Half-Court Offense

[Srzly]

I rewatched every Kings half-court offensive possession from the Rockets game and tracked how many passes we made, even if they were little handoffs like “here you take point.”

Here’s how I counted:
- half-court possessions that resulted in a shot attempt
- no fast-breaks or number advantage possessions
- no counting possessions occurring after an offensive rebound, as that would skew the numbers to lower pass possessions unnecessarily
- any pass counted, even little handoffs right past half court, which sadly accounted for much of the passing

Passes Per Possession	# of Occurrences
0	22
1	29
2	15
3	5
4	3
5	3
6	0
7	1

Of the zero-pass possessions, here are the culprits:
Monk - 11
Westbrook - 7
DDR - 2
Nique - 1
+1 I forgot to note who it was but it would have been Monk, DDR or Russ.

~30% of the possessions had 0 passes.

65% 1 or less pass, many are either right at the start of the possession or late in the shot clock after dribbling around in iso.

How are guys supposed to get in rhythm if they are rarely touching the ball and when they do they are shooting contested looks because there is no ball movement to get the defense moving?

There is very little action outside of PnR, which Max has been very good in.

 

[ESP47]

I think this is pretty much why Keon hasn't been all that good offensively. He has to jack shots up quickly or else one of Russ, DDR, Lavine or Monk will gladly take shots for him. I think Nique is suffering from this issue as well. No one is finding good looks for anyone other than Russ finding the big man here and there. Just a lot of standing around and watching veterans "do their thing".

It's great for the tank but not so great for building trade value and developing young players.

 

[Spike]

The good:
This looks like Team USA basketball

The bad:
Not the good years.

 

[Srzly]

I think this is pretty much why Keon hasn't been all that good offensively. He has to jack shots up quickly or else one of Russ, DDR, Lavine or Monk will gladly take shots for him. I think Nique is suffering from this issue as well. No one is finding good looks for anyone other than Russ finding the big man here and there. Just a lot of standing around and watching veterans "do their thing".

It's great for the tank but not so great for building trade value and developing young players.

Exactly. Then you see the other guys forcing up contested looks because:
1. It’s late in the clock and a shot needs to go up.
2. Now that you finally have the ball you feel like you have to shoot it, because if you pass it then you know it’s not coming back to you.

The problems are compounding with this. It’s teaching bad basketball.

It seems pretty clear that Doug has no offense he expects them to run other than “vets go play offense”

 

[Padrino]

I expected this particular Kings team to trot out a bottom-five defense, but even with my pessimistic outlook heading into the regular season, I didn't suspect their offensive efficiency would be bottom-five, as well. There are certainly personnel issues that compound the team's inefficient one-on-one impulses, but there's just no imagination whatsoever to the coaching staff's offensive gameplan. It's among the reasons I'm so sour on the idea of Doug Christie as a head coach. If he can't hang his hat on coaxing reasonable defensive efficiency from his roster, and he's got nothing even remotely modern to offer on the offensive end, then what is his value ever going to be on the sideline?

 

[dude12]

A guy like Nique who is or can be a very good connector gets wasted in this offense. Like this is pitiful bad. Been this way for awhile. The only thing positive coming out of this season is a potentially top 3 pick, some growth with Maxime, and then I have a hard time thinking of anything else. Keegan isn’t really growing as there are too many guys trying to get their own shot.

The crap going on with Devin Carter makes me so angry. If I’m his agent, I’m ask8ng for them to move him so he can actually begin his career. Beyond bizarre.

 

[hrdboild]

I expected this particular Kings team to trot out a bottom-five defense, but even with my pessimistic outlook heading into the regular season, I didn't suspect their offensive efficiency would be bottom-five, as well. There are certainly personnel issues that compound the team's inefficient one-on-one impulses, but there's just no imagination whatsoever to the coaching staff's offensive gameplan. It's among the reasons I'm so sour on the idea of Doug Christie as a head coach. If he can't hang his hat on coaxing reasonable defensive efficiency from his roster, and he's got nothing even remotely modern to offer on the offensive end, then what is his value ever going to be on the sideline?

