[Grades] Grades v. Raptors 11/6/2016

Which Kings guard did the best job tonight?

  • Afflalo

    Votes: 9 19.1%

  • Lawson

    Votes: 3 6.4%

  • Farmar

    Votes: 10 21.3%

  • Temple

    Votes: 25 53.2%
  • Total voters
    47
  • Poll closed .
The defense has been consistently better than in previous years. The offense has looked OK at times and atrocious at others. Hopefully as they get more time together and with Collison's return the offense will flow a little better. Am I the only one who thinks we should post Cousins a few more times a game?
 
206Fan said:
As someone who's been disappointed in Willie, we just can't trade him this early into his 2nd season. We have to be patient with him.

I think he'll start bouncing back at the season goes forward, but if we can't get a positive asset for WCS, there's no need to trade him. He's only 23, with 3 years left, and provides a lot of hustle off the bench. Let's just hope he can put it all together again this season. He had a nice rookie campaign. He could be a key contributor for this team in the long-run, whether off the bench, or a starter.
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I'm a fan of Willie's, but no one is untradeable. It would depend on who we traded him for. Would you go for a trade like McLemore and Willie for Noel. Just an example and probably a poor one, but you get where I'm coming from.
 
Kingster said:
Kings were the same team against Toronto as the prior games. No diff whatsoever other than they matched up well against an athletically challenged Toronto team playing with two rooks in their starting roster.

BLOW IT UP!
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This noveau line of anti-Kings stuff using "athletically challenged" is fairly silly, because it's now elevating yet another fairly random trait to some sort of quality team litmus test.

Veteran teams are rarely highly athletic flyers. Yet veteran teams do most of the winning. The last time the Spurs were "athletic" would have been...quite possibly a decade ago, or even maybe back in the Admiral/Sean Elliot mid-90s. And they've been winning for decades straight now. The Celtics ran through the 80s and were never athletic. The entire Memphis system imported by Joerger never relied on excessive athleticism. Its just not a critical x-factor unless you choose a playstyle to make it one.

And on that front Kings' fans I think, aside from sitting in a permanent pit of gloomy despair, are being confused a bit by something they simply have never seen in long LONG time in a Kings team, and something wildly different than what they saw just last year:

2016-17 Pace: 92.3 (29th of 30)
2015-16 Pace: 100.0 (1st of 30)

In fact the last time we had a coach teaching halcourt principles and playing at a Pace like this was 11 years ago when some guy named Adelman had a 91.9 Pace in his final year. It was also the last season we had a winning record.*

* this is not an argument that lack of Pace was a standard characteristic of winning Adelman teams. Pace normally doesn't add or subtract losses so long as you play at the right pace for your personnel.
 
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Bricklayer said:
This noveau line of anti-Kings stuff using "athletically challenged" is fairly silly, because it's now elevating yet another fairly random trait to some sort of quality team litmus test.

Veteran teams are rarely highly athletic flyers. Yet veteran teams do most of the winning. The last time the Spurs were "athletic" would have been...quite possibly a decade ago, or even maybe back in the Admiral/Sean Elliot mid-90s. And they've been winning for decades straight now. The Celtics ran through the 80s and were never athletic. The entire Memphis system imported by Joerger never relied on excessive athleticism. Its just not a critical x-factor unless you choose a playstyle to make it one.

And on that front Kings' fans I think, aside from sitting in a permanent pit of gloomy despair, are being confused a bit by something they simply have neve seen in long LONG time in a Kings team, and something wildly different than what they saw just last year:

2016-17 Pace: 92.3 (29th of 30)
2-15-16 Pace: 100.0 (1st of 30)

In fact the last time we had a coach teaching halcourt principles and playing at a Pace like this was 11 years ago when some guy named Adelman had a 91.9 Pace in his final year. It was also the last season we had a winning record.*
Click to expand...
Bricklayer said:
This noveau line of anti-Kings stuff using "athletically challenged" is fairly silly, because it's now elevating yet another fairly random trait to some sort of quality team litmus test.

Veteran teams are rarely highly athletic flyers. Yet veteran teams do most of the winning. The last time the Spurs were "athletic" would have been...quite possibly a decade ago, or even maybe back in the Admiral/Sean Elliot mid-90s. And they've been winning for decades straight now. The Celtics ran through the 80s and were never athletic. The entire Memphis system imported by Joerger never relied on excessive athleticism. Its just not a critical x-factor unless you choose a playstyle to make it one.

And on that front Kings' fans I think, aside from sitting in a permanent pit of gloomy despair, are being confused a bit by something they simply have neve seen in long LONG time in a Kings team, and something wildly different than what they saw just last year:

2016-17 Pace: 92.3 (29th of 30)
2-15-16 Pace: 100.0 (1st of 30)

In fact the last time we had a coach teaching halcourt principles and playing at a Pace like this was 11 years ago when some guy named Adelman had a 91.9 Pace in his final year. It was also the last season we had a winning record.*

* this is not an argument that lack of Pace was a standard characteristic of winning Adelman teams. Pace normally doesn't add or subtract losses so long as you play at the right pace for your personnel.
Click to expand...

