[Grades] Grades v. Wolves 1/15/2014

[Padrino]

I'd also add that the whole 20/20/20 "issue" that is for some reason a hangup wouldn't be a concern if our SGs were doing anything worth a damn. Get anything half decent (is it too much, at this point, that Ben can become a 13 PPG 3 and D guy?) and then you're looking at something like 24/21/16.5/13... which happens to be this season's 29-9 Trail Blazers.

thornton and mclemore are certainly underperforming, but that's not really the "issue," is it? in my mind, the issue is whether or not isaiah thomas is up to the challenge of suppressing his me-first instincts enough for the rest of the team outside of cousins and gay to make an appreciable difference on offense. even if the kings' SG's were posting adequate shooting percentages, those players are only getting a few shots per game...

now, some might say it doesn't matter where the scoring comes from, as long as the points go up on the board. i happen to disagree; team chemistry, ability to overcome adversity, and the maintaining of locker room morale are important features of a playoff basketball team. this doesn't mean that the kings should return to keith smart's "everyone gets a turn" style of basketball. on the contrary, the offensive hierarchy is being established, and cousins and gay are quite definitively at the top. but after those two cornerstone talents, the rotation could use considerably more balance, particularly on the defensive side of the ball. bring in a starting-caliber PG who doesn't require a ton of shots so that isaiah thomas can be returned to a sixth man's role, and some of those problems diminish immediately...

with two high usage talents in demarcus cousins and rudy gay, i will consistently question the need for yet another high usage player like IT in the starting lineup. elsewhere, the kings have a rookie in ben mclemore whom they want to develop. they also traded for derrick williams, a young talent who's had success thus far when given the opportunity to contribute. they have a backup PF in carl landry who will soon be returning from injury, and who will certainly deserve minutes and shots. etc.

the kings are playing .500 ball since the rudy gay trade, and that's nice, but i'm much more interested in sustainability, and i just don't see it when defense is such a glaring weakness for these kings, and the core of the team is home to three starters working so hard to "get theirs" on offense. balance matters.

 

[jcwkings]

Some people like Rubio for his ball distribution and defense. He got 5 points and 5 assists going head to head against Thomas. Meanwhile IT got 26 points and 7 assists playing against him.
Tell me again why we would want to trade IT for Rubio.

IT is a chucker though, when did he get 7 assists? I wonder how many assists he has averaged as a starter?, probably way below most other starting PG's in the league.

 

[Padrino]

Why are you comparing the Heat to us? They have Beasley, Allen, Chalmers, Cole, Anderson and Lewis. All guys who can put points on the board in different ways. We don't have that kind of talent on our bench. We have Williams and he'd be the 4th or 5th best guy on their bench. If they had IT, they could trade him because they have James and Wade who can both rack up assists, plus Chalmers and Cole who can do some playmaking as well. Our team doesn't have that. Cousins is ok at it and Rudy is ok at it. IT is the only good playmaker we have so if you're going to get rid of him, you absolutely have to replace him with someone who can set the table. You can't rely on our crappy players to all the sudden turn into good players. IT is holding no one back and he's taking shots from no one who deserves them.

We aren't the Heat or the Spurs. We don't have one of the best players to ever play the game and we don't have one of the best coaches to ever coach. We're Sacramento and we aren't going to bring in free agents either. You're trying to compare teams that are talented top to bottom to a team that has about 4 talented players and a bunch of fodder. And the weird thing is that you think one of those 4 is the problem. Boggles my mind.

this isn't worth much of a response because you're not really interested in hearing what i have to say. you're more interested in engaging in obfuscation. nowhere did i compare the kings to any of those teams. i brought up those teams to illustrate how winners create balance in their rotations. if the kings are to become a winner at any point in the near future, they will need to address the issue of balance in their rotation...

beyond that, demarcus cousins and rudy gay are both superior playmakers for their respective positions. isaiah thomas, on the other hand, is a rather mediocre playmaker at his position. if you run the offense through cousins and gay, as malone obviously seems to favor, then you simply do not need a high usage PG to own the bulk of the playmaking responsibility. this was the argument when tyreke evans was a king, and it's still the argument now that rudy gay is a king...

