[Game] Kings @ Bucks - 11/5/16 - 5 PM PDT/8 PM EDT

[ParniValjak]

Did people really expect smooth sailing for the first 10-15 games especially with DC missing a bunch of them and a long trip in there to start the season.

We are very unsettled for a bunch of reasons. Lawson just does not fit, we are missing DC's play, especially shooting out there. Offensive scheme is just partly implemented and some players like Afflalo are just going through a major shooting slump. He is missing some excellent looks he is getting. These things will turn around. Road games means very little if any practice time when this team needs it the most.

As soon as we lost Rudy for this game, this was going to get pretty ugly for us with lack of other firepower. They double and triple teamed Cousins as soon as the pass was heading his way and we kept bricking away open look after open look. Players that are known as good shooters are bricking them.

This thing will turn. It might very well be that our first 10-15 games costs us a play off spot but I am not sure there is much of a way around it. We just need to play through it, practice hard, settle at both ends, get some continuity with our line ups and build some chemistry that way.

People keep crapping on about Rudy and needing to trade him but if this game showed us anything it is how much we need him or a player that is at least as good a scorer as Rudy. Cousins is dominant but he is also human. Not having Rudy and Collison out there allows other teams to double and triple team Cousins and dare us to beat them with our crappy shooting. Add a healthy Rudy and DC to that mix and its looking a heck of a lot better

 

[Suicide King]

The results post-Spurs game don't give me much hope though. We are overly reliant on Cousins and Gay just to be in games, and every night is just a prayer that Cousins doesn't foul out or that Matt Barnes can step up just so that we have a chance to win. We can talk all we want about defense looking better but teams are still dropping lots of 3s on us and we haven't held any opponent other than Phoenix to less than a 100 points. Sure, things could turn around, but if you ask me the early evidence is pointing more to the negative end than to upside for those hoping to make the playoffs. But hey, if you're content with having a coach active on the sidelines, good veteran presence in the locker room and talk of defense by all means be happy with a 2-5 start (soon to be 2-6) with losses against some teams that fans here automatically assumed we'd beat. I mean, as long as Cousins gets all-nba all is good in Kings land right?

Not all good on my end and I for one am definitely not happy being 2-5. After tonight's game it is difficult to speak of many positives. One thing I wont do is speak in absolutes. "We won't do finish .500" "Player X is a bust" "Player Z has checked out for the other 75 games already"

I know enough to know when I don't really know anything at all. And to speak in absolutes on something I have no control over and can see many possible variables and outcomes is just not something I do. I certainly don't begrudge any other fan venting, or feeling any kind of way they want. I also hold no illusions about keeping some sunny outlook on things when it would be lying to myself. I will however withhold my doomsday prepping for this season until a little later in the season at least. It has been an ugly road trip. That is for certain.

 

[Kingsfan23]

The fact that Collison is out can't be such an excuse. Injuries are a part of the game. To have your third best player missing some games is what a lot of teams go through. Bucks didn't have middleton

 

[KingMilz]

Problem is we are a veteran lottery team, we are trying to play in the half court with unskilled/low iq players and the athletic ability is awful, I have never seen such a physically weak in terms of quickness/toughness team in my life. We paid for 3 nonathletic veterans one that 37 and the other two that are washed up.

It's already time play Ben/Skal/Malachi/WCS and see what we have this is a joke. In todays NBA you have to have elite athletes and shooting unless you are the Spurs/Memphis where your key players have insane basketball IQ.

Please stop starting KK he lost playing time to Acy last year.........

The only real positive to this season is Cousins/Gay have played well upping there trade value.

 

[ParniValjak]

The fact that Collison is out can't be such an excuse. Injuries are a part of the game. To have your third best player missing some games is what a lot of teams go through. Bucks didn't have middleton

Yes but Bucks have had the same coach, same system and a pretty stable core for how long now?

We are basically starting from scratch! That foundation that Bucks have been building for 2-3 years, we are at the start of doing it now ourselves. This thing will take time but at least we are trying to do it the right way. There will be lapses, ups and downs but with the coach and the front office on the same page, it will turn.

 

[Bricklayer]

just don't see this team having enough star power to win more than 35 games. I just don't.
Cousins is a great scorer. Gay is a good scorer. Collison is a + scorer. Everyone else is average, or below. It's just not enough.

Whether its enough or not entirely depends on the defense snapping to. And obviously the last two games have been big steps back. You'll struggle long and hard to find strong offensive players on the Jazz, but they stop the other team from scoring, so it works out ok. Despite people liking to overrate their offensive guys, Memphis really just had three 17ppg type scorers, and then some roleplayers scattered about under Joerger, but again, you stop the other team from scoring and you are in games. That's the whole ball of wax with us. Are we going to get it together on that end or not? Because offensively it is as you say.

 

[KingMilz]

Whether its enough or not entirely depends on the defense snapping to. And obviously the last two games have been big steps back. You'll struggle long and hard to find strong offensive players on the Jazz, but they stop the other team from scoring, so it works out ok. Despite people liking to overrate their offensive guys, Memphis really just had three 17ppg type scorers, and then some roleplayers scattered about under Joerger, but again, you stop the other team from scoring and you are in games. That's the whole ball of wax with us. Are we going to get it together on that end or not? Because offensively it is as you say.

The Jazz/Memphis have intelligent players who compete we don't and those teams currently athletically are far superior it's a horrible comparison imo.

