[Grades] Grades v. Magic 02/27/2013

Who is most responsible for the sudden turn in playstyle the last couple of games?

  • Salmons

    Votes: 11 33.3%
  • Cousins

    Votes: 1 3.0%
  • Reke

    Votes: 4 12.1%
  • Thomas

    Votes: 3 9.1%
  • Thornton

    Votes: 1 3.0%
  • New guys

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Smart

    Votes: 1 3.0%
  • It tis a mystery

    Votes: 12 36.4%

  • Total voters
    33
  • Poll closed .
Congratulation to the team and coach for a very good game of basketball. It was agreat way to be introduced to Douglas and to see more minutes from Patterson. Great rotations although a little unfair to Thomas. I thought that the tenor of the game was set by Salmons with his assists and scoress right off the bat. Congratulations and a hope you can do it again maybe twice a week.
 
What's even worse, is that Tyreke has been perceived as someone who did not get better this year because of the weird rotations. This years version of Tyreke Evans is the best he's been ever since his rookie year. His career and reputation have been tarnished by this organization.

In a weird way that's good for us, means resigning him will cost less.
 
You haven't put him on ignore yet?

No need to put him on Ignore! He's a good fan, just misguided. Or, by his opinion, more enlightened. But a little disent is a good thing and creates balance... If he were a troll, I'd agree with you. But he's not..
 
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Something I brought up last year which many wanted to ignore about Smart as they preferred not looking at his coaching history and instead just hoped he'd suddenly figure it out. Smart killed Steph's effectiveness in GS. Often pulled him for long stretches and held him out until late in 4th quarters. Who was the stud Smart decided needed playing time over Steph? Acie Law.

But everyone must play, right? Reke often gets the same treatment from Smart that Steph got. Smart had to go for Steph to come into his own. We see the same crap here with Reke. Funny thing is even if GS did win a random game under Smart, the media here didn't let him off the hook and still called out his use of Steph and sub patterns, whereas here fans and media ignore the overall strategy when we get a random win, as if one random win negates a flawed overall body of work. Pretty short sided when we're 4-14 in our last 18, which is an impressive .222 winning % over our last 18.

Not sure I agree with your analyogy. At least as far as this fourm is concerned. I do think there were fans here that were willing to give Smart a chance. Which I think is fair. And although I wasn't a fan of his hiring in the first place, I was one of those that felt he deserved a chance to state his case as a head coach. But that was then, and this is now. I don't think there are many fans left on this fourm that are in love with Smart, or that even give him credit when the team does pull off an occasional win. Plus from reading ocassional poles in the paper, I don't think there's much support for Smart among the general plublic, a group that are probably less informed than the people on this fourm.

I'll admit that I knew a lot more about Westphal than I did Smart. Simply because he had a bigger track record, and it was the same record everywhere he went. You, having seen the Warriors more than I, had a much better idea of what Smart is about than I did. The trend with the Maloofs as I see it, is that because their salesmen, they're easily fooled by other good salesmen. Theus was a good talker. Mussleman was a good talker. Smart is a good talker. All three were good at selling themselves, and for a while, good at selling their ideas to the players. But in the end, its results that count, and when they don't get them, everyone stops listening. As they say, talk is cheap.
 
I'd rank Douglas just behind Tyreke, and IT in 3rd place. In some matchups against smaller guys, I might prefer Douglas over Tyreke, whereas I'd take Tyreke against the bigger guards. Then there's a pretty big drop off with the group of Brooks, Thornton, and finally Jimmer.

I'd like to see Douglas play against Westbrook. Westbrook gave IT fits with his size (IT fouled out) the last game, and then he gave Tyreke fits with his quickness (Tyreke laid off of him about 15 feet, leaving Westbrook out there to throw passes for tons of easy assists). Maybe Douglas has the right size/quickness ratio to make it more difficult for him out there.

I'm hoping that Douglas can come into his own offensively with the Kings. I liked him a lot at Florida St. As you know, he was the offense at Florida St; nobody else could score. He also has leadership abilities and he's tough as nails. He's 26, which is just at the very beginning of entering into his prime. Maybe he can be the ingredient that makes me feel better about the trade.