 

[Padrino]

IT is a chucker though, when did he get 7 assists? I wonder how many assists he has averaged as a starter?, probably way below most other starting PG's in the league.

this guy regularly averaged 7 assists per game throughout his career, yet nobody has ever been terribly afraid of labelling him a "chucker," either. ball dominant guards rack up assists by, ya know, being the guys who handle the ball most of the time. that goes doubly so for isaiah thomas, considering that the kings don't really have much in the way of other guards who can handle the ball. jimmer? thornton? mclemore? yeah, right...

 

[jcwkings]

As the team is currently constructed we need Cousins, Gay and IT to be 20 ppg scorers. Who else on this roster performs on offense on a consistent basis? D-Will is starting to show some signs, but thats as a pure slasher attacking the rim on the break and working off the big 3. JT can get us 8-10 points, but thats mainly on garbage duty. Then lets not even speak about Thornton and McLemore.

Now down the line if he gets moved to the 6th man role(assuming he isn't traded), yes his scoring will go down, but the 2013-14 Sacramento Kings need IT to be a 20 point scorer on most nights to win.

 

[jcwkings]

this guy regularly averaged 7 assists per game throughout his career, yet nobody has ever been terribly afraid of labelling him a "chucker," either. ball dominant guards rack up assists by, ya know, being the guys who handle the ball most of the time. that goes doubly so for isaiah thomas, considering that the kings don't really have much in the way of other guards who can handle the ball. jimmer? thornton? mclemore? yeah, right...

IT's game is nothing like Iverson's, IT does most of his work running pick and roll with his bigs and pushing the pace, it just so happens he gets good looks off of that and he gets shots he should take. Does he force it at times? of course, but he is still in the learning process of adjusting from bench scorer to full time starter. Iverson on the other hand was a pure isolation player, I would suspect their shooting percentages are pretty different as well. We rarely if ever run isolation plays for IT like we did with Tyreke, or do with Cousins and Gay atm. If I could make a criticism of IT it would be that he tends to over dribble when plays break down.

 

[LPKingsFan]

thornton and mclemore are certainly underperforming, but that's not really the "issue," is it? in my mind, the issue is whether or not isaiah thomas is up to the challenge of suppressing his me-first instincts enough for the rest of the team outside of cousins and gay to make an appreciable difference on offense. even if the kings' SG's were posting adequate shooting percentages, those players are only getting a few shots per game...

Yeah, I guess where we diverge is that I don't assume IT's current career-high usage rate is a static thing (or any of the current numbers, mind you). I'd guess that if Ben or Thornton were hitting more shots, they'd get the ball more. Apparently that's a revolutionary thought here because it goes against the narrative that IT only cares about IT, which is something I simply am agnostic about because I cannot claim to know that one way or another.

Edit: my guess is that, by the end of the season, if all parties are still here, IT's usage will be lower and his PPG won't be at 20, and at least one of the SGs and possibly DWill and Landry will have picked up the slack.

 

[Padrino]

IT's game is nothing like Iverson's, IT does most of his work running pick and roll with his bigs and pushing the pace, it just so happens he gets good looks off of that and he gets shots he should take. Does he force it at times? of course, but he is still in the learning process of adjusting from bench scorer to full time starter. Iverson on the other hand was a pure isolation player, I would suspect their shooting percentages are pretty different as well. We rarely if ever run isolation plays for IT like we did with Tyreke, or do with Cousins and Gay atm.

regardless of their style of play, my point stands: both are ball dominant scoring PG's. it's not hard to get assists when you're a high usage player who also functions as the primary ball handler. IT played 42 minutes in minnesotta. he handled the ball so much that he was able to rack up 7 assists as well as 7 turnovers. thomas' proclivities really shouldn't be up for debate. he's very capable of making plays for others, but he's also clearly looking to score more often than he's not...

 

[ESP47]

this isn't worth much of a response because you're not really interested in hearing what i have to say. you're more interested in engaging in obfuscation. nowhere did i compare the kings to any of those teams. i brought up those teams to illustrate how winners create balance in their rotations. if the kings are to become a winner at any point in the near future, they will need to address the issue of balance in their rotation...

beyond that, demarcus cousins and rudy gay are both superior playmakers for their respective positions. isaiah thomas, on the other hand, is a rather mediocre playmaker at his position. if you run the offense through cousins and gay, as malone obviously seems to favor, then you simply do not need a high usage PG to own the bulk of the playmaking responsibility. this was the argument when tyreke evans was a king, and it's still the argument now that rudy gay is a king...

