Is this team really going in the right direction?

[PoundForPound]

As most Kings fans will tell you, this season is simply a rebuilding phase working towards a brighter future. Countless 20+ point losses, a coaching change, unset rotations 30+ games into the season...are we really headed to the right direction? I know you all want that good draft pick, but will it change anything? If you expect the Kings to contend within 5 years, you need to change your perspective. I understand that GP and the Maloofs want to develop a young nucleus but is this the way to do it? To sit through these blowouts and effortless attempts night after night without making a single change (besides the coach of course). What I'm trying to say is that something needs to be done here, because rebuilding or not, a team should always compete. At this point, I don't feel assured to say that the Kings are doing so. Is there really a light at the tunnel if we stay the way we are now?

 

[PurpleHaze]

Direction? There is no direction, since this is a lost season as management has made clear. They fired Theus for no good reason except, "needed a different voice." Theus was liked by Kings players, no evidence he was being tuned out, and could have stayed 'til end of season and then been fairly evaluated.

Draft pick? There is no guarantee a high first round pick or even #1 overall will get anything of spectacular value. Look at Kings previous #1 overall (Ellison) or other high draft junk (Klein, etc.). The highest picks quite often are total crap shoots. Most teams get good to great via free agency signings/trades with Boston latest example (Garnett, Allen) with added bonus on lucking out on Rondo who lucked out being on a team with three superstars.

Light at end of tunnel? What tunnel, do you see a tunnel? The Kings simply need to dump dead weight contracts (Miller, Mikki, Thomas, etc) and get along with the biz of signing free agents, swinging trades. With two high draft picks coming up, the best that's likely to do is deliver more young clones of Thompson, Hawes, Greene - meaning a wait of several years for all of it to REALLY come together and produce.

 

[RalphySampson]

Direction? There is no direction, since this is a lost season as management has made clear. They fired Theus for no good reason except, "needed a different voice." Theus was liked by Kings players, no evidence he was being tuned out, and could have stayed 'til end of season and then been fairly evaluated.

Draft pick? There is no guarantee a high first round pick or even #1 overall will get anything of spectacular value. Look at Kings previous #1 overall (Ellison) or other high draft junk (Klein, etc.). The highest picks quite often are total crap shoots. Most teams get good to great via free agency signings/trades with Boston latest example (Garnett, Allen) with added bonus on lucking out on Rondo who lucked out being on a team with three superstars.

Light at end of tunnel? What tunnel, do you see a tunnel? The Kings simply need to dump dead weight contracts (Miller, Mikki, Thomas, etc) and get along with the biz of signing free agents, swinging trades. With two high draft picks coming up, the best that's likely to do is deliver more young clones of Thompson, Hawes, Greene - meaning a wait of several years for all of it to REALLY come together and produce.

First of all, you're wrong about most teams getting good via free agency. Yes, Boston was an example of that but if you look back 15 years you will find that the majority of franchises are built through the draft. Think about San Antonio, Orlando, Portland, Utah, Phoenix, Cleveland, and many more teams right now and you can go back and point to a player or two that were drafted that changed the franchise.

Secondly, it's not as easy as "dumping dead weight contracts." Do you really think any NBA franchise wants the contracts of Thomas and Moore? Miller does have some trade value but it most likely will come at a price. If we are able to trade Thomas and/or Moore we probably would have to give up something else in order for a team to take on those salaries.

We are rebuilding and it's not fun. I'd much rather do what we are doing now then win 35 games and get another 12th pick. I trust GP in the draft and I'd like to see what he can do if he gets a top 5 pick.

 

[Section 101]

First of all, you're wrong about most teams getting good via free agency. Yes, Boston was an example of that but if you look back 15 years you will find that the majority of franchises are built through the draft. Think about San Antonio, Orlando, Portland, Utah, Phoenix, Cleveland, and many more teams right now and you can go back and point to a player or two that were drafted that changed the franchise.

I fail to see your point. Only the Spurs have a ring. They got lucky to get Duncan, boston had the best odds. They drafted Parker at the end of round 1 and Manu in the 2nd round. The rest are basically fillers and most were free agents.

Orlando's big 3, 1 was drafted the other 2 (hedo, Lewis) were FA. Portland got lucky and got Oden. They traded for Roy and Aldridge, granted for players taken next to them. And bought the pick for Rudy.

