Keith Smart Still Tinkering with Starting Lineup- Link!

[macadocious]

Apparently Smart was on 1140 today after 5PM anyone here what he had to say?

 

[pshn80]

The starting lineup - Cousins and Thomas scores, aevans andYhompson all-a rounders, johnson are gender and athletic presence. Why not?

 

[ESP47]

The starting lineup - Cousins and Thomas scores, aevans andYhompson all-a rounders, johnson are gender and athletic presence. Why not?

Have you been drinking or did you type that in Japanese and use google translator?

 

[Tetsujin]

The starting lineup - Cousins and Thomas scores, aevans andYhompson all-a rounders, johnson are gender and athletic presence. Why not?

We mustn't underestimate the all-important gender factor in our lineup

 

[Gary]

I don't want Evans playing more than 5-9 minutes of PG a game. And I most certainly do not want him playing PG at the end of the game. This team is built around sharing the ball and it pretty much comes to a halt when Evans gets it. That takes away from Cousins, and MT/Brooks (whoever is in with him at SG) game because I don't feel he sees the open people and does not play up tempo enough.

The Evans experiment at PG is over. He's just not the kind of PG you win with playing him there for more than a few minutes a game.

The situations I don't mind seeing Evans in (in regards to ball handling) is when the offense needs to slow down and play half court game where it's more of a 1v1 offense rather than a team offense. If he's got a good matchup or something and he can consistently beat his man to the rim. We already know he can do that though, and I am sure nobody here has a problem with Evans doing that.

But as a main ball handler at the end of the game without a real good playmaker on the floor is just a recipe for disaster. There is no reason to have your 2nd-3rd PG play the "end of game" minutes when IT is a better PG and defends like a beast against other PGs.

 

[mac]

I don't want Evans playing more than 5-9 minutes of PG a game. And I most certainly do not want him playing PG at the end of the game. This team is built around sharing the ball and it pretty much comes to a halt when Evans gets it. That takes away from Cousins, and MT/Brooks (whoever is in with him at SG) game because I don't feel he sees the open people and does not play up tempo enough.

The Evans experiment at PG is over. He's just not the kind of PG you win with playing him there for more than a few minutes a game.

The situations I don't mind seeing Evans in (in regards to ball handling) is when the offense needs to slow down and play half court game where it's more of a 1v1 offense rather than a team offense. If he's got a good matchup or something and he can consistently beat his man to the rim. We already know he can do that though, and I am sure nobody here has a problem with Evans doing that.

But as a main ball handler at the end of the game without a real good playmaker on the floor is just a recipe for disaster. There is no reason to have your 2nd-3rd PG play the "end of game" minutes when IT is a better PG and defends like a beast against other PGs.

But you should also keep in mind that most teams always go into iso-offense in crunch time. That's when your Kobe, Shaq, Lebron are supposed to take over. You don't see these teams running plays to get Shaq an open dunk. You see them just throwing it to Shaq or whoever it is and getting out of the way.

 

[Gary]

But you should also keep in mind that most teams always go into iso-offense in crunch time. That's when your Kobe, Shaq, Lebron are supposed to take over. You don't see these teams running plays to get Shaq an open dunk. You see them just throwing it to Shaq or whoever it is and getting out of the way.

Regardless, you still need a structured offense. Evans does not give you that on a consistent enough basis. Teams in crunch time would probably pack the paint and let Evans shoot from outside. They would probably not be too worried about Evans finding an open man. I just don't think it's a good idea to start playing Evans at PG again, because I don't believe he is skilled enough. We have Brooks (imo) and Thomas who play better at PG than Evans so there really is no reason to even put him there at the end of the game.

 

[sdballer]

Regardless, you still need a structured offense. Evans does not give you that on a consistent enough basis. Teams in crunch time would probably pack the paint and let Evans shoot from outside. They would probably not be too worried about Evans finding an open man. I just don't think it's a good idea to start playing Evans at PG again, because I don't believe he is skilled enough. We have Brooks (imo) and Thomas who play better at PG than Evans so there really is no reason to even put him there at the end of the game.

