Hollinger 30-win prediction

#8
https://www.yahoo.com/sports/kings-predicted-win-30-games-182633441.html

The top article only references Hollinger, from The Athletic who's predicting the Kings tumble back to 30 wins. His reasoning is pretty feeble...."surrounding a young team by Vets too early"? While I'm not really expecting playoffs, I'd be surprised if the team only wins 30 game returning most of the same players from last year.
This is the dankest pile of horsecrap reasoning I've ever smelled. His utter cowardice to acknowledge the Kings might be good this year, and will definitely be better, causes him to contort his mind into an absolutely ridiculous position. He came up with 30 wins and then tried to find a way to justify it. The opposite of insight.
 
#9
This illustrates the problem when people like Hollinger are hyped as "knowing" the NBA. It's not possible to know a lot about every team. So, with a team like the Kings, he goes with the standard national BS. In most of the country he can get away with it.

People like him aren't going to take the Kings seriously until the Kings (figuratively) grab the NBA world by the scruff of the neck, slap them around, and say "PAY ATTENTION!"

Kind of like what the Kings did in '99 ...
 
#12
I respect(ed) Hollinger's knowledge about the game of basketball. However, the reasoning reported by Yahoo makes no sense. Kings signed two veteran players that could take playing time from Giles. They could play if they play better than Giles in which case they contribute to more wins. I get the argument that it could be bad for the development of Giles. I don't see how that negatively affects the record. In addition to that, how signing Barnes to replace no one on SF position lower the record?

Regarding the players' development, I disagree with that argument too. The depth on the two positions Giles can play follows:

5 - Injury-prone Dedmon, high energy career backup Holmes.
4 - Raw talent Bagley, who already missed the games last year and injury-prone, aging Bjelica who played this summer for NT.

Giles will get a chance if he is healthy and even if he does not outplay the other guys. He will have to fight for playing time when everyone is healthy and IMO, it should actually help him become a better player. Assuming, he stays healthy.
 
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#13
He also argues about the loss of our shot blocker WCS.... We loss talent according to him. So another knowledgeable basketball man, totally ignorant about what is going on in Sacramento...
 
#14
This illustrates the problem when people like Hollinger are hyped as "knowing" the NBA. It's not possible to know a lot about every team. So, with a team like the Kings, he goes with the standard national BS. In most of the country he can get away with it.

People like him aren't going to take the Kings seriously until the Kings (figuratively) grab the NBA world by the scruff of the neck, slap them around, and say "PAY ATTENTION!"

Kind of like what the Kings did in '99 ...
This is more than him taking Kings seriously. Nobody has to maybe. But it is about taking your job seriously. If you want to write about a division, well you study all the teams to prevent sounding ignorant. Anybody can argue that kings might only win 30 this year, but nobody can write as a fact that WCS is a shot blocker.
 
#15
Dave talked about it this morning. Hollinger said WCS was a play maker and shot blocker. They just let him go and signed average backups.
When in the history of the NBA has a shot-blocker/playmaker (which WCS has not shown to be either in the NBA) entering his prime made near minimum salary and got passed on by nearly every team which could have offered him 20mil +?
 
#16
When I saw WCS in his summer league games I thought wow that guy is going to be a shot blocking machine. Well we all saw how that turned out.

What I am really interested in is with a week of practice are we going to have a decent defense with signs of progress or the same porous one we blamed on WCS.
 
#17
I just read his article. He has the Kings finishing last, behind the Suns. Some interesting tidbits:

1. He rates the new vet acquisitions as poor--saying they're exception level type of acquisitions.
2. Dude hates Barnes. Maybe not hate, but rates him as a $10M per year player (dude didn't say this specifically, but implied it with his hate).
3. Rates Buddy and Fox as backup level guards.
4. Thinks WCS was a playmaker. No mention of his shot blocking (edited?). Says WCS was the key to the Kings blistering pace, which masked the Kings half court offensive set inefficiency...

The piece is just bad on so many levels. Hope it's posted in the Kings locker room.
 
#18
When I saw WCS in his summer league games I thought wow that guy is going to be a shot blocking machine. Well we all saw how that turned out.

What I am really interested in is with a week of practice are we going to have a decent defense with signs of progress or the same porous one we blamed on WCS.
our issues, in my minority opinion, are that our perimeter was penetrated too easily and the bigs were always at a numerical disadvantage. then we would get a layup by the driver or a dunk by the guy WCS left to go help.

I do not think Dedmon will change that fact much. so whether we have better D will depend on whether Barnes,Corey,Ariza help harden our perimeter and Buddy,Fox,Bogdan get better at it.