That random thing called athleticism just kicked the Kings a$$ in the Bucks game and in Orlando. And you might think it's just chance that Toronto doesn't have the athletic ability of those teams and the Kings just happened to win that game, but I don't. Of course it's not an either/or argument - atheticism or skill. All teams are an amalgam of the two. It's just that the Kings are so athletically challenged the Kings couldn't play at the pace of the Bucks or of the Magic. The Magic game is an even more pronounced example of how athletically challenged the Kings are because the Magic as a young and relatively unskilled team live almost entirely on their athleticism. Yet the Kings couldn't withstand it. Then there is the Raptor win. It was a perfect contrast to play the Raptors back to back after the Bucks. The Raptors are not in the same league as the Bucks in terms of athleticism and are content with a slow paced game, which benefits the Kings (Two rooks in their lineup didn't hurt either).

If you want to go back to olden times with a slow down offense, you're swimming upstream. In the olden days there were hand checking rules and no 3 point line, which buoyed the slo mo game. You mention playing "at the right pace for your personnel" as if it's a simple decision you make, and if you do make that decision then of course you're going to play at your pace, and if you play at your pace of course you'll win. If words were only reality. You have to have an outstanding point guard and an outstanding defense to have a chance to play slow mo in today's game. Even then, you're swimming upstream. Sure, if you're a great, great swimmer, you could beat ordinary swimmers if you swim upstream, but you're not ever getting past the very good swimmers that don't have to.
 
jcwkings said:
Trading two young players would be extremely short sighted. We can't give up on a guy like WCS just because he's hitting a rough patch of his career early on. Does this stretch of bad play erase a full season of promising play we saw last year?
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For those who doubt WCS, the counter argument is his value will never be higher and if there is a lack of motor for the first stretch of a season (?), imagine it in the dull days of Jan/Feb.

Honestly I'd move him now, but management won't
 
My feel for the team still is that they're struggling with the offense and that the 2nd/3rd big spot is proving mysterious. Kosta, on that front, I felt had one of his better games vs Toronto.

The Kings also paid no defensive worry to the Raptors bigs with JV out. This allowed them to play every PnR the same, letting the big roll and rotating to the corner three. This felt like about half of Toronto's plays in the second half and they kept bricking those threes.

But that's just my feel for the issues. I have no sense of how good/bad this team is going to be. They have an actual defensive system this year, which is a major upgrade in itself. They have an offense that better fits the talent. It's a matter of executing those two elements every time.



peacelate said:
2015

ORTG - 106.0
DRTG - 108.4

2016

ORTG - 104.9
DRTG - 110.0

Nothing confusing about those numbers.
Click to expand...

I'll just be the one to point out the obvious: You're comparing vastly different sample sizes.
 
swisshh said:
My feel for the team still is that they're struggling with the offense and that the 2nd/3rd big spot is proving mysterious. Kosta, on that front, I felt had one of his better games vs Toronto.

The Kings also paid no defensive worry to the Raptors bigs with JV out. This allowed them to play every PnR the same, letting the big roll and rotating to the corner three. This felt like about half of Toronto's plays in the second half and they kept bricking those threes.

But that's just my feel for the issues. I have no sense of how good/bad this team is going to be. They have an actual defensive system this year, which is a major upgrade in itself. They have an offense that better fits the talent. It's a matter of executing those two elements every time.





I'll just be the one to point out the obvious: You're comparing vastly different sample sizes.
Click to expand...

Tes, but it goes to show that not much has changed from last year in terms of quality of play on the court.
 
Capt. Factorial said:
The shiny new arena happened to be hosting Disney On Ice for a bit. Don't worry. We'll still get our requisite 41 home games before the playoffs.
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Has nothing to do with being worried about 41. But Disney on Ice could wait. It's beyond lame to break in a new arena with 6 of the first 8 and 21 of the first 35 on the road. Not cool. This team might be buried before the new year begins.
 
Lawson's shooting is pretty concerning. On one hand, I like his pass first approach and mentality to get others going/involved, but on the other hand, his shooting has been absolutely dismal. He's shooting 27% from three when the closest defender is 4+ feet away from him (for reference, Temple is shooting 47% from three this year when given 4+ feet of space). That's not going to get it done. It's odd to think that he might have just lost his shot since leaving Denver, but even his free throws don't look all that good. His shot looks extremely flat when at the line. I'm hopeful he finds his stroke again (for our sake), but perhaps he's one of those cases where he's not going to be someone we can rely on knocking down an outside shot with some consistency despite what he has done prior to coming here. I think we have to rely on Collison playing 30+ minutes a night when he's back to give us not only another scoring threat, but also someone who can space the floor for others. I think what he brings is going to really help this team.