So in this hypothetical endgame situation, are you putting Evans at SF or leaving MT on the bench? The reality is that at the end of the game you needs stops and guys that can break a defense down. It seems strange to me to minimize either of the best backcourt scorers while shrinking the size of your team in favor of IT/Brooks.

 

[twslam07]

So in this hypothetical endgame situation, are you putting Evans at SF or leaving MT on the bench? The reality is that at the end of the game you needs stops and guys that can break a defense down. It seems strange to me to minimize either of the best backcourt scorers while shrinking the size of your team in favor of IT/Brooks.

Exactly. At the end of the game I want to see my team play good defense, and I want to see my stars takeover. If we have Thomas or Brooks out there, then it is either Evans or Thornton on the bench or Evans at SF. That's not what I want to see at the end of the game. Evans is the second best playmaker on this team behind Thomas and ahead of Brooks. I don't see the ball slowing down when he has had it this year. In fact, he makes a noticeable effort to try and get Cousins the ball. I think he has grown to learn that this is Cousins show not his anymore.

 

[pshn80]

The starting lineup - Cousins and Thomas scores, aevans andYhompson all-a rounders, johnson are gender and athletic presence. Why not?

Tetsujin and ESP47 - You led me to read what I wrote, pretty bad. I didn't know I knew Japanese. Bad eyes are bad enough when I'm typing on my computer as I am now, but when I text on my iPad it can be bad. I'll pay closer attention .

 

[Gary]

So in this hypothetical endgame situation, are you putting Evans at SF or leaving MT on the bench? The reality is that at the end of the game you needs stops and guys that can break a defense down. It seems strange to me to minimize either of the best backcourt scorers while shrinking the size of your team in favor of IT/Brooks.

Crappy situation but we would probably be having to sub in and out players at fouls and play stoppage. But I am most definitely not wanting a back court of MT/Evans. That was already proven a disaster. No idea why people think it would be any different. There weren't even any glimpses of consistent play.

But to answer your question, yes, either MT or Evans would be on the bench depending on who has the hotter hand. Also, either Brooks or IT would be on the bench depending on gameplay.

I never said I would put IT and Brooks in together, so I am not sure where you got that. Evans, and MT will not be able to "break a defense down". They will stand there and shoot a bad contested shot with 4 seconds left on the shot clock without even really setting up any kid of offense. If that's what you want though then MT/Evans is your back court.

 

[Gary]

Exactly. At the end of the game I want to see my team play good defense, and I want to see my stars takeover. If we have Thomas or Brooks out there, then it is either Evans or Thornton on the bench or Evans at SF. That's not what I want to see at the end of the game. Evans is the second best playmaker on this team behind Thomas and ahead of Brooks. I don't see the ball slowing down when he has had it this year. In fact, he makes a noticeable effort to try and get Cousins the ball. I think he has grown to learn that this is Cousins show not his anymore.

Again, you are getting caught up on the best individual players rather than the best team players. IT is better at PG than Evans is, right? Not to mention the stats say that IT was much better at guarding opposing PGs than Evans was... Evans is a pretty decent SG from what we have seen in pre-season and he looks like he carved a REAL good defensive niche for himself guarding opposing SGs.

So.. By going off what your saying, you want IT and Evans in your back court. That would give us the best chance to win at the end of the game, and I totally agree with that.

We gain defense since Evans is better at guarding SG than MT is and IT is better at guarding PGs than Evans is........
We gain offense because IT is much better at ball movement and seeing the open man.............
We lose some outside shooting because MT is a much better outside shooter than Evans is..........

So we either go with outside shooting at the expense of defense and ball movement or we gain defense and offensive ball movement at the expense of outside shooting.

 

[sdballer]

Crappy situation but we would probably be having to sub in and out players at fouls and play stoppage. But I am most definitely not wanting a back court of MT/Evans. That was already proven a disaster. No idea why people think it would be any different. There weren't even any glimpses of consistent play.