As a counterpoint, there have been head coaches who excel primarily at organization and motivation and let their lead assistants handle more of the X's and O's. One of the big advantages that Mike Brown had as a head coach is that he's been coaching so long that he has a long list of coaching contacts who want to work with him and he had no problem delegating responsibilities to assistant coaches that he felt they were well-suited for (which is probably why guys like working for him). Doug could be this type of a coach who is mostly a cheerleader and a defensive teacher on the practice court while someone else schemes the plays and runs the film sessions.

With rookie players, when you're watching them stumble through their early career mistakes the judgement call is whether they are learning from those mistakes and building a skillset which will enable them to continue to improve throughout their career or if they're just maxed out at this level and won't get any better. I think the same is probably true for coaches and I'm not ready to declare which it is with Doug but I did warn people right after Mike Brown was fired that we were potentially entering another coaching carousel. Sure theoretically there is some perfect coach out there waiting to be uncovered but realistically they all have their strengths and weaknesses and what this team (and really any team) has needed most is one consistent voice of leadership who is fixed in place. And then we need to give them time to mold the personality of the team to fit their preferred style of play.

The early returns on Doug as a head coach have been mixed and lately pretty bad but we did also know that this roster was going to be a mess (at least most of us did) so I'm not sure that a rookie coach failing to wrangle an aging and unbalanced veteran roster is indicative of anything long-term which should dismiss him as a candidate to be that voice of leadership. As the veterans fall away and get replaced with younger legs and more capable defenders, if he continues to struggle then at that point I would start looking elsewhere for a replacement and I would strongly lean toward finding someone with more experience. A young coach might be a good fit for a young roster but we'll never know at this rate and given the lack of patience exhibited by the man in charge with any personnel decisions, we probably lack the organizational structure here to support a young coach anyway.

 

[The_Jamal]

A guy like Nique who is or can be a very good connector gets wasted in this offense. Like this is pitiful bad. Been this way for awhile. The only thing positive coming out of this season is a potentially top 3 pick, some growth with Maxime, and then I have a hard time thinking of anything else. Keegan isn’t really growing as there are too many guys trying to get their own shot.

The crap going on with Devin Carter makes me so angry. If I’m his agent, I’m ask8ng for them to move him so he can actually begin his career. Beyond bizarre.

We saw in SL, Nique is a very unselfish player that looks to make the right play over and over. He's a talented playmaker too. But our offense has just devolved into all the vets taking their turn with an ISO possession, which is what these stats more or less prove. Again, what a devolvement from 2 years ago where we lead the NBA in passes/game with the #1 offense in basketball. Not only that, but the primary engine of that offense, Domas, has been neutered this year and essentially been made an after-thought. It's just pathetic all around.

 

[The_Jamal]

Exactly. Then you see the other guys forcing up contested looks because:
1. It’s late in the clock and a shot needs to go up.
2. Now that you finally have the ball you feel like you have to shoot it, because if you pass it then you know it’s not coming back to you.

The problems are compounding with this. It’s teaching bad basketball.

It seems pretty clear that Doug has no offense he expects them to run other than “vets go play offense”

What's even more frustrating is going back to that MEM game. We found a 5-man unit that was flat out awesome for a stretch:

Monk
Keon
Nique
Precious
Maxime

That went on a big run, was +9 in 6 minutes.... that was never seen again the rest of the game. Those were the only minutes Keon got all night. Nique got one more rotation. So instead of leaning into a unit that played great... he just defaults back to his normal rotations and making sure the vets get their minutes.

I mean, what a perfect scenario for the young guys to get extended run, even if it's just for that game. ESPY brought it up last night too, Carter somehow can't get on the floor in the 4th quarter during a blow-out? Like what are we even doing here?