Superior playmakers for their positions? Rudy Gay already proved that he fails miserably when forced to be a main playmaker. We'd get absolutely destroyed if we ran the majority of our possessions though Cousins in the high post. He's one of the most turnover prone players in the league. We simple do not have a James/Wade/Durant type playmaker on this team to take the load off the PG.

It really doesn't matter if you think Cousins and Gay are superior playmakers for their positions anyway. They still aren't good playmakers when compared to a point guard. You don't take the ball out of a guy's hand who can make plays and put it into guys who are half as good at it. Makes zero sense.

If you want to talk about rotation balance, lets start with SG and JT and then go from there. You don't start with the 3rd best player on the team. Plain and simple. Start at the position that shoots a combined 2-10 every single night with absolutely no defense, rebounding or assists.

 

[Padrino]

Yeah, I guess where we diverge is that I don't assume IT's current career-high usage rate is a static thing (or any of the current numbers, mind you). I'd guess that if Ben or Thornton were hitting more shots, they'd get the ball more. Apparently that's a revolutionary thought here because it goes against the narrative that IT only cares about IT, which is something I simply am agnostic about because I cannot claim to know that one way or another.

actually, where we diverge is that i'm not interested in seeing IT paid big money just to find out next season that he won't work as a long term starting PG alongside demarcus cousins and rudy gay. right now, kings fans are reveling in a few wins. and that's fine; i am, too. it's really nice to see the team winning for a change. but the playoffs are still a pipe dream this season, and there's a very simple reality waiting right around the corner: isaiah thomas either needs to be re-signed or he needs to be replaced...

now, i don't know what the market will dictate for thomas' next contract, but i do know that his flashy regular season statistics are going to be hard for several GM's to pass up. i wouldn't pay thomas $8-10 million per, and i also wouldn't risk losing him for nothing. that said, i'm not terribly interested in whether or not IT's current career-high usage rate is a static thing, because in my mind, it doesn't matter. he's a starter at the moment, he's putting up big offensive numbers, and he's going to want to get paid for it. i'd trade him before the deadline if i could bring back defensively-inclined pieces that better fit the puzzle...

 

[The_Jamal]

thornton and mclemore are certainly underperforming, but that's not really the "issue," is it? in my mind, the issue is whether or not isaiah thomas is up to the challenge of suppressing his me-first instincts enough for the rest of the team outside of cousins and gay to make an appreciable difference on offense. even if the kings' SG's were posting adequate shooting percentages, those players are only getting a few shots per game...

now, some might say it doesn't matter where the scoring comes from, as long as the points go up on the board. i happen to disagree; team chemistry, ability to overcome adversity, and the maintaining of locker room morale are important features of a playoff basketball team. this doesn't mean that the kings should return to keith smart's "everyone gets a turn" style of basketball. on the contrary, the offensive hierarchy is being established, and cousins and gay are quite definitively at the top. but after those two cornerstone talents, the rotation could use considerably more balance, particularly on the defensive side of the ball. bring in a starting-caliber PG who doesn't require a ton of shots so that isaiah thomas can be returned to a sixth man's role, and some of those problems diminish immediately...

with two high usage talents in demarcus cousins and rudy gay, i will consistently question the need for yet another high usage player like IT in the starting lineup. elsewhere, the kings have a rookie in ben mclemore whom they want to develop. they also traded for derrick williams, a young talent who's had success thus far when given the opportunity to contribute. they have a backup PF in carl landry who will soon be returning from injury, and who will certainly deserve minutes and shots. etc.

the kings are playing .500 ball since the rudy gay trade, and that's nice, but i'm much more interested in sustainability, and i just don't see it when defense is such a glaring weakness for these kings, and the core of the team is home to three starters working so hard to "get theirs" on offense. balance matters.