Utah got Williams via draft but signed Boozer and Okur as FA's. They drafted Millsap in the second round.

The suns drafted Amare and signed Nash as a FA and traded for Shaq. They traded for the late draft rights of Barbosa from the Spurs.

Cavs won the lotto and got James. The majority of the rest were from trades except Z and Gibson again a second rounder.

All these teams have the same thing except Portand which is really the exception to anything ever done in the past. ONE player drafted high and the rest trades and FA's. And most of them got lucky in getting the players they got. Hawks passing on Willams and CP3. Blazers trading for Aldridge and Roy (bet those teams wish they never made those trades). The Blazers and Jazz were lucky teams around them in the draft made poor decisons.

 

[RalphySampson]

I fail to see your point. Only the Spurs have a ring. They got lucky to get Duncan, boston had the best odds. They drafted Parker at the end of round 1 and Manu in the 2nd round. The rest are basically fillers and most were free agents.

Orlando's big 3, 1 was drafted the other 2 (hedo, Lewis) were FA. Portland got lucky and got Oden. They traded for Roy and Aldridge, granted for players taken next to them. And bought the pick for Rudy.

Utah got Williams via draft but signed Boozer and Okur as FA's. They drafted Millsap in the second round.

The suns drafted Amare and signed Nash as a FA and traded for Shaq. They traded for the late draft rights of Barbosa from the Spurs.

Cavs won the lotto and got James. The majority of the rest were from trades except Z and Gibson again a second rounder.

All these teams have the same thing except Portand which is really the exception to anything ever done in the past. ONE player drafted high and the rest trades and FA's. And most of them got lucky in getting the players they got. Hawks passing on Willams and CP3. Blazers trading for Aldridge and Roy (bet those teams wish they never made those trades). The Blazers and Jazz were lucky teams around them in the draft made poor decisons.

Do you think the Magic would be where they are without Howard? How about the Jazz without Williams? Suns without Amare? The Blazers were in a position to make those trades because of players they drafted. The Spurs have been a dynasty for the past 15 years because of the draft -- Robinson and Duncan. Would the Hornets be where they are without CP3? All of those teams would be very average without those high draft picks on their team.

Of course you fill in your team via trades and FA signings, but it's rare that you can acquire a Howard, Williams, Duncan, or CP3 through a trade or free agency. This is why the draft is so crucial and this is why it's a good thing that the Kings have a couple of horrible years so that they have a shot at picking up the likes of one of the above mentioned players.

Also, if you think about Boston they were able to do what they did because of the draft. They were able to trade Jefferson and I believe Green to acquire Garnett and Allen. They wouldn't have been able to even make that choice if it wasn't for high draft picks. We aren't in the same situation as Boston because we don't have enough young good talent to acquire a superstar like Garnett.

 

[DocHolliday]

Let's not forget Kobe Bryant and Lebron freaking James. They were drafted to.

 

[Kingster]

The Kings are going in the right direction. They're just taking forever to get to their destination. They need to accelerate the process and trade the vets. This year should be the bottom. If management/ownership doesn't panic, we'll reap the rewards in two years.

 

[Kingster]

Direction? There is no direction, since this is a lost season as management has made clear. They fired Theus for no good reason except, "needed a different voice." Theus was liked by Kings players, no evidence he was being tuned out, and could have stayed 'til end of season and then been fairly evaluated.

Draft pick? There is no guarantee a high first round pick or even #1 overall will get anything of spectacular value. Look at Kings previous #1 overall (Ellison) or other high draft junk (Klein, etc.). The highest picks quite often are total crap shoots. Most teams get good to great via free agency signings/trades with Boston latest example (Garnett, Allen) with added bonus on lucking out on Rondo who lucked out being on a team with three superstars.

Light at end of tunnel? What tunnel, do you see a tunnel? The Kings simply need to dump dead weight contracts (Miller, Mikki, Thomas, etc) and get along with the biz of signing free agents, swinging trades. With two high draft picks coming up, the best that's likely to do is deliver more young clones of Thompson, Hawes, Greene - meaning a wait of several years for all of it to REALLY come together and produce.

