Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
I apologize for some vagueness here -- this one was hard to focus on without your eyes crossing and attention tended to wander to more interesting things like counting the number of threads in the rug, pondering the meaning of guava cranberry ice tea, or contemplating mud.
Thomas ( C+ ) -- fumbled away several balls for turnovers in the early going and sat much of the second quarter. But was active after half, and while nothing special was effective on the glass. Also got a bit chippy and at one point threw Dalembert to the floor, resulting in a technical. Statistics say I should bump this a half grade or so, but just didn't really see it on court.
Artest ( B ) -- very good first half bulling in on one side, and bothering the rookie Carney on the other. Very active, got his hands on a lot of balls, scrapped, and actually a bit of a textbook on why Ron can still be a bigger impact guy than any other King -- drew so much attention that it opened opportunites for everybody else. Very quiet after half, but wasn't needed as the Sixers were never a serious threat (indeed would not be to the average high school JV team). In any case, this was a ridiculously easy game and its not there in the numbers, but Ron looked good anyway for a long stretch, and that was promising.
Miller ( B- ) -- invisible first half, missing his shots, doing little else. But after half picked it up and made across the board contributions. Thought of going a tad higher, but the first half was probably a D, and the opponent was an F, so thinking the B- was about as high as I could justify.
Martin ( B ) -- invisible start + then got into foul trouble, and I was warming up the "feeling under the weather" excuse here. But then he came out in the third quarter and poured in 15 pts. Probably telling that the quarter started off with Andre Igoudala just simply quitting on a kickout pass to Kevin at the three point line, and just standing dead still and watching Kevin wind up and knock it in. In any case, a strong scoring burst, although not his most dynamic and against an opponent that could barely be accused of caring. And then just sat for the entire 4th quarter with the Sixers toothless and him not 100%.
Bibby ( A- ) -- best and most consistent King on the night, and while this may not have bedn an A- back in the day, this year it was just for being a nice strong solid game all night long. As with eveyone else, gets the "it was only the Sixers" disclaimer -- not hard to score against a totally disorganized mess -- but he played in control, hit his shots, made some good passes. A good outing, even if against a terrible opponent.
Salmons ( C+ ) -- quiet game with some minor contributions. I almost left this at that one line because there really isn't much else to say. Did nothing particularly of note, but was solid while out there, grabbed some boards for us, made one or two defensive plays against the mess they call the Sixers offense. Just a shrug.
Douby ( C- ) -- in the first half came out and hit a three, then forced a shot and got pulled. This immediately caused Grant and Jerry to switch into political mode and start pimping the poor young guy. He then of course began to suck and did nothing the rest of the way. Proving once again what tools our announcers are. In any case, back to Quincy: at least he's getting some minutes now, tried to be active on defense to little effect, and was looking a little more aggressive on offense, while of course not being very smart and missing shots. Still, at least maybe something off of which to begin building.
Corliss ( B ) -- started off making a nice pickup and finish in transition, had some energy, drew some fouls. Continued in a similar vein after half. Still was unable to hit the glass in there, but then again Muss once again was running him at center part time because Muss is a genius and my personal hero. In any case, active and made some solid contributions.
Taylor ( C+ ) -- pretty active in his first half, and then some late minutes doing little. Nothing much statistically, and its a measure of his sadness this year that "being active" without any production merits this grade, but hey, did not hurt us. Yay.
Garcia ( B ) -- last man in the game, but looked steady in there this time. Nothing spectacular, but few of his normal mental mistakes, and some minor contributions across the board, including largely in control offense.
Price ( INC ) -- garbagetime
Hart ( F ) -- gets a couple of minutes of garbagetime, and then goes off and throws in a completely unecessary classless three at the buzzer against a miserable team that at no point was remotely competitive.
Muss ( ITD ) -- we got off to a bad start in this one, but there was never any doubt -- the Sixers barely qualify as a "team". The only uniting factor amongst them being that somebody happened to pass out same color jerseys to each of them. So we struggled, and there was no danger. We pulled ahead a little, and there was no danger. We let them creep back within 10 or so, there was no danger. We extended back to 20, there was no danger. It was kind of pointless to even bother playing this one, other than the Maloofs earning $$ from the 15,000 or whatever that showed up. Started the game in a zone that was moderately effective. Then went to a man to man, which was also moderately effective. Truth is we could have just had all five guys sit down on the floor and the defense would still have been moderately effective just because of who we were playing. Went deep into the bench, which was a good idea on a night like this -- might as well use it to get some guys some time. Muss still must have passed out the valiums at halftime, because we once again caem out in the third desperately trying to give a lifeless team life. Fortunately however Kevin did not get the memo, and while he did nothing else all game, more or less singlehandedly kept us from losing Muss his job with the most embarrassing of all possible collapses against the worst the league has to offer. I decided to invent a new grade for this one -- Impossible to Determine -- since so far as I could tell there was absolutely nothing Muss could have done that would have resulted in anything other than a victory against this team. You could have coached it, I could have. TR Dunn, Grant, the RCD. Maybe Jerry Reynolds could have found a way to lose it. But in general, we did whatever we wanted, we won, there was no other possible outcome, and now we are 12-14. This being the problem with the Oden sweepstakes BTW -- we are boringly mediocre, but there are teams out there far more determined to suck then we are who are going to be near impossible to catch.