Edit: and also we will have the inexperience of Bagley as a headwind. hopefully he gets better with increased playing time
 
#20
Rates Fox as a backup?! LMAOOOOOOOO
Here's the quote:

"...the Kings have two quality backcourt starters in sharpshooter Buddy Hield and emerging speedster DeAaron Fox, and … a lot of guys who are just okay. The hope is that Marvin Bagley can turn into another linchpin in his second season, but his lack of shooting and defensive woes limited him a year ago."

Link here: Hollinger
 
#21
Here's the quote:

"...the Kings have two quality backcourt starters in sharpshooter Buddy Hield and emerging speedster DeAaron Fox, and … a lot of guys who are just okay. The hope is that Marvin Bagley can turn into another linchpin in his second season, but his lack of shooting and defensive woes limited him a year ago."

Link here: Hollinger
That doesn’t say backup?
 
#25
Among the 4 major sports, I have found the NBA to be among the worst when it comes to the Nat’l level media‘s knowledge of teams not routinely part of their coverage. The NFL is 2nd worse.

IMO, while the NFL and NBA are more to my liking than is baseball, MLB does a much better job covering and promoting their non-marquee teams in non-marquee cities, especially on their own network.

But the NBA, specifically on ESPN and on their own network, largely seem only concerned with devoting 95% of their time discussing around a third of their 30 teams. And even that many might be a stretch.

The rest is left up to local media to cover and promote their teams.
 
#26
It's crazy too since the NBA rosters are by far the smallest of all the sports. But they still only want to focus on about a dozen players.

NFL you at least got the argument that there are 50+ guys on a roster, many of them appear to be JAG players but either they get on the field and it turns out they are beneath that level and their team gets destroyed or they get off the field and it turns out they were a key cog nobody noticed. Multiple season ending injuries every game but its murky because unless it's a top guy they don't talk about it, etc. etc.

NBA and NHL have the same amount of players but NHL is 3x as fast, has a much smaller scoring object, subs are live and happen every 90 seconds or less and yet the NHL analysts know and track details that the NBA folks would never mention about players who grind and chip and generally play away from the on screen action. It's crazy when you think about how obtuse NBA analysts are.
 
#28
There is another component to this story. Hollinger created the PER stat and WCS had a PER of 18 last year and Barnes had a PER of 12.3. We gave Barnes a four year deal and WCS is almost out of the league. Either the Kings are horribly wrong or PER is not a very useful stat.
yes, the PER stat has been used to explain how awful we really are and that we're overachieving and then we go and overachieve some more. Either the stat is bad or the team is better than people think, or we're just the luckiest team in the universe.

I'm gonna say as a fan of this team nearing 35 years that I can rule out the latter for sure.
 
#29
There is another component to this story. Hollinger created the PER stat and WCS had a PER of 18 last year and Barnes had a PER of 12.3. We gave Barnes a four year deal and WCS is almost out of the league. Either the Kings are horribly wrong or PER is not a very useful stat.
I believe that, with all stats, nothing is ever black and white and completely scientific. There is always additional context to be considered. Stats are a great baseline, but on their own aren’t the end all, be all.
 
#30
I wouldn't be shocked if we won only 30 games this year (despite what a lot of people think here). However, I don't agree with a lot of Hollinger's reasons for why he thinks we will only win 30 games.

We had the 16th best record last year but we were 21st in NetRTG which tends to mean our record was better than what is expected, so there could be some natural "regression" with that alone.

Then there is always the question if players like Fox, Hield, Bogdanovic, Barnes, Giles, & Bagley even get better.
  1. Does Fox's 3PT% regress? Does he have the killer instinct when his team needs him to take over?
  2. Has Buddy reached his peak?
  3. Is Bogdanovic going to have tired legs? Can Bogdanovic produce on the Kings like he does in FIBA?
  4. Will Barnes stay happy in his role or will he start shooting more like he did in Dallas?
  5. Does Giles get his fouling & turnovers down? Does he have an injury setback?
  6. Does Bagley improve his defense? Does Bagley improve his shooting? Does Bagley learn how to box out? Does Bagley learn how to be a lob threat in the pick & roll?
Then you add in that the West got better with Leonard/Bogdanovic/Russell changing conferences (with Durant going the other way) , LeBron/Porzingis being healthy again (Thompson is hurt), Conley/Davis being rested/not caring when they're on the floor, and the #1 pick Zion being added to a Western team.

Lastly (and maybe the most important), we just had a coaching change. That is a new offense and new defensive schemes they are going to have to learn. It could take time, and during that time, we could be losing more than some of you are expecting.

I don't think 30 wins is completely out of range for us, but again, I don't think Hollinger's reason make much sense. The reasons above is what could cause a 30 win season. Personally, I have us winning ~36 games and missing the playoffs. God knows I hope I'm wrong and we make the playoffs. I'd love to be in our new arena for a playoff game.
 
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