Role players in January-

JT :

7.6 PPG, 8.6 RPG, 54% FG, 6.5 FGA/game

Derrick Williams:

11.7 PPG, 4 RPG, 56% FG, 8.1 FGA/game

Jimmer Fredette:

8.1 PPG, 2.0 RPG, 2.4 APG, 45% FG, 52% 3pt, 6.8 FGA/game

Marcus Thornton:

4.6 PPG, 3.9 RPG, 29% FG, 26% 3pt, 5.8 FGA/game

Ben McLemore:

3.3 PPG, 2 RPG, 22% FG, 23% 3pt, 5.0 FGA/game

I don't know what your definition of "Balanced" is, but for me, that is exactly the sort of spread you want from the role guys. Between 5-8 shots a night. Jimmer, JT, and Derrick have become really outstanding the last few weeks. Exactly the sort of production you want from the role guys.

The SG's ARE the problem. They aren't scoring, they don't defend (most nights), they aren't providing spacing for the big boys. For instance, go place Courtney Lee (6.7 FGA/game, 42% 3pt, solid defender) in lieu of Marcus Thornton and I bet you'd see a strong improvement on both ends.

 

[jcwkings]

regardless of their style of play, my point stands: both are ball dominant scoring PG's. it's not hard to get assists when you're a high usage player who also functions as the primary ball handler. IT played 42 minutes in minnesotta. he handled the ball so much that he was able to rack up 7 assists as well as 7 turnovers. thomas' proclivities really shouldn't be up for debate. he's very capable of making plays for others, but he's also clearly looking to score more often than he's not...

Well it would be counter productive for this team if IT only shot as a spot up shooter that just hangs out in the corner and gets the ball if Cousins gets doubled. The pick and roll and 3 man game between IT/Gay/Cuz creates movement, all 3 are threats to score, our other players need them to draw attention, that how Williams finds lanes to cut, Thornton gets wide open 3's that he should make, JT is able to mop up or attack space in the paint due to all the attention Cuz, Gay, IT get. I mean if a defense is leaving IT open from 17 ft off a pick and roll, that is his shot, its a high percentage shot that he will make more often than not. The question becomes do you want IT taking an uncontested 17 ft jumper or kicking it out to Derrick Williams or Marcus Thornton for a 3? Which is a higher percentage shot? A few of his assists against Minnesota were driving into the paint and kicking it out to a wide open Rudy Gay for a few 3's. Those are shots that Rudy never gets if we have a purely defensive facilitator.

 

[LPKingsFan]

actually, where we diverge is that i'm not interested in seeing IT paid big money just to find out next season that he won't work as a long term starting PG alongside demarcus cousins and rudy gay. right now, kings fans are reveling in a few wins. and that's fine; i am, too. it's really nice to see the team winning for a change. but the playoffs are still a pipe dream this season, and there's a very simple reality waiting right around the corner: isaiah thomas either needs to be re-signed or he needs to be replaced...

now, i don't know what the market will dictate for thomas' next contract, but i do know that his flashy regular season statistics are going to be hard for several GM's to pass up. i wouldn't pay thomas $8-10 million per, and i also wouldn't risk losing him for nothing. that said, i'm not terribly interested in whether or not IT's current career-high usage rate is a static thing, because in my mind, it doesn't matter. he's a starter at the moment, he's putting up big offensive numbers, and he's going to want to get paid for it. i'd trade him before the deadline if i could bring back defensively-inclined pieces that better fit the puzzle...

Actually, there's not a whole lot in here I disagree with (see, that's the problem with your "kings fans" strawman. you get to paint yourself as the voice of reason educating the unwashed masses, but in reality, it's not so black and white!). I, too, would not pay more than $7 million or so, and I've posted many suggestion in the personnel forums about trading him. I guess I don't think it's as likely that IT will be receiving a big offer sheet this summer (there's a nice breakdown in another thread looking at the teams with cap space and suggesting many don't have a need at PG).

But I do think it's important we use the next month before the trade deadline to figure out who fits and who doesn't. I'm just not certain I know what the outcome of that process will be at this point.

 

[HereWeBoogie]

IT is a chucker though, when did he get 7 assists? I wonder how many assists he has averaged as a starter?, probably way below most other starting PG's in the league.