 

[QWERTYLICIOUS]

Carter somehow can't get on the floor in the 4th quarter during a blow-out? Like what are we even doing here?

Stuff like this kind of tells me that it is more of a Vivek decision than it is a Christie decision. I highly doubt that Doug, a great defensive player in his days, would just decide not to play Keon (who has an immense amount of potential on the defensive side of the ball) virtually at all. He has to be given instructions from the higher up (in this case, Vivek)...No other explanation makes any sense to me whatsoever.

If you ask me, this mess has Vivek's name written all over it. It's just unfortunate that he has decided to make Doug his puppet.

 

[The_Jamal]

Stuff like this kind of tells me that it is more of a Vivek decision than it is a Christie decision. I highly doubt that Doug, a great defensive player in his days, would just decide not to play Keon (who has an immense amount of potential on the defensive side of the ball) virtually at all. He has to be given instructions from the higher up (in this case, Vivek)...No other explanation makes any sense to me whatsoever.

If you ask me, this mess has Vivek's name written all over it. It's just unfortunate that he has decided to make Doug his puppet.

I guess, but then do we ever attribute anything to Doug? What happens if we rip 20 wins off in a row? Is that Vivek or Doug?

 

[ShastaKingsFan]

I guess, but then do we ever attribute anything to Doug? What happens if we rip 20 wins off in a row? Is that Vivek or Doug?

It would be all credit to the players. Nothing to do with coaching or front office at this point

 

[Krunker]

I thought the half court offense would be a lot better, even before Sabonis got hurt it seemed pretty stagnant. OP's data matches the eyeball test and it seems like our main plays are either 1:1 or a high pick and roll. Doug's gotta get most of the blame for the offensive sets.

 

[sono]

Is Keegan’s aggressiveness just a byproduct of the Kings’ stagnant half court sets? you know, take the matter into his own hands rather than waiting around the arc.

 

[Srzly]

Is Keegan’s aggressiveness just a byproduct of the Kings’ stagnant half court sets? you know, take the matter into his own hands rather than waiting around the arc.

Could be a matter of knowing he has to be aggressive because he isn’t going to get the ball in a more natural way on offense. I think it’s causing him and others to force some shots they normally wouldn’t take.

It’s just sorta funny that Monk was the player who pointed out how the ball is sticking and guys aren’t passing the ball enough two games ago and then he had the most 0-pass possessions the very next game.

It’s not all on the players though. The offense most possessions is literally 1 screen/PnR or clear out a side for iso. There’s very little movement or creativity. The coaches should be doing something.

It’s just really ugly basketball.

 

[Spike]

Man, just looking at the way the Rockets are coached vs. what we looked like in the game was stark. I wondered what our team would look like if we were given the same roster, and whether or not the players would have shown similar growth. I don't think they would have. They are well-coached, not just talented.

I see some glimpses of our young players growing. But, not much. Max is kinda doing it by drinking from the fire hose, but I don't see the vets doing anything specifically on the court to put the kids in a position to succeed. Is part of that the narrative that Vivek has ordered a "win-now" mandate? Idk. Some vets naturally reach out and try to help younger players. Others push them down. I'm not sure what combination we have in our locker room.

Do I give Christie a pass this year? I guess. I want to see what this team looks like in a few weeks. If it's the same roster, I'm going to be pretty disappointed in Perry, but also, I'll be curious to see what Christie does to ride out the rest of the year, regardless of mandate. Based on what I've seen, though, I think he needs to find a better bench if he wants to evolve. They just don't look cohesive or like they're trying to follow a presented plan.

 

[Padrino]

As a counterpoint, there have been head coaches who excel primarily at organization and motivation and let their lead assistants handle more of the X's and O's. One of the big advantages that Mike Brown had as a head coach is that he's been coaching so long that he has a long list of coaching contacts who want to work with him and he had no problem delegating responsibilities to assistant coaches that he felt they were well-suited for (which is probably why guys like working for him). Doug could be this type of a coach who is mostly a cheerleader and a defensive teacher on the practice court while someone else schemes the plays and runs the film sessions.