Well, you could trade Hawes and Thompson right now. You'd probably get mediocre vets, better than Hawes and Thompson currently, but without their potential. While you're at it, you could trade the two #1s we have this year. Then we'd go back to .400 - .500 ball for several years into the future. I'd rather gut it out. No pain, no gain.

 

[Bricklayer]

Teams get their cornerstone stars from the draft. Period. The exceptions are so rare and so easily distinguished as to prove the rule. And the reasons are very clear and very simple -- anybody who has one, a true one, isn't going to give them away for basically anything. You might get 3 or 4 superstar players moving a decade, and almost always the flawed ones. In any case, enough of that. People who continue to argue that point are like the Flat Earth Society. Just wanting something to be some way does not make it so.


As to the intial question, are we on the right track? Dunno. But we COULD be. And there is the scary and frustrating part. We are balancing on an edge here -- continued front office incompetence and we do exactly what the doomsayers say. We fall off and spiral into eternal rebuilding. But the pieces are actually there to do this right. If we could import Portland's front office for a ocuple of years I woiuld almost guarnatee we would be headed back towrd being a good team, although maybe not a great one unless osmebody in this upcoming draft really blossoms. But hell, let's just look at the factors from Geoff's perspective:

'98-'99 (the year Geoff suddenly got famous):
1) new coach (Ademan)
2) almost all veteran contracts purged,
3) result = capspace and sign Vlade
4) midrange lottery pick (#7 -- Jason Wiliams)
5) previous lottery picks fill out lineup and future (Peja, Corliss, Wahad)
6) megatrade of aging star for young superstar (Webb)

Of all of those, the only one that we have no obvious path to is #6.

Let's say I am made GM, and this season/offseason just wanted to ape how Geoff did it 10 years ago:
1) new coach (Saunders -- chosen because most similar in demeanor and style to Adelman, been close to the top, experienced hand)
2) trade Brad and Salmons midseason this year for enders/kids/picks; release Mikki and get half his contract money; during offseason see if Kenny can possibly bring back anything of value as an ender, or package him wiht Brad for an ender this year;
3) if you cleared the money for this offseason, the target would not be the megastar pipedream, but rather a lesser player. Like Vlade was a lesser player and yet meant everything. And so here: Hedo Turkoglu. Take advantage of the Magic's giant Rashard blunder, and just outbid them.
4) lottery pick -- at this pace our lottery pick could very well end up being better than midrange, with a little luck very high indeed. Weaker draft, but better pick. And we have Houston's #1 as well. And even potentially more booty if we did in fact trade Brad and Salmons.
5) previous picks to fill out the roster = Spencer, Thompson, Martin and Cisco. Greene as well. That's a considerably stronger crew than the Peja/Corliss/Wahad group of '99. May also be the solution to #6 -- if there is anybody available, start gathering up youth and picks, of which we have many, looking for that impact guy.
6) the hole, the mystery. Who is "the man" going to be? How do we trade for him. As I suggested, I think the answer is through our kids and youth. Let's renew the Amare pipedream for a moment -- not buying into the new system in Phoenix. So, you bundle Salmons, Thompson, Beno (Nash backup/replacement) and maybe even Green if necessary, and you offer the package to Kerr. this was merely an example of the sorts of packages ou can put otgether with accumulated assets.

Now just doing that, speculating and slavishly following the Petrie formula form '98-'99 (which alas he seems to have forgotten about), I could produce this:

C- Hawes
PF-Amare
SF-Hedo
OG-Martin
PG-#1 pick

6th- Cisco

Coach: Flip Saunders

And gee, we are winning again.

And the odds of that being the exact deal are extraordinarily low of course -- in particular the lack of superstar requires the highly speculative Amare deal and wil plague this team until we finally resolve it somehow. But when people say oh, we are so far away, oh we are doomed forever...not necessarily. We have assets and opportunity if somebody would just start planning to take advantage of them.

 

[Rookie]

Sound like a good plan Brick.

The team make up looks good on paper and hopefully play good if we ever get that far.

 

[SacKings7]

Let's not forget Kobe Bryant and Lebron freaking James. They were drafted to.

The Lakers traded Vlade to acquire Kobe on draft day. Not a bad deal eh?

