Brick - I think you do a great job, and I have relied on your grade posts for years to keep up with the team.
I just think you are really exaggerating Landry and Beno's defensive deficiencies, to the point of biasing the entire Kings fans base against them.
The Kings defensive woes are simply not as clear-cut as you have been making it out to be.
It's not simply Beno+Landry = opposition pwns us.
To give Landry a C on a night when you gave Reke and JT a C and C+ is focusing so much on perception that it's dangerously biased - bordering on Voison territory.
Reke's lack of rebounding/boxing-out and TO's cost us at LEAST as many points as Landry's "mistakes" (which I don't remember one clear example).
Do you only focus on how much the opposing player scores when he's on the same court as Landry/Beno? Because when Humphries scored, most of them were on broken/garbage plays. He threw worse shots up at the rim than Sam/DMC did - they just went in all the time. Do you expect Landry to be able to stop opposing players from getting ANY shots off? He was there, in position, for about the entire game. Maybe I'm completely missing all these supposed examples of Landry and Beno completely missing their assignments and single-handedly costing the Kings dozens of points, but I've been looking very closely, and rewinding 3 and 4 times on plays and I don't see this absurdly-bad defense you are continually propagandizing about.
I see BIG defensive mistakes by JT (fouling away points), Reke (not boxing out or following up on rebounds and turning the ball over leading to opponent points) and Cisco/Omri (regularly costs 2 to 4 points a game each).
Put simply, I don't see Landry or Beno giving away more defensive out-and-out mistakes than any other King right now.
Here's the stats:
STARTERS MIN FGM-A 3PM-A FTM-A OREB DREB REB AST STL BLK TO PF +/- PTS
Carl Landry, PF 36 7-12 0-0 1-1 2 4 6 0 1 0 6 2 -3 15
Beno Udrih, PG 22 5-9 2-3 0-0 1 2 3 2 0 0 0 1 +1 12
Tyreke Evans, PG 41 8-21 0-1 4-5 1 2 3 4 3 0 5 2 -2 20
Jason Thompson, C 10 1-1 0-0 2-4 0 3 3 0 0 1 1 3 +4 4
Your over-emphasis on defense, when the defensive lapses are not clear individual mistakes, and ignoring the effect JT's fouls has, leads KF's to ignore the absolutely VITAL scoring that Landry and Beno have been doing most of the year (especially the last 4 games).
Ignoring Landry's almost-SIX offensive rebounds in each of the past FOUR GAMES and solely focusing on perceived defensive pwnage is starting to have me question your objectivity with these grade threads, and skews the fan who reads them's perceptions, creating bias (like "we don't need Beno or Landry"). I see it all over the forum.
Other than this tweak/criticism, I think you provide a vital resource to Kings fans with these Grade Threads - keep them up - I can see how much work they are.
I will try to jot down notes next time I get the chance during a game to address your points if they are going to continually hammer those 2 on defense and ignore their contributions to the team.
This post is all simply IMO.