But to answer your question, yes, either MT or Evans would be on the bench depending on who has the hotter hand. Also, either Brooks or IT would be on the bench depending on gameplay.

I never said I would put IT and Brooks in together, so I am not sure where you got that. Evans, and MT will not be able to "break a defense down". They will stand there and shoot a bad contested shot with 4 seconds left on the shot clock without even really setting up any kid of offense. If that's what you want though then MT/Evans is your back court.

Honestly, with the exception of your weird anti-Evans PG thing, you seem like you know basketball so this baffles me. Do you even watch other teams play? Subbing out one of your two best backcourt players at the end of games so you can have undersized, not even true pg's in the game. Who does that? And someone else already mentioned it, but teams do rely on a lot of iso plays down the stretch of games. This isn't college ball.

I never suggested you wanted both IT and Brooks together but rather that your determination to have at least one on the court forces our two better end of game threats either out of position or to the bench. You think having MT and Evans in the backcourt is only going to lead to losses but subbing one of those out in favor of undersized, shoot first guys is the answer. Based on what?

And for the last time, where do all of you "Evans can't ever play PG" defenders get this overwhelming evidence that it has been tried and can't work. Our record was better with a Reke/MT backcourt than any other backcourt combination over the last 3 years. If that backcourt was a disaster, what makes IT or Brooks as must have pg's any better? Our record was worse against worse opponents and with better teammates.

 

[sdballer]

Again, you are getting caught up on the best individual players rather than the best team players. IT is better at PG than Evans is, right? Not to mention the stats say that IT was much better at guarding opposing PGs than Evans was... Evans is a pretty decent SG from what we have seen in pre-season and he looks like he carved a REAL good defensive niche for himself guarding opposing SGs.

So.. By going off what your saying, you want IT and Evans in your back court. That would give us the best chance to win at the end of the game, and I totally agree with that.

We gain defense since Evans is better at guarding SG than MT is and IT is better at guarding PGs than Evans is........
We gain offense because IT is much better at ball movement and seeing the open man.............
We lose some outside shooting because MT is a much better outside shooter than Evans is..........

So we either go with outside shooting at the expense of defense and ball movement or we gain defense and offensive ball movement at the expense of outside shooting.

Also this belief that IT is an amazing defender also needs to end. He puts a lot of effort out and is far less of a liability than his size would suggest but we frequently hid him on the weaker of the guards last year. He will have opponents where he can more than hold his own, like a Nash or even someone like CP, but you don't make lineup decisions based on his ability to stop guys at the end of games, not at the expense of playing MT or Evans. He's just not that level of defender

 

[Gary]

Honestly, with the exception of your weird anti-Evans PG thing, you seem like you know basketball so this baffles me. Do you even watch other teams play? Subbing out one of your two best backcourt players at the end of games so you can have undersized, not even true pg's in the game. Who does that? And someone else already mentioned it, but teams do rely on a lot of iso plays down the stretch of games. This isn't college ball.

I never suggested you wanted both IT and Brooks together but rather that your determination to have at least one on the court forces our two better end of game threats either out of position or to the bench. You think having MT and Evans in the backcourt is only going to lead to losses but subbing one of those out in favor of undersized, shoot first guys is the answer. Based on what?

And for the last time, where do all of you "Evans can't ever play PG" defenders get this overwhelming evidence that it has been tried and can't work. Our record was better with a Reke/MT backcourt than any other backcourt combination over the last 3 years. If that backcourt was a disaster, what makes IT or Brooks as must have pg's any better? Our record was worse against worse opponents and with better teammates.

Record withstanding our stats were last in the league in both offense and defense with that back court.

I don't want to bring out the +/- records because Without Evans or Evans coming off the bench the team was like 6 or 7-0 or something like that last year (without actually looking, but I know we were undefeated in those scenarios).. I believe we were undefeated last year with Evans starting next to IT at SG as well or we had lost 1 or 2 games.. It's a small sample size so I don't put much into it.. Also the IT at PG thing we had Evans at SF most of the time. We were MUCH better offensively but still last in the league in defense because we had a midget PPG/SG/SF combo out there.