 

[piksi]

The Lakers traded Vlade to acquire Kobe on draft day. Not a bad deal eh?

because Charlotte was practically blackmailed by kobe

 

[Sptsjunkie]

And the odds of that being the exact deal are extraordinarily low of course -- in particular the lack of superstar requires the highly speculative Amare deal and wil plague this team until we finally resolve it somehow. But when people say oh, we are so far away, oh we are doomed forever...not necessarily. We have assets and opportunity if somebody would just start planning to take advantage of them.

I see no reason to believe that isn't what is happening. Petrie lined up these pieces. We probably hung on to hope a year or two too long, partially because we had some long contracts that were hard to shed anyway; however, at this point it should be evident this is the direction Petrie is heading. We have accumulated young player, picks and ending contracts. I haven't heard any rumors of the Kings shopping Hawes or JT for veteran help. The ship is being steered and in the right direction by a good pilot.

I am sure that we will hear more doom and glood predictions this year, because we are simply going to have to deal with more games like last night to get the young players experience and get the pick that we want. It's not always pretty, but it is what we need.

 

[Sptsjunkie]

Teams get their cornerstone stars from the draft. Period. The exceptions are so rare and so easily distinguished as to prove the rule. And the reasons are very clear and very simple -- anybody who has one, a true one, isn't going to give them away for basically anything. You might get 3 or 4 superstar players moving a decade, and almost always the flawed ones. In any case, enough of that. People who continue to argue that point are like the Flat Earth Society. Just wanting something to be some way does not make it so.

Well, I think it is a valid point that superstars can come in different ways. The draft is the most common route; however, putting all of your eggs in one basket can be short sighted as well. I think you would agree that beingable to pursue multiple avenues is smart management. This is one positive aspect to our current situation - we have young pieces, multiple picks, and big ending contracts. This will give us the opportunity to be position to acquire a marquee player through draft, trade or free agency.

 

[Sptsjunkie]

because Charlotte was practically blackmailed by kobe

Yes, this is the forgotten fact of that draft. Lakers fans will often deny that it happened too. It's also why big markets play by different rules in rebuilding.

It's also what made me laugh when the Grizzlies just traded for Steve Francis. He pulled a similar draft day move, so it was ironic to see him likley finish his career where it should have started.

 

[Vlade4GM]

The draft pick will do more than a few extra wins. Please, the record is not hurting our long term chances, the only thing it's doing is annoying certain fans. You rebuild by getting rid of old players for young prospects, picks, and cap sapce. It's ugly, but it's absolutely necessary, we're accomplishing more this season than we have the last three seasons.

 

[Vlade4GM]

Well, I think it is a valid point that superstars can come in different ways. The draft is the most common route; however, putting all of your eggs in one basket can be short sighted as well. I think you would agree that beingable to pursue multiple avenues is smart management. This is one positive aspect to our current situation - we have young pieces, multiple picks, and big ending contracts. This will give us the opportunity to be position to acquire a marquee player through draft, trade or free agency.

Okay, but who is saying just improve by the draft? Us losing and getting in higher draft position has nothing to do with our ability to make trades or sign free agents, in fact it puts us in a better position to do those things.

 

[Vlade4GM]

I enjoyed your post brick, except for using a potential Amare trade as a comparison to the Webber trade. My problem with Amare is he doesn't back up his huge ego and entitlement attitude with on-court play, he plays stupid and lazy D, his rebounding is solid but nothing special for an all-star big, and when he loses his athleticism he's going to be worthless. He has a solid mid range game, but when his athleticism deteriorates he's a standstill jumpshooter. No low post game to speak of, his ball handling and passing are subpar, and he doesn't have enough strength to body up against the top bigs. His length and shooting ability is the only thing that will translate post prime athleticism, and he's not a guy who you can really run an offense through. I know it was just an example, but Amare is not our guy.

 

[Sptsjunkie]

Okay, but who is saying just improve by the draft? Us losing and getting in higher draft position has nothing to do with our ability to make trades or sign free agents, in fact it puts us in a better position to do those things.

I am with you 100%. In this and other threads I have advocated losing this year. I think we are headed in the right direction. I was responding to Brick's assertion that teams only get cornerstone players through the draft. Again, it's the most common route, but the other poster was right that there are other options. I was pointing out, a positive of our situation is that we have put ourselves in a position where we will be able to pursue a potential superstar through multiple avenues.

