Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
So, there has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth around here, much deserved, some perhaps not. But what if the situation can still be saved?
Some promising things I have noted in the last week:
1) Still Some Soft Schedule Left -- We've got 5 more games left in what should have been the sort part of our schedule. All 4 home games are winnable if we play well/like we have been playing the last 3-4 games: Min, Ind, Tor, Orl, with a tough road game in Clipperland sandwiched in the middle. Despite everything, if we could actually go 4-1 over that stretch, we would still come out of the early season mess 8-10 and on the periphery of the hunt.
2) Lineup Changes Have Revived the Offense -- since making the switch to Brooks and Salmons 4 games ago, the Kings have averaged 103.3pts a game on 51.1% shooing, with all 4 games coming against playoff calber teams. We averaged 91.3ppg over the first 9 games of the season with the old lineup.
3) Brooks as starter -- Aaron Brooks has now started 5 games for the Kings. Over the course of those games he is now shooting 70.4% from the field. Which will kind of get it done. I didn't like the Aaron Brooks signing because in his best years he was a chucker -- same thing that kills me about Jimmer's game, when the best thing you do is dribble down and chuck up threes off your own dribble, well, that's the most selfish shot in basketball. That's the lazy deluded guy's shot on the pickup court, and everybody else wonders why they even bothered to run down court. But something has happened here I did not expect -- Brooks isn't chucking much as a starter. He's letting Reke take the ball and do his thing, which is making Reke better, and Brooks is showing some veteran saavy. Ask him to run the team as a lone ballhandler and he is still erratic as he ever was -- he is not a natural creater. But now have him play Beno, or even really more off the ball than Beno, and be a willing spot shooter and secondary initiator who understands how to feed the post from his Yao days and all of a sudden we look a lot better. Really now, let's flash back to 2009-10: Brooks averages 19.6pts 5.3ast as the Most Improved Player, Reke averages 20.1pts 5.8ast as the Rookie of the Year, and Marcus Thornton as a rookie averages 14.5ppg in 26min a night, and 20.3ppg after the All Star break. If those guys are your three guards, and if they click, how much more backcourt offense could you possibly need?
4) Reke is back -- since walking off the court shaking his head after the Atlanta loss, Tyreke Evans has suddenly reemerged as Tyreke Evans. Except now all of a sudden that jumper is falling, which has long been the "watch out" signal for him. In the last 4 games, notably since the lineup changes may have cleared up the everybody has a green light/nobody gets in rhythm problem, Reke is averagng 21.3pts 5.0reb 4.5ast 1.8stl on .525 shooting, and in relatively short minutes (32min) too. If that can sustain than we suddenly have one of our pillars back, and its not a coincidence that all of a sudden we can score. Just as importantly is HOW Reke is scoring, as for the past 5 or 6 games that jumper has suddenly started to fall, which opens up incredible opportunities. Combined with a sideline decision to let Reke initiate, no matter what you call his posiiton, and the future has brightened once more.
5) Cousins is not back -- and this is a huge reason for hope in my mind. Boogie has gotten off to a terrible start for him, and not the one he hoped to at all (a 'terrible" start for Boogie is only 16.1pts 9.6rebs a game). And 90% of it has been continuing to be out of control emotionally. Sooner or later that is going to turn. He was already averaging 20-10 the second half of last season, the talent is there, and now suddenly the lineup is coalescing out there around him. When, not if, but when he finally gets into a groove, there is our window of opportunity if the Reke/Brooks backcourt holds and continues its productivity.
6) Reke/Cousins 2 man game -- this is on the coaching staff. Along with finally giving the ball back to Reke, there has been the gradual at first, but now increasing use of a Reke/Cousins two man game. How do you get both young stars involved at once? Let them play off each other. Not rocket science. We were seeing Cousins to Reke backdoor cuts and whatnot early, then started to see Reke drive and dumps to Cuz, then a smattering of Reke/Cuz pick and rolls, and now this last game we went to a long sequence of just pounding away at the Jazz possession after possession with a high pick sequence with Reke or Cuz ending up with the ball every single time and making things happen. That should be a staple. It should ALWAYS have been a staple. Better late than never though, and if we start settling into a real offense and milking those guys' abiities together, again, there is hope.
7) Rotations -- okay, admittedly this basically comes down to one half of one game: on Saturday vs. the Jazz all of a sudden Keith Smart grew a brainstem and used a rotation an actual NBA coach might use. The starters did not return at the 3min mark, they returned at the 8min mark. After half rather than trying to play all 5 guards on his roster, he shortened it to a 3 guard rotation of Reke/Brooks/Thornton, in fairly classic minutes distribution, using Reke as the swingguard sometimes at PG and sometimes at SG. Backups got backup minutes. Combined with his switching to a 3 man frontcourt rotation in the second half of the previous game, maybe there is some hope here that our coach is going to shorten things up and quit sabotaging us. You don't need to play 11 guys. The most successful teams in the league are nowhere close. The Knicks play 7, and then 2 short minute guys most nights. Ditto for the Thunder. The Heat use 6 main guys and 3 spot players. Even the Spurs only use 8 main guys and 2 spots. Meanwhile Smart has been trying to play NINE guys 20 or more minutes, and another, TRob, significant rotation mins. Makes you wonder who we are emulating and why. But there are signs of that stupidity cracking now, and if it does, it can only help us.