I have no idea though why you prefer Evans at PG over IT though I would like to hear your reasoning because the stats say (both offensively and defensively) that IT is the better PG.

Not to mention the all important EYE TEST. Saw about 75% of the games at Sleeptrain Arena, and every game that I did not see in person on the tube (except for one). Things looked much better when IT was in there, but it WAS clouded by the fact that we had MT and Evans in there too who aren't the greatest SG and SF defenders.

 

[Gary]

Also this belief that IT is an amazing defender also needs to end. He puts a lot of effort out and is far less of a liability than his size would suggest but we frequently hid him on the weaker of the guards last year. He will have opponents where he can more than hold his own, like a Nash or even someone like CP, but you don't make lineup decisions based on his ability to stop guys at the end of games, not at the expense of playing MT or Evans. He's just not that level of defender

And MT is?! Come on..... I still feel a lot of people here are still scared because of him being 5'9. And out of ANY PG we had on the floor last year he was the most consistent defender out of all of them. I never said he was AMAZING though, but he's better than anyone else we could put at PG..

What you guys are contending is putting out the worst offensive, and defensive backcourt in the league last year just because of name recognition. That's a recipe for defeat if you ask me.

How many times was this board up in anger last year because Evans was too slow to stay in front of the speedier PGs? More than I could count. It's basically like putting Evans on a SF. They overpower him. So smaller guards whiz by him, and bigger forwards overpower him. What would be the solution with PGs seeming to get smaller and faster? Put Evans on the SG who usually stays on the perimeter. Evans perimeter D was REALLY good this pre-season.

I don't want either MT or Evans trying to guard a PG that can just penetrate right by them. And I don't want a team out there that can't score.

 

[Gary]

Anyhow, we agree to disagree. No big deal. You're not going to convince me otherwise, and I am not going to convince you.

 

[DesertFox]

While I don't like Evans playing a lot of SF, I don't mind him playing that spot to close games. Teams usually go small to close out close games, when taking care of the ball, clock management, and freethrows become more important.

 

[Gilles]

Thomas is 5'9" without shoes. Nobody lists Cousins as 6'9". In shoes Thomas was 5'10.5" which in NBA means he's legitimate 5'11".
Evans was very effective off the bench because he played like himself.
People like to bring up stats showing IT guarding PGs. Well, I would like some footage of him guarding Westbrook and Rose.

 

[SCKingsfan]

Thomas is 5'9" without shoes. Nobody lists Cousins as 6'9". In shoes Thomas was 5'10.5" which in NBA means he's legitimate 5'11".
Evans was very effective off the bench because he played like himself.
People like to bring up stats showing IT guarding PGs. Well, I would like some footage of him guarding Westbrook and Rose.

So, unless he can be shown shutting down two of the leagues über elite pgs he's going to be exposed as a less than adequate defender?

 

[The_Jamal]

Honestly, with the exception of your weird anti-Evans PG thing, you seem like you know basketball so this baffles me. Do you even watch other teams play? Subbing out one of your two best backcourt players at the end of games so you can have undersized, not even true pg's in the game. Who does that? And someone else already mentioned it, but teams do rely on a lot of iso plays down the stretch of games. This isn't college ball.

I never suggested you wanted both IT and Brooks together but rather that your determination to have at least one on the court forces our two better end of game threats either out of position or to the bench. You think having MT and Evans in the backcourt is only going to lead to losses but subbing one of those out in favor of undersized, shoot first guys is the answer. Based on what?

And for the last time, where do all of you "Evans can't ever play PG" defenders get this overwhelming evidence that it has been tried and can't work. Our record was better with a Reke/MT backcourt than any other backcourt combination over the last 3 years. If that backcourt was a disaster, what makes IT or Brooks as must have pg's any better? Our record was worse against worse opponents and with better teammates.