 

[Vlade4GM]

I am with you 100%. In this and other threads I have advocated losing this year. I think we are headed in the right direction. I was responding to Brick's assertion that teams only get cornerstone players through the draft. Again, it's the most common route, but the other poster was right that there are other options. I was pointing out, a positive of our situation is that we have put ourselves in a position where we will be able to pursue a potential superstar through multiple avenues.

OK, I getcha. There are other ways but generally it's going to get done either directly or indirectly through the draft. Either by attracting a free agent by young talent acquired through the draft or by trading prospects/picks acquired through high position in the draft. Teams that are trading their stars are generally doing it for even younger talent and rebuilding assets. Having a high draft pick is the only way we can have some sort of an advantage against the big market teams, it's our only available equalizer.

 

[Gary]

Until the players know their role then there is no direction. Right now we have a bench player starting over two players who are better than he is with him getting more minutes in a half than all the young players combined.

We have a "coach" who keeps the starters in even when they were getting blown out. The "coach" has no idea how to coach in the NBA and until he is history the team will sit here with players not knowing the type of minutes they will get night to night, and they have no idea what their role on this "team" is because of the crappy coaching.

 

[Kings Faithful]

First of all, you're wrong about most teams getting good via free agency. Yes, Boston was an example of that but if you look back 15 years you will find that the majority of franchises are built through the draft. Think about San Antonio, Orlando, Portland, Utah, Phoenix, Cleveland, and many more teams right now and you can go back and point to a player or two that were drafted that changed the franchise.

The thing about alot of those franchises still had to make major trades after acquiring their star....like New Orleans. Even with Paul they still weren't a playoff team, at least until they stacked the team with a bunch of other quality players by trading off a couple guys and a few picks. Its a mix of both FA and Draft that makes teams good. If we do end up getting a possible star in the draft be prepared to see half our team traded away to accomodate him. There is no "one way" to build a team that works better, you have to use whats given to you.

 

[Section 101]

Do you think the Magic would be where they are without Howard? How about the Jazz without Williams? Suns without Amare? The Blazers were in a position to make those trades because of players they drafted. The Spurs have been a dynasty for the past 15 years because of the draft -- Robinson and Duncan. Would the Hornets be where they are without CP3? All of those teams would be very average without those high draft picks on their team.

Of course you fill in your team via trades and FA signings, but it's rare that you can acquire a Howard, Williams, Duncan, or CP3 through a trade or free agency. This is why the draft is so crucial and this is why it's a good thing that the Kings have a couple of horrible years so that they have a shot at picking up the likes of one of the above mentioned players.

Also, if you think about Boston they were able to do what they did because of the draft. They were able to trade Jefferson and I believe Green to acquire Garnett and Allen. They wouldn't have been able to even make that choice if it wasn't for high draft picks. We aren't in the same situation as Boston because we don't have enough young good talent to acquire a superstar like Garnett.

Again, the Jazz were lucky the Hawks were stupid and took Marvin Williams instead of CP3 or Williams when they needed a PG bad.

The Spurs got lucky in a year there was a TD to get with the #1 pick. Is Blake Griffin going to be a Tim Duncan?

The Suns got Amare with the #9 pick. That's 1 ahead of Hawes and 3 ahead of JT.

As for Boston, Jefferson was the 15th pick and Green was an 18th. They were not high picks. Also your comment on them having more youth and picks means they sucked for a pretty long time to aquire it and were never able to get that franchise type guy via the draft.

the point is you may get the player at a mid level pick. It doesn't have to be a top 3 or 5. The Kings already have a #10 and #12. How many does it take? A little hint. It takes more luck than draft position. And for the most part Petrie had been pretty good at judging talent.

 

[Rookie]

the point is you may get the player at a mid level pick. It doesn't have to be a top 3 or 5. The Kings already have a #10 and #12. How many does it take? A little hint. It takes more luck than draft position. And for the most part Petrie had been pretty good at judging talent.

The odds are much better at 3 or 5 than 10 or 12, not to mention that GP could have more choice in his pick as well. Basic logic, I don't see how anyone cannot see that.

Relying on something that is uncontrollable is not my idea of a good plan.

