bajaden
Hall of Famer
Nothing a little sandpaper won't solve.
Or, you can do what Karl is doing, use a bigger hammer...
[Grades] Grades v. Hornets 11/23/2015
- Thread starter Bricklayer
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Or, you can do what Karl is doing, use a bigger hammer...
bajaden
Hall of Famer
I've always been Mr. Optimist. I try to stay positive, but it's become almost unbearable. I was ready to quit the team after the last game. Yeah, I know, what happened to my loyalty? Well it's been constantly chipped at for the last 8 years, and I can't take anymore of the stupidity that seems to run through the whole organization. For brief moments, the Kings look like a team, and then in the blink of an eye, they go to looking like they have no clue. They took a 22 point lead and tight collared it right down the drain. Let me ask you something. Did any of you think we were going to win that game in overtime after Rudy tied the game? I didn't! I hoped, but in my heart of hearts, I knew we were as cooked as a thanksgiving turkey.
I've always admired George Karl and his ability to take bitter grapes and turn it into wine. But so far, his coaching has been less than impressive. He was always a coach that thought out of the box, and wasn't afraid to play players others thought less of at important times of the game, and win. He said that Willie's defense was good and was pondering using him in crunch time. Later he said he had to find a way to get Willie more minutes. And then, on monday night, when we were getting our heads handed to us, with basket after basket being scored at the rim, there sat Willie. There sat Willie while Koufos kept leaving his man on the pick and roll to stop the ball, and no one, I mean no one rotated over to protect the basket. Oh Gay made a couple of late feeble attempts. Casspi grabbed his head a couple of times because he knew he blew it. Willies greatest attribute at Kentucky, other than blocking shots, was defending the pick and roll. But Oh no, lets just leave him sitting on the bench while Rome burns.
If I see both Collison and Rondo on the floor together for any extended time again, I'm going to vomit. There is no way we can play good defense with two undersized guards on the floor together. If your going to play them that way, you better have a significant increase in your offense. Something I haven't seen yet. And if your going to play McLemore at the SF position at the same time, your bordering on insanity. This crap a$$ defense isn't the players fault, it's the coaches fault. My god, where is Adelman when you need him. I'd like to say, there, I feel better!. But I don't. I'm angry and disappointed. Someone said in another post, we can't trade Collison because we will need him in the playoffs. Are you kidding me? The way were playing, we'll be competing for the 1st pick in the draft, not the playoffs. Out!
I've always admired George Karl and his ability to take bitter grapes and turn it into wine. But so far, his coaching has been less than impressive. He was always a coach that thought out of the box, and wasn't afraid to play players others thought less of at important times of the game, and win. He said that Willie's defense was good and was pondering using him in crunch time. Later he said he had to find a way to get Willie more minutes. And then, on monday night, when we were getting our heads handed to us, with basket after basket being scored at the rim, there sat Willie. There sat Willie while Koufos kept leaving his man on the pick and roll to stop the ball, and no one, I mean no one rotated over to protect the basket. Oh Gay made a couple of late feeble attempts. Casspi grabbed his head a couple of times because he knew he blew it. Willies greatest attribute at Kentucky, other than blocking shots, was defending the pick and roll. But Oh no, lets just leave him sitting on the bench while Rome burns.
If I see both Collison and Rondo on the floor together for any extended time again, I'm going to vomit. There is no way we can play good defense with two undersized guards on the floor together. If your going to play them that way, you better have a significant increase in your offense. Something I haven't seen yet. And if your going to play McLemore at the SF position at the same time, your bordering on insanity. This crap a$$ defense isn't the players fault, it's the coaches fault. My god, where is Adelman when you need him. I'd like to say, there, I feel better!. But I don't. I'm angry and disappointed. Someone said in another post, we can't trade Collison because we will need him in the playoffs. Are you kidding me? The way were playing, we'll be competing for the 1st pick in the draft, not the playoffs. Out!
Well I grant you that particular point was a tad optimistic...
But as angry as I am with the team after that last game, the playoffs should still be a consideration for us. If you look at the players we have on our team individually, they're all playing well enough to add up to a playoff team. It's the "less than the sum of it's parts" bit that needs to be figured out while the sand runs out of the hourglass. DeMarcus Cousins has expanded his game in ways most would have thought impossible. Both of us were very high on Cousins leading up to the draft. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think either of us thought he would become a legit three-point threat at age 25. Rajon Rondo is playing the best I've ever seen him play and I've been watching him since high school. He doesn't have the same in-your-face defensive intensity he once displayed earlier in his career but that feels to me more of a result of his surroundings than anything else. Who on our bench is getting in his ear about defensive intensity? He clearly still has the burning intensity to compete. He looked like he was on the verge of tears when his pass went through Collison's hands out of bounds in the last minute of the Atlanta game. And for all the hand-wringing, Rudy Gay is still who he's always been -- a tantalizingly gifted athlete who can score points in bunches when he's on a roll.