With rookie players, when you're watching them stumble through their early career mistakes the judgement call is whether they are learning from those mistakes and building a skillset which will enable them to continue to improve throughout their career or if they're just maxed out at this level and won't get any better. I think the same is probably true for coaches and I'm not ready to declare which it is with Doug but I did warn people right after Mike Brown was fired that we were potentially entering another coaching carousel. Sure theoretically there is some perfect coach out there waiting to be uncovered but realistically they all have their strengths and weaknesses and what this team (and really any team) has needed most is one consistent voice of leadership who is fixed in place. And then we need to give them time to mold the personality of the team to fit their preferred style of play.

The early returns on Doug as a head coach have been mixed and lately pretty bad but we did also know that this roster was going to be a mess (at least most of us did) so I'm not sure that a rookie coach failing to wrangle an aging and unbalanced veteran roster is indicative of anything long-term which should dismiss him as a candidate to be that voice of leadership. As the veterans fall away and get replaced with younger legs and more capable defenders, if he continues to struggle then at that point I would start looking elsewhere for a replacement and I would strongly lean toward finding someone with more experience. A young coach might be a good fit for a young roster but we'll never know at this rate and given the lack of patience exhibited by the man in charge with any personnel decisions, we probably lack the organizational structure here to support a young coach anyway.

Man, just looking at the way the Rockets are coached vs. what we looked like in the game was stark. I wondered what our team would look like if we were given the same roster, and whether or not the players would have shown similar growth. I don't think they would have. They are well-coached, not just talented.

I see some glimpses of our young players growing. But, not much. Max is kinda doing it by drinking from the fire hose, but I don't see the vets doing anything specifically on the court to put the kids in a position to succeed. Is part of that the narrative that Vivek has ordered a "win-now" mandate? Idk. Some vets naturally reach out and try to help younger players. Others push them down. I'm not sure what combination we have in our locker room.

Do I give Christie a pass this year? I guess. I want to see what this team looks like in a few weeks. If it's the same roster, I'm going to be pretty disappointed in Perry, but also, I'll be curious to see what Christie does to ride out the rest of the year, regardless of mandate. Based on what I've seen, though, I think he needs to find a better bench if he wants to evolve. They just don't look cohesive or like they're trying to follow a presented plan.

I'm roping these two replies together because I think @Spike has the right attitude about this. Look around the NBA at the teams with the most promise. Then look at their head coaches. Who among them are being staffed by classic NBA "motivator" types? Almost none of them.

Ime Udoka
Quin Snyder
Mark Daigneault
Joe Mazzulla
Kenny Atkinson
David Adelman
Erik Spoelstra
Rick Carlisle

These teams are led by coaches with forward-thinking visions, very pronounced systems, adaptable gameplans, and particular approaches to modern NBA basketball. There are certainly strong personalities amongst this bunch, but they're definitely not "hand it off to assistants to tackle Xs and Os" types.

Personally, I was pulling for the Kings to snag Kenny Atkinson the season they hired Mike Brown, but they passed on the opportunity to hire an adaptable, forward-thinking head coach, as they often do. Brown ended up performing better in the role than I expected, because I considered him an also-ran, but his modest success in Sacramento largely came from the fact that he recognized the need to modernize his approach to offense if he wanted to have staying power as a head coach in this league (as a sidebar, it remains odd to me that his defensive philosophy has stagnated, as the Knicks are struggling to contain three-point shooters in the same way that the Kings did under Brown).

Ultimately, I want the Kings to get a guy like Ime, a guy like Snyder, a guy like Atkinson. Ironically, Jordi Fernandez was the closest thing to such a hire, and the Kings let the Nets swipe Jordi out from under them only to fire Mike Brown anyway. It's frustrating to me how often this franchise is a step or two behind everybody else.