 

[VF21]

Teams get their cornerstone stars from the draft. Period. The exceptions are so rare and so easily distinguished as to prove the rule. And the reasons are very clear and very simple -- anybody who has one, a true one, isn't going to give them away for basically anything. You might get 3 or 4 superstar players moving a decade, and almost always the flawed ones. In any case, enough of that. People who continue to argue that point are like the Flat Earth Society. Just wanting something to be some way does not make it so.


As to the intial question, are we on the right track? Dunno. But we COULD be. And there is the scary and frustrating part. We are balancing on an edge here -- continued front office incompetence and we do exactly what the doomsayers say. We fall off and spiral into eternal rebuilding. But the pieces are actually there to do this right. If we could import Portland's front office for a ocuple of years I woiuld almost guarnatee we would be headed back towrd being a good team, although maybe not a great one unless osmebody in this upcoming draft really blossoms. But hell, let's just look at the factors from Geoff's perspective:

'98-'99 (the year Geoff suddenly got famous):
1) new coach (Ademan)
2) almost all veteran contracts purged,
3) result = capspace and sign Vlade
4) midrange lottery pick (#7 -- Jason Wiliams)
5) previous lottery picks fill out lineup and future (Peja, Corliss, Wahad)
6) megatrade of aging star for young superstar (Webb)

Of all of those, the only one that we have no obvious path to is #6.

Let's say I am made GM, and this season/offseason just wanted to ape how Geoff did it 10 years ago:
1) new coach (Saunders -- chosen because most similar in demeanor and style to Adelman, been close to the top, experienced hand)
2) trade Brad and Salmons midseason this year for enders/kids/picks; release Mikki and get half his contract money; during offseason see if Kenny can possibly bring back anything of value as an ender, or package him wiht Brad for an ender this year;
3) if you cleared the money for this offseason, the target would not be the megastar pipedream, but rather a lesser player. Like Vlade was a lesser player and yet meant everything. And so here: Hedo Turkoglu. Take advantage of the Magic's giant Rashard blunder, and just outbid them.
4) lottery pick -- at this pace our lottery pick could very well end up being better than midrange, with a little luck very high indeed. Weaker draft, but better pick. And we have Houston's #1 as well. And even potentially more booty if we did in fact trade Brad and Salmons.
5) previous picks to fill out the roster = Spencer, Thompson, Martin and Cisco. Greene as well. That's a considerably stronger crew than the Peja/Corliss/Wahad group of '99. May also be the solution to #6 -- if there is anybody available, start gathering up youth and picks, of which we have many, looking for that impact guy.
6) the hole, the mystery. Who is "the man" going to be? How do we trade for him. As I suggested, I think the answer is through our kids and youth. Let's renew the Amare pipedream for a moment -- not buying into the new system in Phoenix. So, you bundle Salmons, Thompson, Beno (Nash backup/replacement) and maybe even Green if necessary, and you offer the package to Kerr. this was merely an example of the sorts of packages ou can put otgether with accumulated assets.

Now just doing that, speculating and slavishly following the Petrie formula form '98-'99 (which alas he seems to have forgotten about), I could produce this:

C- Hawes
PF-Amare
SF-Hedo
OG-Martin
PG-#1 pick

6th- Cisco

Coach: Flip Saunders

And gee, we are winning again.

And the odds of that being the exact deal are extraordinarily low of course -- in particular the lack of superstar requires the highly speculative Amare deal and wil plague this team until we finally resolve it somehow. But when people say oh, we are so far away, oh we are doomed forever...not necessarily. We have assets and opportunity if somebody would just start planning to take advantage of them.

Another excellent post, Brickie...

Nice job.

 

[Capt. Factorial]

Again, the Jazz were lucky the Hawks were stupid and took Marvin Williams instead of CP3 or Williams when they needed a PG bad.

The Spurs got lucky in a year there was a TD to get with the #1 pick. Is Blake Griffin going to be a Tim Duncan?

The Suns got Amare with the #9 pick. That's 1 ahead of Hawes and 3 ahead of JT.

As for Boston, Jefferson was the 15th pick and Green was an 18th. They were not high picks. Also your comment on them having more youth and picks means they sucked for a pretty long time to aquire it and were never able to get that franchise type guy via the draft.