The defensive potential is there too -- somebody has to challenge them to live up to it. I think we should be a top 10 defensive team with this roster. It is possible. Three 7-footers who can defend the post, check. Long and range-y athletes at SF, check. Two PG-s who have historically been good to great defensively, check. We could still use another wing defender but Ben has looked much improved so far this year. In a league where most seem more concerned about how many threes they can jack up on any given night, the right team defensive scheme puts our group in the top 10. They have to want it though and that comes from the top down.
Bottom line, the team I saw lose a close one to the Clippers at Staples Center on Halloween night is a playoff team. Everybody in the building could see that. Turning that potential into reality has long been a problem for us and some of it is unexplainable. Cousins is playing like a league MVP when he's not injured. Teams with MVPs don't win less than 45 games. Rondo is averaging something like 15+ assists per game the past couple weeks -- first in the league right now in APG and he's 5th in steals. This surpasses pretty much everybody's expectations and we're still not winning. George Karl is a first ballot hall of famer and he looks alarmingly confused or even disinterested on the sideline. What else could we have realistically done to turn this around? This is my vanity showing, but there's a point at which I start to question if it's somehow my fault. Am I sending out negative energy into the universe which is preventing good things from happening around me? The Oakland A's, the San Francisco 49ers, these Sacramento Kings. All of them are sliding toward variations of epic disaster. From the Super Bowl to potentially the first pick in the draft in 2 years?! From seven All-Stars and (by far) the best run differential in the game to worst team in the American League in 1 1/2 years?! Should I just stop caring entirely and see what happens? But that's crazy right? It's got to just be a coincidence. It's a bump in the road. I don't know what to think about our team right now, but I'll keep watching to find out and hope for the best. Sorry universe.
bajaden
Hall of Famer
You sound like the old me. Look, I don't disagree with anything you said. That's what makes this so hard. We should be better than we are, but were not. We're underachieving and sometimes that's the hardest thing to fix. Sometimes, as you said, the whole is less than the sum of the parts. They don't fit properly, even though they appear to. Or, the parts aren't being put together properly, which I think in this case, is the case. We lost the last game because of coaching, pure and simple. Yes, we stopped scoring, but worse, we didn't stop them from scoring. We could have survived the first part if the second part had worked properly. And I lay that at Karl's feet.
Karl has to be better than he has been so far. There's no doubt in my mind about that. How long can we wait to see if anything changes? Management needs to be proactive. Hopefully Vlade is seeing the same things that we are and he's in Karl's office asking for some accountability. He has to know what the expectations are. Mike Malone wasn't given much of a chance last season, which makes it easy to question why George Karl shouldn't be held to the same standard. As a fan though there's not much I can do. In the past it was easy to point out the flaws in the roster and suggest fixes. There aren't any glaring weaknesses this time which makes it a little more frustrating but also a little easier for me to sit back and wait to see what happens. Keep the faith my friend! Either they'll figure it out and take us along for the ride or they won't and we'll wonder what might have been. Either way, the beer still tastes the same. That's one way to look at it anyway. Cheers!
Just for the sake of argument, why does Karl have to be better? Why can't he be a washed-up coach, who's been passed by by the game, and is just dining out on reputation?
It was an incomplete thought. He has to be better (and damned soon too!) or we have to man up and fire him. That's what I meant to say. If his performance doesn't improve than he is the problem and he needs to go. I would give him maybe 5 games to see if anything changes. If we wait too long, there won't be enough time for any coach to steer us back on course. A full-sized lineup in the fourth quarter buys him more "wait and see time". A competent defensive effort and signs of improvement would be even better. Today was the first one though and nothing changed. It was essentially the same game we played against Charlotte, only the end result was different. And that's not good enough.
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bajaden
Hall of Famer
Well of course, your right. He can be a washed up coach. Hard to believe that he can go from being one of the top coaches in the league to totally inept, but stranger things have happened. Obviously Karl believes that his style of play will win games if everyone just buys in. I'll give him this. If, and it's a big if, everyone buys in and plays to his best ability, we should start winning games. However, with the current makeup of the roster, basically two undersized PG's, I don't think you can go very far with both of them on the floor at the same time. It's almost impossible to play any type of zone defense with two small players out there together. Switching in the P&R becomes a disaster. The only way you can compensate is to have a shotblocker on the floor at the same time. And for some reason Karl seems reluctant to play WCS then.
But as I said, your right, Karl doesn't have to change a thing, and if he doesn't, then he will be out of the league as a washed up coach who time passed by.
Well, that would definitely account for the disconnect in points of view: I have never thought that Karl was one of the top coaches in the league. If anything, I feel like George Karl is one of the Top 10 most overrated head coaches since I started watching NBA basketball (1989-present). He's for sure in the Top 25.
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