 

[ShastaKingsFan]

I'm roping these two replies together because I think @Spike has the right attitude about this. Look around the NBA at the teams with the most promise. Then look at their head coaches. Who among them are being staffed by classic NBA "motivator" types? Almost none of them.

Ime Udoka
Quin Snyder
Mark Daigneault
Joe Mazzulla
Kenny Atkinson
David Adelman
Erik Spoelstra
Rick Carlisle

These teams are led by coaches with forward-thinking visions, very pronounced systems, adaptable gameplans, and particular approaches to modern NBA basketball. There are certainly strong personalities amongst this bunch, but they're definitely not "hand it off to assistants to tackle Xs and Os" types.

Personally, I was pulling for the Kings to snag Kenny Atkinson the season they hired Mike Brown, but they passed on the opportunity to hire an adaptable, forward-thinking head coach, as they often do. Brown ended up performing better in the role than I expected, because I considered him an also-ran, but his modest success in Sacramento largely came from the fact that he recognized the need to modernize his approach to offense if he wanted to have staying power as a head coach in this league (as a sidebar, it remains odd to me that his defensive philosophy has stagnated, as the Knicks are struggling to contain three-point shooters in the same way that the Kings did under Brown).

Ultimately, I want the Kings to get a guy like Ime, a guy like Snyder, a guy like Atkinson. Ironically, Jordi Fernandez was the closest thing to such a hire, and the Kings let the Nets swipe Jordi out from under them only to fire Mike Brown anyway. It's frustrating to me how often this franchise is a step or two behind everybody else.

The root issue is always a lack of basketball and professional sports iQ from this owner. Anything that he thinks is a good idea that will move the organization forward, is actually pushing the whole thing backwards.....and the sad part about it, is that it pushes anyone away who might have a chance to help turn things around. Afterall, what forward thinking pro wants anything to do with a consistently backwards organization, led by one of the worst owners in pro sports

 

[admira1]

Could be a matter of knowing he has to be aggressive because he isn’t going to get the ball in a more natural way on offense. I think it’s causing him and others to force some shots they normally wouldn’t take.

It’s just sorta funny that Monk was the player who pointed out how the ball is sticking and guys aren’t passing the ball enough two games ago and then he had the most 0-pass possessions the very next game.

It’s not all on the players though. The offense most possessions is literally 1 screen/PnR or clear out a side for iso. There’s very little movement or creativity. The coaches should be doing something.

It’s just really ugly basketball.

I'm one of the more apologetic fans for when we're bad or for overly supporting "our guys' "just be patient" etc...but this has been the fewest amount of games I've watched to start a season in quite some time...

 

[QWERTYLICIOUS]

I guess, but then do we ever attribute anything to Doug? What happens if we rip 20 wins off in a row? Is that Vivek or Doug?

Doug and the players. No amount of success this season will ever be attributed to Vivek.

 

[The_Jamal]

Doug and the players. No amount of success this season will ever be attributed to Vivek.

See that's silly. So while we suck, its Viveks fault, if we turn it around, somehow, its Doug?

 

[QWERTYLICIOUS]

See that's silly. So while we suck, its Viveks fault, if we turn it around, somehow, its Doug?

If we manage to turn this thing around a bit, it would be because Doug would be able to get something out of what he was given to work with. It's widely known that Vivek is a hands on owner, and has more input on the makeup of his team's roster than one would like him to have. If this roster is the best that he can produce and provide to Doug for him (Doug) to work with, then expecting anything but a mediocre performance with a significantly greater amount of losses is just borderline delusional, especially as an owner. I would expect my favorite team's owner to at least know how to run a sports franchise, and to understand what it takes to build a successful one. Vivek wants this team to function like his kid's recreational basketball team. I am sure the dude is smart enough to be able to understand that a professional basketball team won't be nearly as successful running whatever offensive scheme Anjali's basketball team runs/ran. If that is his vision of championship basketball at the professional level, then that's on Vivek. If he wants his general manager to provide his head coach with a roster that's capable of playing that style of basketball, and if that said head coach manages to then turn things around and actually produce something that resembles a degree of hope moving forward, then give the credit to the coach for making a mountain out of a pile of dirt.