You can consider draft successes as mere luck all you want, it doesn't change the fact that many of today's top players are still with the team that either drafted them, or had their rights as of the end of draft night.

As a "simple" way of assessing who the top players in the league are, I grabbed the top ten fantasy-ranked players from Yahoo. Of these ten, eight (LeBron, Chris Paul, Wade, Dirk, Kobe, Amare, Yao, and Roy) have spent their entire careers (so far) with the team that drafted them. Only Garnett and Kidd have not, and Garnett spent 12 seasons with Minnesota before moving on. This certainly suggests that if you want a top-10 talent, your best strategy is to get him from the draft.

the point is you may get the player at a mid level pick. It doesn't have to be a top 3 or 5.

No, but you're much more likely to get a star out of the draft picking early than picking late. This should go without saying, but in case it doesn't, here's a study that tried to quantify this:

http://tinyurl.com/8h3xs8

The Kings already have a #10 and #12. How many does it take? A little hint. It takes more luck than draft position. And for the most part Petrie had been pretty good at judging talent.

True, Petrie has been good at judging talent. Most other GMs are pretty decent as well, which means there will be more gems available at a higher draft pick. Keep in mind that given the Kings' draft picks, Petrie only passed up the opportunity to draft one of those ten guys I listed above - Dirk. The other nine were gone by the time we picked. Sure, Petrie has done well sifting through the remains of the lottery (and into the twenties) but imagine what we might get with a top-5 pick.

The whole point of this thread is to ask whether the team is going in the right direction. Since it seems clear that the best way to get a superstar is through the draft (preferably a high draft pick), and we're heading for a high draft pick (while having a nice nucleus of young players), the answer would appear to be "yes" to me.

None of this precludes making a smart trade or a good free agent signing. We have pieces (Salmons, and to an extent any of the kids including Martin) that can help us in a trade if one comes along, and we have pieces (Miller, Thomas) that we might be able to move to get cap flexibility to sign a good player (though probably not a superstar). We shouldn't let any good opportunities go by if they present themselves. But that doesn't mean the draft isn't our best bet.

 

[kupman]

Teams get their cornerstone stars from the draft. Period. The exceptions are so rare and so easily distinguished as to prove the rule. And the reasons are very clear and very simple -- anybody who has one, a true one, isn't going to give them away for basically anything. You might get 3 or 4 superstar players moving a decade, and almost always the flawed ones. In any case, enough of that. People who continue to argue that point are like the Flat Earth Society. Just wanting something to be some way does not make it so.


As to the intial question, are we on the right track? Dunno. But we COULD be. And there is the scary and frustrating part. We are balancing on an edge here -- continued front office incompetence and we do exactly what the doomsayers say. We fall off and spiral into eternal rebuilding. But the pieces are actually there to do this right. If we could import Portland's front office for a ocuple of years I woiuld almost guarnatee we would be headed back towrd being a good team, although maybe not a great one unless osmebody in this upcoming draft really blossoms. But hell, let's just look at the factors from Geoff's perspective:

'98-'99 (the year Geoff suddenly got famous):
1) new coach (Ademan)
2) almost all veteran contracts purged,
3) result = capspace and sign Vlade
4) midrange lottery pick (#7 -- Jason Wiliams)
5) previous lottery picks fill out lineup and future (Peja, Corliss, Wahad)
6) megatrade of aging star for young superstar (Webb)

Of all of those, the only one that we have no obvious path to is #6.

Let's say I am made GM, and this season/offseason just wanted to ape how Geoff did it 10 years ago:
1) new coach (Saunders -- chosen because most similar in demeanor and style to Adelman, been close to the top, experienced hand)
2) trade Brad and Salmons midseason this year for enders/kids/picks; release Mikki and get half his contract money; during offseason see if Kenny can possibly bring back anything of value as an ender, or package him wiht Brad for an ender this year;
3) if you cleared the money for this offseason, the target would not be the megastar pipedream, but rather a lesser player. Like Vlade was a lesser player and yet meant everything. And so here: Hedo Turkoglu. Take advantage of the Magic's giant Rashard blunder, and just outbid them.
4) lottery pick -- at this pace our lottery pick could very well end up being better than midrange, with a little luck very high indeed. Weaker draft, but better pick. And we have Houston's #1 as well. And even potentially more booty if we did in fact trade Brad and Salmons.
5) previous picks to fill out the roster = Spencer, Thompson, Martin and Cisco. Greene as well. That's a considerably stronger crew than the Peja/Corliss/Wahad group of '99. May also be the solution to #6 -- if there is anybody available, start gathering up youth and picks, of which we have many, looking for that impact guy.
6) the hole, the mystery. Who is "the man" going to be? How do we trade for him. As I suggested, I think the answer is through our kids and youth. Let's renew the Amare pipedream for a moment -- not buying into the new system in Phoenix. So, you bundle Salmons, Thompson, Beno (Nash backup/replacement) and maybe even Green if necessary, and you offer the package to Kerr. this was merely an example of the sorts of packages ou can put otgether with accumulated assets.

