 games it's pathetic you either want to be here and compete or you don't. I'm sick of the pouting and talking tough than when the game comes those talking tough are the first to **** us over.

Enough of the excuses we need to find guys who will compete and that's been the problem for the last 8 years we got a bunch of weak minded players who fold instantly the first time things don't go there way.

 

[HereWeBoogie]

Watching the Video of Boogie WWE slamming Smart made me realize something. In that video, Boogie is the front office, Smart was the promising season we had. They hulk slammed our dreams

 

[Kingster]

The only thing I enjoyed in the game was Cousins slamming Smart to the floor. I watched it several times, it was so much fun. That was a BS play by Smart. I hope he thinks twice before he does it again.

 

[Kingster]

I don't know about you guys and gals, but I'm getting more angry as each day passes. I might have to stop watching the games for a while before I end up throwing somebody down to the floor!

 

[Capt. Factorial]

IMHO, the absolute root of these problems is that the philosophy that Vivek, Mullin and PDA, who was Mullin's under study with the GSW have is flawed and has never been a successful philosophy at NBA level. This is at the core of the issue.

I remain skeptical that the portrayals here of our front office's philosophy are 100% accurate. But for sake of argument:

Let's assume that Vivek, Mullin, and PDA all want to play schoolyard ball, and that this philosophy will never work. What good is it to fire PDA if the owner and the remainder of the front office still hold onto that philosophy? Vivek will keep trying to implement the philosophy with or without PDA. In that case, firing PDA is (to use a stale metaphor) rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

 

[Chubbs]

I don't know about you guys and gals, but I'm getting more angry as each day passes. I might have to stop watching the games for a while before I end up throwing somebody down to the floor!

Hell has frozen over.

I'm agreeing with Kingster almost all the time now.

 

[Chubbs]

I remain skeptical that the portrayals here of our front office's philosophy are 100% accurate. But for sake of argument:

Let's assume that Vivek, Mullin, and PDA all want to play schoolyard ball, and that this philosophy will never work. What good is it to fire PDA if the owner and the remainder of the front office still hold onto that philosophy? Vivek will keep trying to implement the philosophy with or without PDA. In that case, firing PDA is (to use a stale metaphor) rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

I agree. The problem right now is I just don't see how to fix this. Firing PDA won't accomplish anything. Right now, where's the way out? How does the team come back together and play closer to what their talent level suggests?

I wish I knew.

 

[G_M]

No girls???

The front office infiltration runs deep!

 

[Capt. Factorial]

I'm fine with the grade, but if this turns into a blame Boogie party...

I'm not quite sure what I said that you dislike. You were fine with the grade, which essentially said that Cousins played very poorly, largely out of frustration over various on- and off-court issues, and it said that Cousins has to do a better job of giving us a professional outing every game. Those weren't the exact words, but that's the gist. If you're OK with that, and you don't consider that to be a "blame Boogie party" (I certainly didn't intend it that way, though I hold him responsible for those things that he can control) then I don't see the problem.

The idea I was objecting to in the comment you quoted was the idea that Cousins should be given an A for his performance today. I see no reason why anybody would think that Cousins deserved an A unless they thought that Cousins was taking a mean-spirited jab at the front office with his play today (and, for the record, I don't think he was). But whatever the thinking behind suggesting Cousins getting an A, I'm not grading based on player/front office politics or catering to angry fans. I'm grading based on the game. The game earned Cousins a grade that was clearly not an A. If someone wanted to argue for a D, I'd let it go.

The juvenile act of retribution was a back stabbing FO that took out the only person in the Kings entire organization our mercurial star ever trusted. And didn't bother telling him about it, not even considering the close father/son relationship that had developed that anyone even casually watching this team was well aware of and knew was the glue holding this together. Everyone but the FO.
...
If there wasn't intent, then there was a grievous miscalculation.

It had to be a miscalculation. You don't do that to your star player on purpose unless you actually want to gut the team "Major League" style. But Vivek has committed $200+ million to a downtown arena and locked the team in for a 30-year term. His first major action on players was to sign Cousins to an extension. The idea that he or the rest of the front office is trying to sabotage their own best player makes no sense at all.

 

[FaStRmAn]

 

[Glenn]

I remain skeptical that the portrayals here of our front office's philosophy are 100% accurate. But for sake of argument:

Let's assume that Vivek, Mullin, and PDA all want to play schoolyard ball, and that this philosophy will never work. What good is it to fire PDA if the owner and the remainder of the front office still hold onto that philosophy? Vivek will keep trying to implement the philosophy with or without PDA. In that case, firing PDA is (to use a stale metaphor) rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

I don't think anyone needs to be fired at this time. It may even be that at the time PDA went whining to Vivek that the whole story was not told. In other words, no one asked Malone's side of things. There may have been another solution other than firing. Perhaps if a firing was necessary, the wrong person was fired.