 

[SacTownKid]

Is Keegan’s aggressiveness just a byproduct of the Kings’ stagnant half court sets? you know, take the matter into his own hands rather than waiting around the arc.

I was watching Keegan college highlights last week when people were talking about how much of a jump he's made. He didn't make any jumps. He's just finally starting to pull out those college moves. The shoulder bump, the straight drives. It was all there. Now we finally get to see what he is long term. I still see him being a good 20 ppg guy at least. Keegan is going to play depending on what the defense does. The last two games the defense has ball hawked him and gone at his dribble. It is what it is. His rangy build is used to his disadvantage at times when a smaller player right in his dribble can pressure him. This is where maybe letting him turn his back and post up more pushes him to the next level. Keegan is a combo F, not a guard style wing, he's too big and the tools are that of SF/PF. He's far more Shareef Abdur-Rahim than Jayson Tatum although there is some crossover even with those two.

 

[hrdboild]

I'm roping these two replies together because I think @Spike has the right attitude about this. Look around the NBA at the teams with the most promise. Then look at their head coaches. Who among them are being staffed by classic NBA "motivator" types? Almost none of them.

Ime Udoka
Quin Snyder
Mark Daigneault
Joe Mazzulla
Kenny Atkinson
David Adelman
Erik Spoelstra
Rick Carlisle

These teams are led by coaches with forward-thinking visions, very pronounced systems, adaptable gameplans, and particular approaches to modern NBA basketball. There are certainly strong personalities amongst this bunch, but they're definitely not "hand it off to assistants to tackle Xs and Os" types.

Personally, I was pulling for the Kings to snag Kenny Atkinson the season they hired Mike Brown, but they passed on the opportunity to hire an adaptable, forward-thinking head coach, as they often do. Brown ended up performing better in the role than I expected, because I considered him an also-ran, but his modest success in Sacramento largely came from the fact that he recognized the need to modernize his approach to offense if he wanted to have staying power as a head coach in this league (as a sidebar, it remains odd to me that his defensive philosophy has stagnated, as the Knicks are struggling to contain three-point shooters in the same way that the Kings did under Brown).

Ultimately, I want the Kings to get a guy like Ime, a guy like Snyder, a guy like Atkinson. Ironically, Jordi Fernandez was the closest thing to such a hire, and the Kings let the Nets swipe Jordi out from under them only to fire Mike Brown anyway. It's frustrating to me how often this franchise is a step or two behind everybody else.

I don't disagree -- certainly I would prefer that we had an elite basketball mind calling the shots. I guess all I'm saying is that we don't really know who Doug Christie is as a coach yet, he's had less than a year in the job. Some of those names you mentioned had the advantage of building their reputation after inheriting winning rosters. Things look bad now but let's say we had Rick Carlilse instead -- is he going to scheme up an offense that works with Schröder, Westbrook, DeRozan, LaVine, Eubanks (lately), Sabonis and Murray as his main pieces? Is he going to get this group to defend anybody? Maybe he would have the track record to petition for guys like Ellis and Carter to play more or push to get some vets traded sooner but that's all hypothetical. It's possible he would also lean on the vets to his own detriment.