Most of his assists seem to come on fast breaks and lobs. rarely ever from running great plays in the half court offense

 

[jcwkings]

Most of his assists seem to come on fast breaks and lobs. rarely ever from running great plays in the half court offense

Well against Minnesota two assists were layups and dunks for Gray in the half court, and two drive and kicks to wide open Rudy for 3 in the halfcourt, two alley oops to Rudy, and a dish to Cousins on the break in the second half. Thats just off memory of the last game, it would be impossible to calculate how many assists he gets on the break and in the half court, but in this game 4/7 were in the half court. Also to be fair most assists from any PG will come in the open floor where he is dishing to guys filling the lanes. In our half court offense option #1 is post Iso for Cousins, the next option in the half court is either a Gay iso in the mid post or pick and roll between Cuz/IT or Gay/Cuz.

 

[kupman]

There is a alot of discussion about IT and the offense here. We are averaging around 110 points/game right now. There is far more right with it than wrong with it. If IT becomes a 6th man for this un-named starting traditional PG do we then average 120/game? I have no problem with 3 guys averaging 20/game. Heck, give me 5 guys that average 20/game.

defense....well that is something else.

 

[pshn80]

thornton and mclemore are certainly underperforming, but that's not really the "issue," is it? in my mind, the issue is whether or not isaiah thomas is up to the challenge of suppressing his me-first instincts enough for the rest of the team outside of cousins and gay to make an appreciable difference on offense. even if the kings' SG's were posting adequate shooting percentages, those players are only getting a few shots per game...

now, some might say it doesn't matter where the scoring comes from, as long as the points go up on the board. i happen to disagree; team chemistry, ability to overcome adversity, and the maintaining of locker room morale are important features of a playoff basketball team. this doesn't mean that the kings should return to keith smart's "everyone gets a turn" style of basketball. on the contrary, the offensive hierarchy is being established, and cousins and gay are quite definitively at the top. but after those two cornerstone talents, the rotation could use considerably more balance, particularly on the defensive side of the ball. bring in a starting-caliber PG who doesn't require a ton of shots so that isaiah thomas can be returned to a sixth man's role, and some of those problems diminish immediately...

with two high usage talents in demarcus cousins and rudy gay, i will consistently question the need for yet another high usage player like IT in the starting lineup. elsewhere, the kings have a rookie in ben mclemore whom they want to develop. they also traded for derrick williams, a young talent who's had success thus far when given the opportunity to contribute. they have a backup PF in carl landry who will soon be returning from injury, and who will certainly deserve minutes and shots. etc.

the kings are playing .500 ball since the rudy gay trade, and that's nice, but i'm much more interested in sustainability, and i just don't see it when defense is such a glaring weakness for these kings, and the core of the team is home to three starters working so hard to "get theirs" on offense. balance matters.

I think IT is trying but doing so is just counter to his nature and natural strengths. I sort of favor playing another 20 games or so and see what if anything shakes out. I really don't think 20/20/20 is a problem. Scoring on a higher .% of possessions than the opponent will do it regardless. To do that means we have to tighten up on defense and reduce turnovers, a tough recipe for our guys. One good thing is that our guys seem to realize they need to improve. We shall see.

 

[jcwkings]

There is a alot of discussion about IT and the offense here. We are averaging around 110 points/game right now. There is far more right with it than wrong with it. If IT becomes a 6th man for this un-named starting traditional PG do we then average 120/game? I have no problem with 3 guys averaging 20/game. Heck, give me 5 guys that average 20/game.

defense....well that is something else.

Our team defense has been better overall since that players meeting, or having more practices together. Look at our opponents FG% lately, there has been improvement(while still having lapses). Even with Indiana, they got a lot of easy baskets off of our turnovers but in the half court we played solid defense and usually they were scoring from their 3rd or 4th option in any given set/play, they are just that good/patient(much like the Spurs). This team is playing better, are they great? no, but improvement on both ends is evident of late.