The record argument over such a small sample size is one of the worst arguments you can use. The problem with doing so is there are far too many outside factors that you cannot control for rather just just "Record with Reke at PG" and "Record w/out Reke at PG". We're the teams we faced at that time injured? Was Cousins playing out of his mind at the time? What role players were giving big contributions at the time? There's just too much going on to take from such a small sample size of games.

Luckily, we have 2 and a half seasons of Reke at PG to look at. None of it translated to team success. You can whine about coaching and personal all you want but star players in the NBA make teams better. Reke did not do so for us at PG.

 

[Bricklayer]

Crappy situation but we would probably be having to sub in and out players at fouls and play stoppage. But I am most definitely not wanting a back court of MT/Evans. That was already proven a disaster. No idea why people think it would be any different. There weren't even any glimpses of consistent play.

Indeed. An amazingly inconsistent 40 day stint from two 3rd year players, entering a strike shortened season with almost no training camp, multiple new starters/rotation players (one of whom got injured leading to another new starter), a coaching change after 7 games, an injury to one of them, and an incredibly road heavy early season including games almost every night.

 

[Gilles]

Jimmer started 6 games during those 40 days. Do you want even improved version of Jimmer in the rotation this season?
Tyreke's 2nd season was injury-plagued. And you can't deny how encouraging Kings looked at the end of 10/11 season.

The record argument over such a small sample size is one of the worst arguments you can use. The problem with doing so is there are far too many outside factors that you cannot control for rather just just "Record with Reke at PG" and "Record w/out Reke at PG". We're the teams we faced at that time injured? Was Cousins playing out of his mind at the time? What role players were giving big contributions at the time? There's just too much going on to take from such a small sample size of games.
Luckily, we have 2 and a half seasons of Reke at PG to look at. None of it translated to team success. You can whine about coaching and personal all you want but star players in the NBA make teams better. Reke did not do so for us at PG.

Problem is if you take out 2 games that Tyreke played off the bench where he was allowed to play as he's used to only with bench players it's 11-24 with 19-16 in home-away games. With Tyreke as starting PG you have 8-14 with 8-14 in home-away games. So what exactly make you think that IT as starting PG brings this team to another level?

 

[Gary]

Indeed. An amazingly inconsistent 40 day stint from two 3rd year players, entering a strike shortened season with almost no training camp, multiple new starters/rotation players (one of whom got injured leading to another new starter), a coaching change after 7 games, an injury to one of them, and an incredibly road heavy early season including games almost every night.

Making excuses.. Bottom line with all those excuses you bring up is that they didn't play well... End of story.

 

[spudfan]

Making excuses.. Bottom line with all those excuses you bring up is that they didn't play well... End of story.

Good response. Someone gives you many many reasons why that 40-day stretch was an incredibly unreliable way to judge something and you blow it off as "excuses". You can't see why anyone would think a different outcome Is possible after receiving nine reasons, which all can/would be rectified over the course of a year? You are either incredibly short sighted or extremely biased for some other reason.

 

[sdballer]

Making excuses.. Bottom line with all those excuses you bring up is that they didn't play well... End of story.

Um, we played as bad or worse after the lineup change. How does nobody get this when trying to defend why Evans/Thornton is such a disaster.

 

[spudfan]

Um, we played as bad or worse after the lineup change. How does nobody get this when trying to defend why Evans/Thornton is such a disaster.

Seriously. All of the reasons Brick listed are reasonable reasons why the pairing wasn't running hot. Even if it was doing amazing, I doubt we win that many more games as we had/have a million other areas of serious deficiency. As you said, we didn't become some super awesome good team with the lineup change.

 

[Gary]

Good response. Someone gives you many many reasons why that 40-day stretch was an incredibly unreliable way to judge something and you blow it off as "excuses". You can't see why anyone would think a different outcome Is possible after receiving nine reasons, which all can/would be rectified over the course of a year? You are either incredibly short sighted or extremely biased for some other reason.

Look, I am not saying that things that happened didn't play a part in how the team played, but at some point you need to stop making excuses. It's not like if we would have had Smart the whole year and a MT/Evans backcourt the team would have finished above .500 or something.