Well I wasn't really comparing him to Tyreke, just to our PG's. It would be interesting to see him and Tyreke on the floor together and see how much our perimeter defense improves. I'm probably in the minority, but I'd like to see how we'd fare if we started Douglas. I've never been sold on IT as our starting PG of the future. I think he just fell into it out of neccessity. And thats not a criticism of his abilities. I saw Douglas play quite a bit in college, and he always impressed me with his defense, and yes, he certainly could score. But I always thought he had good PG instincts. He's just as quick as IT, and taller. The one thing IT can't do anything about, and its his biggest weakness on the defensive side, is his height. Taller guards can post him up, and when they do, usually we send someone to help, which breaks down our defense. Westbrook abused the hell out of him. Derrick Williams, another good postup PG can do the same thing. It would be a lot harder to do that with Douglas, who plays with that same tough attitude.

Just my opinion and I'm sure there are many that would disagree. But this team is going to be torn apart this next offseason, so why not find out how well Douglas works with this team. We know what IT can do.

Edit: By the way, Douglas shot 37.6% from the three in his three years at Florida St. And your right, he basicly carried the load of the scoring because, similar to Jimmer at BYU, they didn't have anyone else that could score consistently. As a result his assist total wasn't what it should have been. The question about him coming out of school was just what was he. A 6'1" SG, or someone that could be a PG if given time to develop. No one questioned his scoring ability, or his defensive ability.
 
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Well I wasn't really comparing him to Tyreke, just to our PG's. It would be interesting to see him and Tyreke on the floor together and see how much our perimeter defense improves. I'm probably in the minority, but I'd like to see how we'd fare if we started Douglas. I've never been sold on IT as our starting PG of the future. I think he just fell into it out of neccessity. And thats not a criticism of his abilities. I saw Douglas play quite a bit in college, and he always impressed me with his defense, and yes, he certainly could score. But I always thought he had good PG instincts. He's just as quick as IT, and taller. The one thing IT can't do anything about, and its his biggest weakness on the defensive side, is his height. Taller guards can post him up, and when they do, usually we send someone to help, which breaks down our defense. Westbrook abused the hell out of him. Derrick Williams, another good postup PG can do the same thing. It would be a lot harder to do that with Douglas, who plays with that same tough attitude.

Just my opinion and I'm sure there are many that would disagree. But this team is going to be torn apart this next offseason, so why not find out how well Douglas works with this team. We know what IT can do.

Edit: By the way, Douglas shot 37.6% from the three in his three years at Florida St. And your right, he basicly carried the load of the scoring because, similar to Jimmer at BYU, they didn't have anyone else that could score consistently. As a result his assist total wasn't what it should have been. The question about him coming out of school was just what was he. A 6'1" SG, or someone that could be a PG if given time to develop. No one questioned his scoring ability, or his defensive ability.

I think they should try Douglas with Tyreke. With some matchups, like against an O.J. Mayo I'd even try Douglas with IT, or others. Also, it's time to take the gloves off with Patterson. I thought Reynolds was pretty bold when he said that it shouldn't have to be that Patterson has to fit in with the Kings; the Kings should make it so that they fit with him. That was a message to the coach. I concur.
 
In a weird way that's good for us, means resigning him will cost less.

Unless he's so pissed off and what we've done that he takes the QO and becomes an unrestricted free agent a year later (assuming I understand how it works.)
 
I think they should try Douglas with Tyreke. With some matchups, like against an O.J. Mayo I'd even try Douglas with IT, or others. Also, it's time to take the gloves off with Patterson. I thought Reynolds was pretty bold when he said that it shouldn't have to be that Patterson has to fit in with the Kings; the Kings should make it so that they fit with him. That was a message to the coach. I concur.

Unfortunately I didn't get to hear the Kings announcers. I had to record what was given me off of the NBA package, and more often than not of late, its always the other teams announcers. Anyway, I didn't hear what Reynolds had to say. but I agree with what you just related. Cousins and Patterson played together at Kentucky, so its not like their foreign to one another. Cousins used to kick out to Patterson for the 14 footer all the time. So they know how to play together. A good coach always puts round pegs into round holes. The square pegs sit on the end of the bench.
 
In a weird way that's good for us, means resigning him will cost less.



I've considered that inthe same light.