If I was the owner of a team doing remarkably well, I might have given it all a little more thought. Supposedly the decision to fire Malone was made before Cousins got sick. In other words, the decision was made during the time when the team had an outrageously good record. What could PDA have said that convinced Vivek fairly quickly that Malone was some sort of problem? Maybe PDA was the problem. Maybe Mullin was the problem. Maybe Vivek's unusual plans were the problem. Wasn't it worth a few more week's thought?

Now an irrevocable decision has been made by a bunch of rookies.

What was the rush?

 

[The_Jamal]

Here is what I think is a good sign from Boogie. There's still a child inside the man, but there is a man there.

"We have to come together as a team -- myself included," Cousins said. "I'm the leader of this team. I have to get my stuff together. I can't have games like I had tonight. We have to come together and figure this thing out."

Beautiful. That's what I want to hear from our team leader.

Now let's go see him put that into action tomorrow vs Minny

 

[Padrino]

I remain skeptical that the portrayals here of our front office's philosophy are 100% accurate. But for sake of argument:

Let's assume that Vivek, Mullin, and PDA all want to play schoolyard ball, and that this philosophy will never work. What good is it to fire PDA if the owner and the remainder of the front office still hold onto that philosophy? Vivek will keep trying to implement the philosophy with or without PDA. In that case, firing PDA is (to use a stale metaphor) rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

100% accurate? probably not. but firing a head coach 24 games into the season without an acceptable replacement lined up--when said incumbent had legitimate success with a healthy roster and had made considerable strides in improving the team's defense--is a rather extreme measure unless there is a massive gulf in philosophy. the kings scored just fine under mike malone. but the way they scored was deemed inappropriate by the front office despite the winning record the kings owned when the front office approached ranadive with the idea of firing mike malone, and the team's defensive improvements were completely ignored when the decision to fire malone was finally made. so... i'm not sure the characterization of the new regime's "philosophy" is really all that out of proportion with reality. you just don't fire a head coach because he's a bit misaligned with your vision, unless that firing represents an egomaniacal power grab, or represents an inadequately-considered plan, in which case subsequently firing the gm is something i would support fully. i don't want any part of a front office that prizes ideology over winning, or engages in power struggles with a successful head coach (regardless of his flaws), or doesn't plan ahead properly. that's a one-way ticket to the lottery--for however many years it takes vivek to wise up...

 

[Uncia03]

It had to be a miscalculation. You don't do that to your star player on purpose unless you actually want to gut the team "Major League" style. But Vivek has committed $200+ million to a downtown arena and locked the team in for a 30-year term. His first major action on players was to sign Cousins to an extension. The idea that he or the rest of the front office is trying to sabotage their own best player makes no sense at all.

Here is something to consider.

It's very possible that PDA felt that if Malone continued to win playing his grind-out style with Cousins that down the line Malone would gain too much momentum to easily fire...and if they continued to butt heads...perhaps he would be the one out instead of Malone.
So he might have felt that they weren't going to make the playoffs with Malone and Corbin might get as many wins out, or just a few under, so it would be worth it for his own job security to get rid of Malone while he had the chance.

So purely from that save your own tush mentality he could have convinced Vivek that going with Corbin would be a plus move and that now was the time to do it.

All conjecture, as is so much of this stuff, but you continue to imply that the FO and Vivek are smart guys and they wouldn't submarine the season on purpose...but the season has been submarined, and this is one scenario which would explain how we got to this point.

And if anything like this did happen, then Vivek is probably livid at this disaster, and I could see PDA's head next on the chopping block.

I seriously doubt that Vivek wanted to see his team be a punch-line and lose games and lose his players over this firing...and if this is all PDA's doing then he could end up taking the fall.

 

[ParniValjak]

I remain skeptical that the portrayals here of our front office's philosophy are 100% accurate. But for sake of argument:

Let's assume that Vivek, Mullin, and PDA all want to play schoolyard ball, and that this philosophy will never work. What good is it to fire PDA if the owner and the remainder of the front office still hold onto that philosophy? Vivek will keep trying to implement the philosophy with or without PDA. In that case, firing PDA is (to use a stale metaphor) rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

I don't think that firing him is the answer. Certainly not at this point as the ship has well and truly sailed, the damage has been done and the season is a write off no matter what happens from here on in.

The best case scenario we can hope for from here on in, is that these guys come out and admit their error and change their course on outlook of where this team needs to head and most impotantly the style of game it needs to play to get there. The style that they are pushing Corbin to implement has not and will not work for as long as DeMarcus Cousins and Rudy Gay are the foundation of this team.

In real world, these type of **** ups lead to people losing thier jobs. Imagine a CEO of the company making this big a mistake in the business world....he or she would get sacked before there is time to blink. The whole feel around the franchise stinks and that is on the leadership and decision makers. It is caused by their ill informed decision. They misjudged the impact of this move greatly. They didn't envision this type of combustive destruction of the team itself. They certainly did not see the supporter backlash coming....not at this volume anyway. This is a classic result of a move by the hierarchy who are so out of touch with their supporter base its not even funny. Everything they believe in is not what the fan base and the team itself believes in.

