You have to admit though - Jimmer was the better player (than MT) in preseason. I linked a podcast somewhere earlier in this thread and it was quite clear that everyone felt that Jimmer had outplayed MT in preseason. But preseason is preseason, frankly it's meaningless. Moving on to the season thus far, has MT really shown anything that warrants him being the starter but Jimmer the bench warmer? The way I see it - Jimmer seems to have made significant strides in his game. Maybe not significant enough, but what I feel is that MT doesn't have a place on our team. His attitude, his lack of defense, his inability to play within the offense etc. The difference between him and Jimmer is that teams WOULD give us a 1st round pick. MT does have trade value, and teams already know what he can do. If he's not in our long term plans (as I feel he shouldn't be) then IMO we should at least give Jimmer a little more than 3 minutes in 4 games, of which 2 have been partial or full blowouts, since we should be seeing what we can get out of him.
But as far as not playing Jimmer = tanking or Jimmer is an all star etc that's just ... way way out there. I just want us to give him a shot.
thornton's dreadfully inconsistent play has obviously raised eyebrows among fans. i don't know what any of us truly expected, but i'm not sure anybody thought he'd be trying to play himself out of the starting lineup so soon. so why isn't jimmer receiving any minutes at all, given the scattered play of every kings' guard outside of isaiah thomas? is jimmer really
that undersized,
that unathletic,
that unable to defend,
that unable to dribble? i certainly think so, but not everybody agrees with me, overzealous jimmerfans aside. however, coach definitively labeled a 3-PG rotation or a 3-SG rotation "impossible," and i find such talk refreshing after keith smart's "
you get minutes!! and
you get minutes!!
everybody gets minutes!!" approach, even though i believe malone's 10-man rotation is still one player too many. that said, jimmer is caught between positions. he's not a PG with vasquez's proven ability to make plays for others. he doesn't bring the unrepentant energy or quickness of isaiah thomas, and he's not the future at starting SG a la ben mclemore, so he gets squeezed out of the rotation through no fault of his own...
in my estimation, the new regime is simply hoping and praying that 1) greivis vasquez finds a groove so they can keep bringing isaiah thomas off the bench, where they desperately need scoring in the absence of carl landry, and 2) marcus thornton showcases just enough punch in a starting role to bring back something,
anything of value via trade. my guess is that malone is quite satisfied with bringing mclemore off the bench in the meantime because the front office intends to move thornton before the trade deadline, which will allow mclemore to slide into the starting SG position thereafter, for better or worse. if thornton is, indeed, traded before the deadline, and jimmer isn't, i'd expect jimmer to get some relief minutes off the bench in the second half of the season, simply because the backcourt will be considerably less crowded in that event (provided the kings don't trade thornton for
yet another guard)...