 

[Padrino]

I think IT is trying but doing so is just counter to his nature and natural strengths. I sort of favor playing another 20 games or so and see what if anything shakes out. I really don't think 20/20/20 is a problem. Scoring on a higher .% of possessions than the opponent will do it regardless. To do that means we have to tighten up on defense and reduce turnovers, a tough recipe for our guys. One good thing is that our guys seem to realize they need to improve. We shall see.

while that is a prudent line of thinking, the kings have exactly 18 games between now and the trade deadline on february 20th. considering that they likely don't want to lose isaiah thomas for nothing via free agency, they're going to need to pretty quickly figure out whether or not they want to commit long term salary to him. i suppose there's a chance that they could execute a sign-and-trade for thomas in the offseason, as they did with tyreke evans, but the evans sign-and-trade was borne out of the new regime not having owned the team long enough to determine their plans for evans in advance. i can't imagine they'd prefer to go down that road again, if given the option. so, i guess we'll see what happens between now and february 20th...

 

[Padrino]

Actually, there's not a whole lot in here I disagree with (see, that's the problem with your "kings fans" strawman. you get to paint yourself as the voice of reason educating the unwashed masses, but in reality, it's not so black and white!). I, too, would not pay more than $7 million or so, and I've posted many suggestion in the personnel forums about trading him. I guess I don't think it's as likely that IT will be receiving a big offer sheet this summer (there's a nice breakdown in another thread looking at the teams with cap space and suggesting many don't have a need at PG).

But I do think it's important we use the next month before the trade deadline to figure out who fits and who doesn't. I'm just not certain I know what the outcome of that process will be at this point.

nor do i. coach malone has given some indication in the past that he would prefer to utilize isaiah thomas in a sixth man's capacity, but i don't have the slightest idea of what pete d'allesandro's stance is. we know that he was pursuing the notion of andre miller up until recently, but the kings' general lack of PG depth explains that. PDA hasn't spoken on the topic of IT recently enough for the fans to gauge his thinking on the matter. does he see IT as a long term starter? a sixth man? a part of this team's future at all? he hasn't exactly been a tight-lipped, play 'em close to the vest type since arriving in sacramento, but things have been mostly quiet in the front office since the rudy gay acquisition. i don't know if that means he's got his sights set on making another move before the trade deadline, or if he sees the offseason as the appropriate time to reconsider the make-up of this roster. it's likely to be a long month as we wait to see what PDA's got up his sleeves...

 

[Uncia03]

Yeah, I guess where we diverge is that I don't assume IT's current career-high usage rate is a static thing (or any of the current numbers, mind you). I'd guess that if Ben or Thornton were hitting more shots, they'd get the ball more. Apparently that's a revolutionary thought here because it goes against the narrative that IT only cares about IT, which is something I simply am agnostic about because I cannot claim to know that one way or another.

Edit: my guess is that, by the end of the season, if all parties are still here, IT's usage will be lower and his PPG won't be at 20, and at least one of the SGs and possibly DWill and Landry will have picked up the slack.

I'm not going to really dispute anything here, but I would ask that for the next couple of games just focus on Thornton and Ben. When you're grading them it's not uncommon to see them go 5-7 minutes at the start of the game and the 3rd quarter with-out even touching the ball. When I'm grading the SG spot I typically just keep a tally of when they actually touch the ball and there have been times when my notes said things like: "Touched ball for first time at the 7 minute mark, but not in scoring position. Passed the ball around the horn. Had first scoring opportunity at the 4 minute mark, missed shot."
We are getting basically no production from our SGs right now. However, when you have Cousins/Rudy/IT getting most of the shots and JT getting the ball in the post to kick off games the SG spot can get frozen out for 5-7 minute stretches, and when that happens it's really hard to have any sort of rhythm.
If we did have a pass-first PG, then the SG would get more touches and wouldn't be so eager to hoist up a shot as soon as they finally touch it, regardless of the quality of the shot. Then when Rudy goes to the bench at the 5 minute mark of the 1st & 3rd quarters, IT could come in, shoulder more of the scoring load, and you'd hope that the SG is in enough of a rhythm to continue to be productive.

I think the point that a lot of people are making is if IT did come off the bench and averaged 14 points a game, more than likely you'll make up those 5 points from other players, and hopefully from the SG spot, because getting 5 more points out the SG spot shouldn't be something unattainable if there were only two dominant scorers starting the 1st and 3rd quarters.