Andre Miller ( A+ ) -- oh my goodness -- the theoretical "pass first" PG comes out and shoots 2-14...in the first half?!? Most of them were blown layups too. Bizarre.
Thomas ( C+ ) -- fumbled away several balls for turnovers in the early going and sat much of the second quarter. But was active after half, and while nothing special was effective on the glass. Also got a bit chippy and at one point threw Dalembert to the floor, resulting in a technical. Statistics say I should bump this a half grade or so, but just didn't really see it on court.
Artest ( B ) -- very good first half bulling in on one side, and bothering the rookie Carney on the other. Very active, got his hands on a lot of balls, scrapped, and actually a bit of a textbook on why Ron can still be a bigger impact guy than any other King -- drew so much attention that it opened opportunites for everybody else. Very quiet after half, but wasn't needed as the Sixers were never a serious threat (indeed would not be to the average high school JV team). In any case, this was a ridiculously easy game and its not there in the numbers, but Ron looked good anyway for a long stretch, and that was promising.
Miller ( B- ) -- invisible first half, missing his shots, doing little else. But after half picked it up and made across the board contributions. Thought of going a tad higher, but the first half was probably a D, and the opponent was an F, so thinking the B- was about as high as I could justify.
Martin ( B ) -- invisible start + then got into foul trouble, and I was warming up the "feeling under the weather" excuse here. But then he came out in the third quarter and poured in 15 pts. Probably telling that the quarter started off with Andre Igoudala just simply quitting on a kickout pass to Kevin at the three point line, and just standing dead still and watching Kevin wind up and knock it in. In any case, a strong scoring burst, although not his most dynamic and against an opponent that could barely be accused of caring. And then just sat for the entire 4th quarter with the Sixers toothless and him not 100%.
Bibby ( A- ) -- best and most consistent King on the night, and while this may not have bedn an A- back in the day, this year it was just for being a nice strong solid game all night long. As with eveyone else, gets the "it was only the Sixers" disclaimer -- not hard to score against a totally disorganized mess -- but he played in control, hit his shots, made some good passes. A good outing, even if against a terrible opponent.
Salmons ( C+ ) -- quiet game with some minor contributions. I almost left this at that one line because there really isn't much else to say. Did nothing particularly of note, but was solid while out there, grabbed some boards for us, made one or two defensive plays against the mess they call the Sixers offense. Just a shrug.
Douby ( C- ) -- in the first half came out and hit a three, then forced a shot and got pulled. This immediately caused Grant and Jerry to switch into political mode and start pimping the poor young guy. He then of course began to suck and did nothing the rest of the way. Proving once again what tools our announcers are. In any case, back to Quincy: at least he's getting some minutes now, tried to be active on defense to little effect, and was looking a little more aggressive on offense, while of course not being very smart and missing shots. Still, at least maybe something off of which to begin building.
Corliss ( B ) -- started off making a nice pickup and finish in transition, had some energy, drew some fouls. Continued in a similar vein after half. Still was unable to hit the glass in there, but then again Muss once again was running him at center part time because Muss is a genius and my personal hero. In any case, active and made some solid contributions.
Taylor ( C+ ) -- pretty active in his first half, and then some late minutes doing little. Nothing much statistically, and its a measure of his sadness this year that "being active" without any production merits this grade, but hey, did not hurt us. Yay.
Garcia ( B ) -- last man in the game, but looked steady in there this time. Nothing spectacular, but few of his normal mental mistakes, and some minor contributions across the board, including largely in control offense.
Price ( INC ) -- garbagetime
Hart ( F ) -- gets a couple of minutes of garbagetime, and then goes off and throws in a completely unecessary classless three at the buzzer against a miserable team that at no point was remotely competitive.
Muss ( ITD ) -- we got off to a bad start in this one, but there was never any doubt -- the Sixers barely qualify as a "team". The only uniting factor amongst them being that somebody happened to pass out same color jerseys to each of them. So we struggled, and there was no danger. We pulled ahead a little, and there was no danger. We let them creep back within 10 or so, there was no danger. We extended back to 20, there was no danger. It was kind of pointless to even bother playing this one, other than the Maloofs earning $$ from the 15,000 or whatever that showed up. Started the game in a zone that was moderately effective. Then went to a man to man, which was also moderately effective. Truth is we could have just had all five guys sit down on the floor and the defense would still have been moderately effective just because of who we were playing. Went deep into the bench, which was a good idea on a night like this -- might as well use it to get some guys some time. Muss still must have passed out the valiums at halftime, because we once again caem out in the third desperately trying to give a lifeless team life. Fortunately however Kevin did not get the memo, and while he did nothing else all game, more or less singlehandedly kept us from losing Muss his job with the most embarrassing of all possible collapses against the worst the league has to offer. I decided to invent a new grade for this one -- Impossible to Determine -- since so far as I could tell there was absolutely nothing Muss could have done that would have resulted in anything other than a victory against this team. You could have coached it, I could have. TR Dunn, Grant, the RCD. Maybe Jerry Reynolds could have found a way to lose it. But in general, we did whatever we wanted, we won, there was no other possible outcome, and now we are 12-14. This being the problem with the Oden sweepstakes BTW -- we are boringly mediocre, but there are teams out there far more determined to suck then we are who are going to be near impossible to catch.
Andre Miller ( A+ ) -- oh my goodness -- the theoretical "pass first" PG comes out and shoots 2-14...in the first half?!? Most of them were blown layups too. Bizarre.
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