Guess IT's next contract

[Padrino]

A year later, that plan has backfired quite a bit. Thornton was a pretty big disappointment on both ends. His failure at the beginning of the year to be a #2 option is a reason I think we went out and made the Gay trade. McLemore is pretty much all potential still at this point after being one of the worst players in the entire NBA to receive major minutes last season. It's very much up in the air whether or not he can be a starter or even rotational player for a winning team. He's obviously still very young and has time to develop, but he's not someone you can rely on for consistent production next year.

That leaves IT as the only NBA caliber guard on the roster. And that puts us in a tough spot when making the call to resign him or not. Ray did an admirable job with his ironman act of playing 45 MPG as a starter and showed some nice qualities such as ball security, BUT he's clearly not ready to run a team. His defense isn't nearly good enough to make up for how bad his scoring was, or his extremely mediocre (being generous) playmaking.

I don't know about you, but a main guard rotation of Ray-Ben-rookie (Smart? Staukas?) is terrifying to think about, especially if we're trying to make a playoff push next year. Shuttling that as our guard rotation also doesn't show Cuz we're serious about winning in the very near future.

indeed. and i think it speaks both to the mismanagement of the prior regime--who first re-signed marcus thornton to a terrible deal, and then neglected to extend tyreke evans at a time when it would have created a much more favorable bargaining position for the kings--as well as the missteps of the new regime--who gambled on depth they only thought they had in their backcourt rotation, and who have been completely sold on ben mclemore from minute one despite the fact that he came into the league with little in the way of appreciable, nba-ready skills...

i do not disagree with you an ounce that a guard rotation of ray-ben-rookie is terrifying to consider. if thomas does walk in free agency, the kings will simply have to weigh all available options for acquiring a veteran lead guard, if only as a stopgap. it's an unacceptable proposition to go forward with an even thinner backcourt rotation than the kings had last season. even if IT is re-signed, they'll still have to shore up their lack of depth at the guard positions, while also working to acquire something in the way of legitimate rim protection (again, that carl landry signing looks worse and worse every single day)...

all told, it's tough to be optimistic about the kings chances of making a push for .500 next season, much less the playoffs. damn near everything has to go right in an offseason in which damn near everything is up in the air. we don't know about rudy gay. we don't know about isaiah thomas. we don't know what the backcourt rotation will look like when training camp opens. we don't know if rim protection is ever going to be on the way. all we know for sure is that demarcus cousins remains the cornerstone of this franchise, and as good as he is, he can't carry this team over the hump by himself. this is an enormously important offseason; get a few things right, and maybe the win column doesn't seem like such a daunting climb. get a few things wrong, and it's back to square one...