Hwoever I've also consdiered the dual possibilities that all of this will well and thoroughly turn Reke off to Sacto, and his agent off to Sacto. And the new regime coming in, assuming that there is the housecleaning everyone assumes, is going to have very little institutional knowledge carried over. they could easily be almost as much outsiders as the outsiders are. Hence you will have to trust them to know the situation at a significant level. Othewise Danny Ainge willbe abck after him this summer again, and it won't be Geoff taking those calls and saying now now Danny, I told you no before.
 
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I think they should try Douglas with Tyreke. With some matchups, like against an O.J. Mayo I'd even try Douglas with IT, or others. Also, it's time to take the gloves off with Patterson. I thought Reynolds was pretty bold when he said that it shouldn't have to be that Patterson has to fit in with the Kings; the Kings should make it so that they fit with him. That was a message to the coach. I concur.

If those were his words, then as usual it just puts on display his lack of understanding. Patrick Patterson didn't make the Rockets win. He's a roleplayer, nothing more. I think he can be a roleplayer on a good team. But he knows nothing, has no experience, and has no talent to make a team think oh, we should all just try to fit ourselves around him. Yeah right. Next they'll be building teams around Darrel Arthur and Big Baby.
 
If those were his words, then as usual it just puts on display his lack of understanding. Patrick Patterson didn't make the Rockets win. He's a roleplayer, nothing more. I think he can be a roleplayer on a good team. But he knows nothing, has no experience, and has no talent to make a team think oh, we should all just try to fit ourselves around him. Yeah right. Next they'll be building teams around Darrel Arthur and Big Baby.

I'm getting the impression that you don't like undersized PF's.....:D
 
Well I wasn't really comparing him to Tyreke, just to our PG's. It would be interesting to see him and Tyreke on the floor together and see how much our perimeter defense improves. I'm probably in the minority, but I'd like to see how we'd fare if we started Douglas. I've never been sold on IT as our starting PG of the future. I think he just fell into it out of neccessity. And thats not a criticism of his abilities. I saw Douglas play quite a bit in college, and he always impressed me with his defense, and yes, he certainly could score. But I always thought he had good PG instincts. He's just as quick as IT, and taller. The one thing IT can't do anything about, and its his biggest weakness on the defensive side, is his height. Taller guards can post him up, and when they do, usually we send someone to help, which breaks down our defense. Westbrook abused the hell out of him. Derrick Williams, another good postup PG can do the same thing. It would be a lot harder to do that with Douglas, who plays with that same tough attitude.

Just my opinion and I'm sure there are many that would disagree. But this team is going to be torn apart this next offseason, so why not find out how well Douglas works with this team. We know what IT can do.

Edit: By the way, Douglas shot 37.6% from the three in his three years at Florida St. And your right, he basicly carried the load of the scoring because, similar to Jimmer at BYU, they didn't have anyone else that could score consistently. As a result his assist total wasn't what it should have been. The question about him coming out of school was just what was he. A 6'1" SG, or someone that could be a PG if given time to develop. No one questioned his scoring ability, or his defensive ability.

Oh I would definitely support that. I'd try lineups of Reke and Thornton as our backcourt, Reke and Jimmer and Reke and Douglas. Not to mention that we haven't exactly won a lot of games with our current lineup ... But then again, we didn't bother making changes and developing lineups this time last season, and instead of using that 20-30 games to work out a proper offense and lineup we just tried to promote IT for ROY and stuck Evans in the corner. I'm pretty damn sure that Smart is not going to start experimenting when he knows that he won't be around next season.
 
If those were his words, then as usual it just puts on display his lack of understanding. Patrick Patterson didn't make the Rockets win. He's a roleplayer, nothing more. I think he can be a roleplayer on a good team. But he knows nothing, has no experience, and has no talent to make a team think oh, we should all just try to fit ourselves around him. Yeah right. Next they'll be building teams around Darrel Arthur and Big Baby.

Well another way you could possibly interpret it is that at the moment Patterson seems to have some basketball smarts, something that our team lacks due to the idiot at the helm. In that sense you don't want Patterson to become like our guys, often going 1 on 1 and playing lousy D and not setting good screens and not rolling to the basket hard etc. You'd rather the rest of the team pick up some of his good habits.
 
Well another way you could possibly interpret it is that at the moment Patterson seems to have some basketball smarts, something that our team lacks due to the idiot at the helm. In that sense you don't want Patterson to become like our guys, often going 1 on 1 and playing lousy D and not setting good screens and not rolling to the basket hard etc. You'd rather the rest of the team pick up some of his good habits.