Now just doing that, speculating and slavishly following the Petrie formula form '98-'99 (which alas he seems to have forgotten about), I could produce this:

C- Hawes
PF-Amare
SF-Hedo
OG-Martin
PG-#1 pick

6th- Cisco

Coach: Flip Saunders

And gee, we are winning again.

And the odds of that being the exact deal are extraordinarily low of course -- in particular the lack of superstar requires the highly speculative Amare deal and wil plague this team until we finally resolve it somehow. But when people say oh, we are so far away, oh we are doomed forever...not necessarily. We have assets and opportunity if somebody would just start planning to take advantage of them.

If it happened I would LOVE IT!

Making it happen is just the trick though. I am sure that GP has this plan and 20 others like it in consideration. Getting the other teams and players to go along with it is the really tough part. This especially holds true for #2 and #6.

It is a nifty plan though.

 

[twocents]

i know brick concocted this somewhat hastily, but still i would not go with amare. he has had knee problems and i don't think kings fans can overcome yet another imopportune knee pop. as for suggesting hedo become vlade, that is intriguing but i don't think hedo has the personality that vlade had. vlade was very outspoken, knew how to handle ego's. hedo can sulk easily, is not as mature. skillwise he would be great for youngsters around him, but in the end, i don't really see it happening.

but of course, point well-taken.

 

[RalphySampson]

Again, the Jazz were lucky the Hawks were stupid and took Marvin Williams instead of CP3 or Williams when they needed a PG bad.

The Spurs got lucky in a year there was a TD to get with the #1 pick. Is Blake Griffin going to be a Tim Duncan?

The Suns got Amare with the #9 pick. That's 1 ahead of Hawes and 3 ahead of JT.

As for Boston, Jefferson was the 15th pick and Green was an 18th. They were not high picks. Also your comment on them having more youth and picks means they sucked for a pretty long time to aquire it and were never able to get that franchise type guy via the draft.

the point is you may get the player at a mid level pick. It doesn't have to be a top 3 or 5. The Kings already have a #10 and #12. How many does it take? A little hint. It takes more luck than draft position. And for the most part Petrie had been pretty good at judging talent.

This is the last response I'll make with you because, frankly, it's just too frustrating trying to get you to understand what everybody except you in this tread already understands. The fact that certain teams got "lucky" is totally irrelevant. Yes, there is a certain amount of luck involved and it's not a 100% certainty that you will get a great player with a low pick (ask the Hawks about Sheldon Williams). I do think that 99% of posters in this forum would agree that your odds go way up in getting potentially a great player if you draft 1-5 instead of 10-15. Sure, there are many examples of great players that went 10+, but there are many more great players that went 1-5.

I'm not even sure what your suggestion is. The Kings don't really have a lot of options. They aren't going to package Thomas/Douby/Moore and whatever other trash we have for Amare. It's just not going to happen. They are puting themselves in a postion to have 2 high draft picks (one in 2009, and one in 2010 most likely) and potentially grab a decent free agent in the summer of 2010. It's very hard to turn an NBA franchise around in less than a few years.

 

[Section 101]

As a "simple" way of assessing who the top players in the league are, I grabbed the top ten fantasy-ranked players from Yahoo. Of these ten, eight (LeBron, Chris Paul, Wade, Dirk, Kobe, Amare, Yao, and Roy) have spent their entire careers (so far) with the team that drafted them.

Dirk, Kobe, and Roy are not on the teams that drafted them.