So are we supposed to account for every game that a starter or major bench player has a cold, or a jammed finger or a weak ankle from a mild sprain? That would take the whole season out of the mix so the Kings would be pretty much 0-0..

I recon we would be about the same as where we finished last year. Our defense might have crawled out of the cellar but we still would have been a bottom feeder, and our offense never showed really any signs of being that good so we would have been at the bottom.

 

[Gary]

Um, we played as bad or worse after the lineup change. How does nobody get this when trying to defend why Evans/Thornton is such a disaster.

No we didn't.. Stats wise everything offensively went from dead last to top 6 from the pre to post all star break.

Defense was dead last before and after all star break.

If you didn't see that the team actually played better than before the change then I don't know what to tell you. As Grant Napier would say "Get your freaking eyes checked!" Not that I am saying that, but it's pretty obvious they played better the second half of the season.

Having attended most home games the atmosphere there was entirely different from both the players, and the fans.

One last question... How many wins did you think we would have shooting under 40%FG and being dead last in the league in defense? How can you build on something that is flawed, from a basketball point of view?

If you are still saying we played worse then I will pull out my excuse book and say it's because Evans played SF and we have midget PG/SF/SG lineup out there.. So if Evans was at SG then we would have been better. That's my "excuse". I have a W/L record of those games, and I have a W/L record where Evans wasn't even in the game or came off the bench (or started at SG).. Want to know what it was? 6-3.. That's almost an 1/8th of the season right there.

Wins against Lakers/Utah/Charlotte/Memphis/Minnesota/Boston
Losses against Utah/OKC (2 times). Those two OKC losses is because of our bench. We didn't have one... (excuse) heh one of the games we were up in the 4th and we just tired out. The other in the second quarter we got out played ...bench vs bench

Not bad eh?

(I am just being silly).

 

[HighFlyingMonkey]

No we didn't.. Stats wise everything offensively went from dead last to top 6 from the pre to post all star break.

Defense was dead last before and after all star break.

If you didn't see that the team actually played better than before the change then I don't know what to tell you. As Grant Napier would say "Get your freaking eyes checked!" Not that I am saying that, but it's pretty obvious they played better the second half of the season.

Having attended most home games the atmosphere there was entirely different from both the players, and the fans.

One last question... How many wins did you think we would have shooting under 40%FG and being dead last in the league in defense? How can you build on something that is flawed, from a basketball point of view?

If you are still saying we played worse then I will pull out my excuse book and say it's because Evans played SF and we have midget PG/SF/SG lineup out there.. So if Evans was at SG then we would have been better. That's my "excuse". I have a W/L record of those games, and I have a W/L record where Evans wasn't even in the game or came off the bench (or started at SG).. Want to know what it was? 6-3.. That's almost an 1/8th of the season right there. (I am just being silly).

The question is, how much was the offensive improvement a result of Salmons being taken out of the lineup as opposed to IT taking over at PG?

I do believe Reke can play PG for stints. However, I'm not a fan of him playing PG full-time because I do believe that IT should be handling point duty, while Reke handles playmaking duty. That being said, in the last two minutes of the game, I want to put out the best defensive lineup possible while still having our two best clutch scorers (Reke and Thornton) on the court. These simple facts tell me our closing lineup should be Reke/Thornton/Johnson/Thompson/Cousins.

Basically, saying Tyreke/Thornton was an unmitigated disaster to the extent that we should NEVER having them as the backcourt is unfair; it essentially places the blame for the entire team's suckitude offensively on two guys. It wasn't Tyreke and Thornton's fault Salmons couldn't hit an open J or got roasted defensively by seemingly every SF he faced. Could the offense have been better? Of course. I don't think Reke is that great of a full-time PG. The PG has duties I don't think should be left up to Reke.

However, we are looking for a lineup that simply gives us the best chance to win games at the end. I don't think its beyond Reke to play PG for 2-3 minute stints. And if he can, why on earth would you leave your best clutch shooter on the bench when the game is on the line? Or why would you have the entire backcourt be forced to cover guys who they are physically overmatched against?