Indeed. To me, successful teams become successful with role players who can compliment your stars. Udonis Haslem, Shanie Battier, Chalmers for the Heat. Nick Collison and Thabo on the Thunder. Danny Green, Matt Bonner, Splitter on the Spurs. While it's obvious who leads those teams, it's having role players who know and accept and relish in the opportunity to be role players that make those teams championship contenders, not the mega-super stars.

Patterson seems like that sort of player. Plays hard, plays good defense, can stretch the floor with a good arsenal of moves, and seems to play within himself. It's not about building around Patterson, but not changing what makes Patterson a good player.
 
Indeed. To me, successful teams become successful with role players who can compliment your stars. Udonis Haslem, Shanie Battier, Chalmers for the Heat. Nick Collison and Thabo on the Thunder. Danny Green, Matt Bonner, Splitter on the Spurs. While it's obvious who leads those teams, it's having role players who know and accept and relish in the opportunity to be role players that make those teams championship contenders, not the mega-super stars.

Patterson seems like that sort of player. Plays hard, plays good defense, can stretch the floor with a good arsenal of moves, and seems to play within himself. It's not about building around Patterson, but not changing what makes Patterson a good player.

I'm just hoping there's a limit to the amount of damage Keith Smart can do to someone's career in 6 weeks.
 
If those were his words, then as usual it just puts on display his lack of understanding. Patrick Patterson didn't make the Rockets win. He's a roleplayer, nothing more. I think he can be a roleplayer on a good team. But he knows nothing, has no experience, and has no talent to make a team think oh, we should all just try to fit ourselves around him. Yeah right. Next they'll be building teams around Darrel Arthur and Big Baby.

Remember when everyone was upset with Smart because he took an incredibly long time to even figure out what his starting lineup was? I think Reynolds doesn't want to go through several weeks of "trying out" Patterson in a minimalist role. It's like Smart doesn't want to hurt the players' feelings, so he is painfully slow in giving a new player minutes they should be getting from Day 1. I agree with Reynolds' sentiment. They traded for the guy. They thought he has talent. So play him, and forget the games. If Thompson doesn't like it, tough beans. Yeah, Patterson is not Tim Duncan, but he's at least as good as Thompson. So get on with it. Same with Douglas.
 
... I agree with Reynolds' sentiment. They traded for the guy. They thought he has talent...
They traded for James Johnson, too.



... If Thompson doesn't like it, tough beans. Yeah, Patterson is not Tim Duncan, but he's at least as good as Thompson...
Eh, I don't know if I see any particular information that supports that thesis: raw numbers, per36 numbers and B-R.com "advanced" metrics all seem to favor Thompson. And, frankly, even if Patterson is, in fact, "at least as good as" Thompson is, Thompson hasn't really played poorly enough to lose his spot to someone who's merely "as good as" he is, recent slump notwithstanding.

Lack of consistency is, at least, sixty percent of the reason this team has performed so poorly; you don't change your starting lineup every time a player goes through a rough patch.
 
They traded for James Johnson, too.




Eh, I don't know if I see any particular information that supports that thesis: raw numbers, per36 numbers and B-R.com "advanced" metrics all seem to favor Thompson. And, frankly, even if Patterson is, in fact, "at least as good as" Thompson is, Thompson hasn't really played poorly enough to lose his spot to someone who's merely "as good as" he is, recent slump notwithstanding.

Lack of consistency is, at least, sixty percent of the reason this team has performed so poorly; you don't change your starting lineup every time a player goes through a rough patch.

They traded Robinson for Patterson. They thought Patterson was better, considerably better according to reports. So play Patterson considerably more minutes than Robinson. If they were so interested in the "now" and not the "future" on this deal, then play Patterson today, not sometime later in the year. Also, I didn't mention changing the starting lineup. That's a straw man. Maybe Thompson can play more at the backup center position. Maybe Hayes gets less minutes. They need to find out what Patterson can do now, not sometime next year.
 
It wasn't a straw man, I simply misread your post. My apologies. Although, I'm not sure why, if your point was to compare Patterson's role to Robinson's role, you felt the need to mention Thompson in the first place.
 
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