Some promising things I have noted in the last week:
1) Still Some Soft Schedule Left -- We've got 5 more games left in what should have been the sort part of our schedule. All 4 home games are winnable if we play well/like we have been playing the last 3-4 games: Min, Ind, Tor, Orl, with a tough road game in Clipperland sandwiched in the middle. Despite everything, if we could actually go 4-1 over that stretch, we would still come out of the early season mess 8-10 and on the periphery of the hunt.
2) Lineup Changes Have Revived the Offense -- since making the switch to Brooks and Salmons 4 games ago, the Kings have averaged 103.3pts a game on 51.1% shooing, with all 4 games coming against playoff calber teams. We averaged 91.3ppg over the first 9 games of the season with the old lineup.
3) Brooks as starter -- Aaron Brooks has now started 5 games for the Kings. Over the course of those games he is now shooting 70.4% from the field. Which will kind of get it done. I didn't like the Aaron Brooks signing because in his best years he was a chucker -- same thing that kills me about Jimmer's game, when the best thing you do is dribble down and chuck up threes off your own dribble, well, that's the most selfish shot in basketball. That's the lazy deluded guy's shot on the pickup court, and everybody else wonders why they even bothered to run down court. But something has happened here I did not expect -- Brooks isn't chucking much as a starter. He's letting Reke take the ball and do his thing, which is making Reke better, and Brooks is showing some veteran saavy. Ask him to run the team as a lone ballhandler and he is still erratic as he ever was -- he is not a natural creater. But now have him play Beno, or even really more off the ball than Beno, and be a willing spot shooter and secondary initiator who understands how to feed the post from his Yao days and all of a sudden we look a lot better. Really now, let's flash back to 2009-10: Brooks averages 19.6pts 5.3ast as the Most Improved Player, Reke averages 20.1pts 5.8ast as the Rookie of the Year, and Marcus Thornton as a rookie averages 14.5ppg in 26min a night, and 20.3ppg after the All Star break. If those guys are your three guards, and if they click, how much more backcourt offense could you possibly need?
4) Reke is back -- since walking off the court shaking his head after the Atlanta loss, Tyreke Evans has suddenly reemerged as Tyreke Evans. Except now all of a sudden that jumper is falling, which has long been the "watch out" signal for him. In the last 4 games, notably since the lineup changes may have cleared up the everybody has a green light/nobody gets in rhythm problem, Reke is averagng 21.3pts 5.0reb 4.5ast 1.8stl on .525 shooting, and in relatively short minutes (32min) too. If that can sustain than we suddenly have one of our pillars back, and its not a coincidence that all of a sudden we can score. Just as importantly is HOW Reke is scoring, as for the past 5 or 6 games that jumper has suddenly started to fall, which opens up incredible opportunities. Combined with a sideline decision to let Reke initiate, no matter what you call his posiiton, and the future has brightened once more.
5) Cousins is not back -- and this is a huge reason for hope in my mind. Boogie has gotten off to a terrible start for him, and not the one he hoped to at all (a 'terrible" start for Boogie is only 16.1pts 9.6rebs a game). And 90% of it has been continuing to be out of control emotionally. Sooner or later that is going to turn. He was already averaging 20-10 the second half of last season, the talent is there, and now suddenly the lineup is coalescing out there around him. When, not if, but when he finally gets into a groove, there is our window of opportunity if the Reke/Brooks backcourt holds and continues its productivity.
6) Reke/Cousins 2 man game -- this is on the coaching staff. Along with finally giving the ball back to Reke, there has been the gradual at first, but now increasing use of a Reke/Cousins two man game. How do you get both young stars involved at once? Let them play off each other. Not rocket science. We were seeing Cousins to Reke backdoor cuts and whatnot early, then started to see Reke drive and dumps to Cuz, then a smattering of Reke/Cuz pick and rolls, and now this last game we went to a long sequence of just pounding away at the Jazz possession after possession with a high pick sequence with Reke or Cuz ending up with the ball every single time and making things happen. That should be a staple. It should ALWAYS have been a staple. Better late than never though, and if we start settling into a real offense and milking those guys' abiities together, again, there is hope.
7) Rotations -- okay, admittedly this basically comes down to one half of one game: on Saturday vs. the Jazz all of a sudden Keith Smart grew a brainstem and used a rotation an actual NBA coach might use. The starters did not return at the 3min mark, they returned at the 8min mark. After half rather than trying to play all 5 guards on his roster, he shortened it to a 3 guard rotation of Reke/Brooks/Thornton, in fairly classic minutes distribution, using Reke as the swingguard sometimes at PG and sometimes at SG. Backups got backup minutes. Combined with his switching to a 3 man frontcourt rotation in the second half of the previous game, maybe there is some hope here that our coach is going to shorten things up and quit sabotaging us. You don't need to play 11 guys. The most successful teams in the league are nowhere close. The Knicks play 7, and then 2 short minute guys most nights. Ditto for the Thunder. The Heat use 6 main guys and 3 spot players. Even the Spurs only use 8 main guys and 2 spots. Meanwhile Smart has been trying to play NINE guys 20 or more minutes, and another, TRob, significant rotation mins. Makes you wonder who we are emulating and why. But there are signs of that stupidity cracking now, and if it does, it can only help us.