Jordi Fernandez is in a similar situation with a horrible roster in Brooklyn and so far he's got a coaching record of 31-73. He might be out of there before they ever get good again. I don't know which needs to come first or if it just has to grow organically but the roster needs to make sense not just as a cluster of talent but as an overlapping mesh of players who compliment each other and the coach needs to understand who is on that roster and how to get the most of their abilities. Some of the criticism being directed at Doug on this board I would agree with ("if you want to talk about defense than maybe play your best defenders more?") but some of it I don't agree with ("he's leaving wins on the table by not using these offensive weapons in the right way"). Guys like DeRozan and LaVine have played well in the past (LaVine in Minnesota / DeRozan in Toronto and San Antonio) when they were surrounded by a core group of players who are physical and fundamentally sound and we don't have that on this roster. We are undersized and ego-driven. A whole lot of heavy lifting needs to be done on this roster before I think the head coach is going to impact winning one way or another.

 

[ShastaKingsFan]

I was watching Keegan college highlights last week when people were talking about how much of a jump he's made. He didn't make any jumps. He's just finally starting to pull out those college moves. The shoulder bump, the straight drives. It was all there. Now we finally get to see what he is long term. I still see him being a good 20 ppg guy at least. Keegan is going to play depending on what the defense does. The last two games the defense has ball hawked him and gone at his dribble. It is what it is. His rangy build is used to his disadvantage at times when a smaller player right in his dribble can pressure him. This is where maybe letting him turn his back and post up more pushes him to the next level. Keegan is a combo F, not a guard style wing, he's too big and the tools are that of SF/PF. He's far more Shareef Abdur-Rahim than Jayson Tatum although there is some crossover even with those two.

The challenge is getting someone in charge of the offense, who is creative enough to get him in spots to take advantage of his skills. If you play him at the 3, then he has physical advantages. Not so much against NBA 4's, which is why I want a "no doubt" 4 to play along side him

 

[hrdboild]

I was watching Keegan college highlights last week when people were talking about how much of a jump he's made. He didn't make any jumps. He's just finally starting to pull out those college moves. The shoulder bump, the straight drives. It was all there. Now we finally get to see what he is long term. I still see him being a good 20 ppg guy at least. Keegan is going to play depending on what the defense does. The last two games the defense has ball hawked him and gone at his dribble. It is what it is. His rangy build is used to his disadvantage at times when a smaller player right in his dribble can pressure him. This is where maybe letting him turn his back and post up more pushes him to the next level. Keegan is a combo F, not a guard style wing, he's too big and the tools are that of SF/PF. He's far more Shareef Abdur-Rahim than Jayson Tatum although there is some crossover even with those two.

I don't know that there's that much difference between Jayson Tatum and Abdur-Rahim though. If you take Abdur-Rahim out of the late 90s/early 2000s NBA and put him into today's game he probably is going to be putting up an equivalent 26-30 ppg instead of 18-22 ppg.

Yeah okay maybe Tatum has a deeper bag of tricks than a guy like Keegan but I still feel like "style of play" is over blown by pretty much everybody. It impacts highlight reels but nobody wins games on style points. "Yes but Tatum can iso and create in the half court from the perimeter" -- so the argument goes. Well, Keegan does that too, he just does it from a triple threat position rather than squaring up the defender and trying to start his dribble drive with a crossover. Are Kyrie Irving's 27 points and 6 assists worth more somehow than Jalen Brunson's 27 points and 6 assists because he generates more oohs and aahs per minute played? I don't think so.

 

[kingsboi]

The root issue is always a lack of basketball and professional sports iQ from this owner. Anything that he thinks is a good idea that will move the organization forward, is actually pushing the whole thing backwards.....and the sad part about it, is that it pushes anyone away who might have a chance to help turn things around. Afterall, what forward thinking pro wants anything to do with a consistently backwards organization, led by one of the worst owners in pro sports

when he hired a so called "agency" to fish out Monte for a hiring, I figured he may of finally turned the corner and let others do their due diligence to find a long term hire and instead it turned into one post season berth and a three year tenure to show for before going back to what he knew previously (Perry)

 

[kingsboi]