Although, we just cut Farmar instead of Lawson, I'd be very close to giving the backup PG minutes solely to Temple. Lawson isn't really a change of pace to Collison. Temple, on the other hand, allows us to play a great defender at PG who can help us slow down the bigger, stronger PGs in the league (players that Collison may have difficulty keeping in check). Considering how hard Temple plays on both sides, his defensive ability/versatility, and the fact that he has been shooting the ball much more effectively than Lawson, I think it's worth consideration.

I do have some issues with Joerger's rotations thus far. I don't think we should be playing any double C lineups, and I would be giving Tolliver some consistent minutes and potentially give him a low minute starting gig. He's really the only PF on our roster who has the best combination of strength, length, quickness, & work ethic to guard opposing team's PFs from the get go. Having Cousins guard PFs leaves him susceptible to picking up fouls on the perimeter (where he has a tendency to reach rather than move his feet). It also brings our best rim protector and rebounder further away from the rim. I don't want to see that anymore.

I absolutely do not like how Joerger will trot out lineups without an offensive focal point. He needs to be better about keeping threats on the floor consistently throughout the game to avoid us going through dry spells. It's really not that hard to do as I came up with a rotation in 30 minutes that allows us to keep at least 3 scoring threats on the floor at all times (granted this is with Collison coming back, but I could easily make one that keeps 2 threats on the floor at all times when Collison was suspended).

*Scoring threats are in red*

Q1: 0 min - 6 min
PG - Collison
SG - Temple
SF - Gay
PF - Tolliver
C - Cousins

Q1: 6 min - 11 min
PG - Temple
SG - Afflalo
SF - Barnes
PF - Casspi
C - Cousins

Q1: 11 min - 12 min
PG - Collison
SG - Afflalo
SF - Barnes
PF - Casspi
C - Koufos

Q2: 0 min - 5 min
PG - Collison
SG - Barnes
SF - Gay
PF - Casspi
C - Koufos

Q2: 5 min - 6 min
PG - Temple
SG - Afflalo
SF - Barnes
PF - Casspi
C - Cousins

Q2: 6 min - 7 min
PG - Temple
SG - Afflalo
SF - Gay
PF - Tolliver
C - Cousins

Q2: 7 min - 12 min
PG - Collison
SG - Afflalo
SF - Gay
PF - Tolliver
C - Cousins

Repeat the rotation above for the third & fourth quarter...


PG - Collison (34 min) / Temple (14 min) / Lawson
SG - Temple (10 min) / Afflalo (26 min) / Barnes (10 min) / McLemore
SF - Gay (34 min) / Barnes (14 min) / Richardson
PF - Tolliver (24 min) / Casspi (24 min) / Cauley-Stein / Labissiere
C - Cousins (36 min) / Koufos (12 min) / Papagiannis

Cousins - 36 min
Gay - 34 min
Collison - 34 min
Afflalo - 26 min
Temple - 26 min
Barnes - 24 min
Tolliver - 24 min
Casspi - 24 min
Koufos - 12 min

This cuts out Lawson, McLemore, & Cauley-Stein from the rotation keeping it at 9 people. I think McLemore can easily get into this rotation depending on injuries, matchups, how certain players are performing. You could cut Casspi's minutes, play Gay/Barnes more at PF, play Afflalo a little at SF, and you have around 20ish minutes to give to McLemore. If we're wanting to keep Lawson in the rotation, we can cut minutes from Casspi, play Gay/Barnes as a stretch 4, play Temple more at SG, and give the backup minutes to Lawson. I wouldn't be opposed to giving Lawson more time to improve his shooting because I find it hard to believe that he won't start shooting like he has done for his entire career, but if he doesn't improve in that area, I think what Temple brings would be more valuable in a backup role.
 
KingsFanSince85 said:
Has nothing to do with being worried about 41. But Disney on Ice could wait. It's beyond lame to break in a new arena with 6 of the first 8 and 21 of the first 35 on the road. Not cool. This team might be buried before the new year begins.
Click to expand...

But...the schedule works itself out and we have some decent home stands (aside from the two 6-game and one 7-game road trips). Having a lot of home games after the first of the year just might end up helping.
 
ockingsfan said:
This is very true!

As long as the Kings don't implode before January, we could be in very good shape! ;)
Click to expand...
It's happened before unfortunately. I do expect us to be in the conversation though, as this year we finally have a competent coach which will pay dividends.

I also think people are forgetting that we are learning a brand new system on both sides of the court. For us, the further in the season we go, the better we will be (well, at least theoretically -- nothing is certain in Kings land).
 
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