For goodness sake they went after Gentry as a Malone replacement in the offseason. This is a guy that is as close a clone to Mike D'Antonie as there is in the NBA. This is all I need to know to see what this hierarchy's vision is. It tells me they are as blind as a bat. Mr. Pringles managed to destroy the productibity of one of the best low post players in recent seasons in Pau Gasol. He made him into a shadow of himself. Don't think for a second that this is not going to happen to Cousins if we continue to make these stupid mistakes along the way. We as a fanbase are not stupid to believe that all these moves point to success. The proof of this, we are seeing right now with this team.

 

[HereWeBoogie]

The only thing I enjoyed in the game was Cousins slamming Smart to the floor. I watched it several times, it was so much fun.

i agree. Only thing Kings related i have enjoyed watching in a couple weeks.

although now it's got the national attention back on Boogie in a negative way. People totally ignoring how he's acted the rest of the season and the circus going on around him right now


i wonder if the front office even realizes that this entire thing was because of them

 

[ninjabiscuit]

Here is something to consider.

It's very possible that PDA felt that if Malone continued to win playing his grind-out style with Cousins that down the line Malone would gain too much momentum to easily fire...and if they continued to butt heads...perhaps he would be the one out instead of Malone.
So he might have felt that they weren't going to make the playoffs with Malone and Corbin might get as many wins out, or just a few under, so it would be worth it for his own job security to get rid of Malone while he had the chance.

So purely from that save your own tush mentality he could have convinced Vivek that going with Corbin would be a plus move and that now was the time to do it.

All conjecture, as is so much of this stuff, but you continue to imply that the FO and Vivek are smart guys and they wouldn't submarine the season on purpose...but the season has been submarined, and this is one scenario which would explain how we got to this point.

And if anything like this did happen, then Vivek is probably livid at this disaster, and I could see PDA's head next on the chopping block.

I seriously doubt that Vivek wanted to see his team be a punch-line and lose games and lose his players over this firing...and if this is all PDA's doing then he could end up taking the fall.

I think something like this is exactly what happened. The other alternative (IMO) is that they looked into their Crystal Ball of Analytics and decided that the best way to gain the necessary resources was to tank the season, and Malone wasn't going for that. It's somewhere in there.

 

[c-webb1s#1]

Why would they do that? Corbin has done such a good job that they signed him up for the rest of the season. Did you see that Knicks game? The team is playing wonderfully under his tenure.

Well yeah... i mean come on guys! we sure do love all the nba 3.0 excitment! DUNK! 3 pointers!!! Yeah!!! hahaha ahhh man this sucks

 

[Entity]

I don't know about you guys and gals, but I'm getting more angry as each day passes. I might have to stop watching the games for a while before I end up throwing somebody down to the floor!

I was thinking ok transition will take a bit but yes I grow more and more pissed each game. If we weren't doing so well before I might look at it differently. Best start in a decade and cuz goes down then coach fired shortly after? Now we get this? I don't want to pick on Corbin but the guy is a fish out of water here. He has no idea what to do

 

[Big Cuz 15]

tossed him like a rag doll

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=programming

 

[Big Cuz 15]

i agree. Only thing Kings related i have enjoyed watching in a couple weeks.

although now it's got the national attention back on Boogie in a negative way. People totally ignoring how he's acted the rest of the season and the circus going on around him right now


i wonder if the front office even realizes that this entire thing was because of them

don't think so, not about wins/losses, about who they want to be. as long as there are dunks and jazz music, we're good.

 

[Fear the Putin]

at least he ejected
we crashed with the plane

 

[gunks]

Here is what I think is a good sign from Boogie. There's still a child inside the man, but there is a man there.

"We have to come together as a team -- myself included," Cousins said. "I'm the leader of this team. I have to get my stuff together. I can't have games like I had tonight. We have to come together and figure this thing out."

Dude is a hot head, and was pouty garbage this morning, but Cuz is a smart guy. And introspective. He doesnt want to be what the media wants him to be, and its going to be a continuing process for him to get there. I sure as hell wasnt level headed at 24 (hell, I'm still kinda temperamental at 29).

Sure, in a perfect world he would respond to this crap situation in a more positive manner, but at least Cousins knows he ****** up when he ****** up, which is more than you can say about our FO. (Actually, in a perfect world we would still have Malone as coach, be above .500 and Vivek would be content to enjoy his court side seats while having no say in actual basketball operations).

Get your head on straight big fella! I still believe in Cousins. We just need to weather this BS from the FO. Hopefully Vivek will learn some humility from the backlash. And hopefully the next people who get fired deserve it *cough* Mullin/PDA *cough*.