I was watching Keegan college highlights last week when people were talking about how much of a jump he's made. He didn't make any jumps. He's just finally starting to pull out those college moves. The shoulder bump, the straight drives. It was all there. Now we finally get to see what he is long term. I still see him being a good 20 ppg guy at least. Keegan is going to play depending on what the defense does. The last two games the defense has ball hawked him and gone at his dribble. It is what it is. His rangy build is used to his disadvantage at times when a smaller player right in his dribble can pressure him. This is where maybe letting him turn his back and post up more pushes him to the next level. Keegan is a combo F, not a guard style wing, he's too big and the tools are that of SF/PF. He's far more Shareef Abdur-Rahim than Jayson Tatum although there is some crossover even with those two.

he has a Antawn Jamison type of frame

 

[TaxMan]

I'm roping these two replies together because I think @Spike has the right attitude about this. Look around the NBA at the teams with the most promise. Then look at their head coaches. Who among them are being staffed by classic NBA "motivator" types? Almost none of them.

Ime Udoka
Quin Snyder
Mark Daigneault
Joe Mazzulla
Kenny Atkinson
David Adelman
Erik Spoelstra
Rick Carlisle

These teams are led by coaches with forward-thinking visions, very pronounced systems, adaptable gameplans, and particular approaches to modern NBA basketball. There are certainly strong personalities amongst this bunch, but they're definitely not "hand it off to assistants to tackle Xs and Os" types.

Personally, I was pulling for the Kings to snag Kenny Atkinson the season they hired Mike Brown, but they passed on the opportunity to hire an adaptable, forward-thinking head coach, as they often do. Brown ended up performing better in the role than I expected, because I considered him an also-ran, but his modest success in Sacramento largely came from the fact that he recognized the need to modernize his approach to offense if he wanted to have staying power as a head coach in this league (as a sidebar, it remains odd to me that his defensive philosophy has stagnated, as the Knicks are struggling to contain three-point shooters in the same way that the Kings did under Brown).

Ultimately, I want the Kings to get a guy like Ime, a guy like Snyder, a guy like Atkinson. Ironically, Jordi Fernandez was the closest thing to such a hire, and the Kings let the Nets swipe Jordi out from under them only to fire Mike Brown anyway. It's frustrating to me how often this franchise is a step or two behind everybody else.

I’m concerned we lack not only a forward thinking coach but also (more importantly right now) a forward thinking GM. Does Perry see what we all see with this roster? Yes, he certainly does. Will he make moves to change things? Yes, he certainly will. Will he make the right moves to set us up for the next “phase” of the NBA? I doubt that. We very might luck into success through the lottery gods, but Perry just strikes me as not having a “pioneer” mindset that makes decisions to keep us one step ahead of the rest of the league. I cringe when I hear folks talk about Perry’s impressive resume as part of the brain trust behind the Pistons title run with Dumars. That is ancient thinking (there is a reason Dumars is now an joke) and nothing he has done since suggests he thinks outside the box (in a good way) that will give us a competitive advantage.

 

[Kingster]

I expected this particular Kings team to trot out a bottom-five defense, but even with my pessimistic outlook heading into the regular season, I didn't suspect their offensive efficiency would be bottom-five, as well. There are certainly personnel issues that compound the team's inefficient one-on-one impulses, but there's just no imagination whatsoever to the coaching staff's offensive gameplan. It's among the reasons I'm so sour on the idea of Doug Christie as a head coach. If he can't hang his hat on coaxing reasonable defensive efficiency from his roster, and he's got nothing even remotely modern to offer on the offensive end, then what is his value ever going to be on the sideline?

My impression from watching a zillion NBA games over many years is that it takes less brains to coach defense than offense. Defense requires a coach that motivates effort on the defensive end. Offense requires more imagination and intelligence of how to attack with existing personnel. From the beginning I saw Christie as more of the defensive motivator type coach, not the high IQ offensive coach.