 

[KingMilz]

Yes but Bucks have had the same coach, same system and a pretty stable core for how long now?

We are basically starting from scratch! That foundation that Bucks have been building for 2-3 years, we are at the start of doing it now ourselves. This thing will take time but at least we are trying to do it the right way. There will be lapses, ups and downs but with the coach and the front office on the same page, it will turn.

The Bucks made the playoffs the first year starting from scratch

 

[ParniValjak]

The Bucks made the playoffs the first year starting from scratch

In the East. Keep that in mind! How do you think they would fare in the West?

 

[KingMilz]

In the East. Keep that in mind! How do you think they would fare in the West?

I don't know and neither does anyone else, I just know they made the playoffs and were a 500. team and the last two years the West has not been very good and the Kings didn't sniff the playoffs and don't look like coming close again. Every year it's the same excuses.......

 

[Bricklayer]

The Jazz/Memphis have intelligent players who compete we don't and those teams currently athletically are far superior it's a horrible comparison imo.

It wasn't always that way. You build those cultures. Starts with a coach and willing pupils. And BTW the idea that those teams are especially athletic is pretty comical. The Grizzlies never were, and the Jazz are built around a Favors/Gobert frontline, and this year, in order to take the next step, loaded up on older slower vets themselves. George Hill, Joe Johnson, Boris Diaw aren;t smothering teams with their athleticism.

 

[ParniValjak]

I don't know and neither does anyone else, I just know they made the playoffs and were a 500. team and the last two years the West has not been very good and the Kings didn't sniff the playoffs and don't look like coming close again. Every year it's the same excuses.......

You don't know but you have no problem comparing apples and oranges.

 

[KingMilz]

It wasn't always that way. You build those cultures. Starts with a coach and willing pupils. And BTW the idea that those teams are especially athletic is pretty comical. The Grizzlies never were, and the Jazz are built around a Favors/Gobert frontline, and this year, in order to take the next step, loaded up on older slower vets themselves. George Hill, Joe Johnson, Boris Diaw aren;t smothering teams with their athleticism.

Favors/Hayward/Hood/Burkes/Exum/Lyles are all excellent athletes as is George Hill and the Grizzlies aside from Marc/Z-Bo has always had excellent quickness with Allen/Conley and this year the likes of JayMcal Green/Ennis/Baldwin.

The Kings quickness is beyond horrendous Koufus/AA/Gay turn about as quick as the Titanic

 

[kingdivac]

Nothing wrong with writing off the team early - makes them easier to follow with low expectations.

 

[Kingster]

Long standing Kings fans may remember supporting bad Kings team through Richmond years and even earlier. Supporting a loser is difficult, and its ok to whine about it - Being a Kings fan entitles you to it. Hell even the Lakers look to be turning around faster than the Kings this season. Ex-Pro players are not necessarily great managers or evaluators. This road-trip performance solidifies the notion of not paying anything more than $15 for a home ticket in the new arena.

Last year, that small meaningless several wins towards the end of the season hurt the Kings lottery positioning, and its definitely showing up now. Hell the coach still isn't even playing his youngins. This is going south quickly. Poor road records were the hallmarks of the early to mid 90s uncompetitive team through the years that some of you may be too young to remember or follow.

Sacrilege, but very true.

 

[Kingster]

Whether its enough or not entirely depends on the defense snapping to. And obviously the last two games have been big steps back. You'll struggle long and hard to find strong offensive players on the Jazz, but they stop the other team from scoring, so it works out ok. Despite people liking to overrate their offensive guys, Memphis really just had three 17ppg type scorers, and then some roleplayers scattered about under Joerger, but again, you stop the other team from scoring and you are in games. That's the whole ball of wax with us. Are we going to get it together on that end or not? Because offensively it is as you say.

I keep waiting for WCS to make his presence felt on defense, and waiting and waiting....

 

[Bricklayer]

Favors/Hayward/Hood/Burkes/Exum/Lyles are all excellent athletes as is George Hill and the Grizzlies aside from Marc/Z-Bo has always had excellent quickness with Allen/Conley and this year the likes of JayMcal Green/Ennis/Baldwin.

The Kings quickness is beyond horrendous Koufus/AA/Gay turn about as quick as the Titanic

I can't even tell if you are being honest with that argument. You throw out random Grizzlies from this year, where they have clearly switched styles and are trying to move toward smaller ball and pace. You list off all of the Jazz better athletes, ignore the not so good ones, then go pick out the Kings bad athletes, and ignore the good ones. Why not go with Collison, Lawson, McLemore, Willie, Rudy and Barnes? Even Big Cuz for a man his size.

 

[KingMilz]

I can't even tell if you are being honest with that argument. You throw out random Grizzlies from this year, where they have clearly switched styles and are trying to move toward smaller ball and pace. You list off all of the Jazz better athletes, ignore the not so good ones, then go pick out the Kings bad athletes, and ignore the good ones. Why not go with Collison, Lawson, McLemore, Willie, Rudy and Barnes? Even Big Cuz for a man his size.

I clearly said "currently" in my first post you quoted by ok...

Collison is the only good athlete on the team that actually knows how to use his athletic ability, Mclemore/WCS never hustle and Barnes/Rudy don't have much quickness nowdays. Lawson looks like what he was in Houston a guy that's lost some quickness and as a result sucks. If you watch the Kings this year athletically we just can't compete with these other teams in particular the last 3 losses.

 

[Kingsroots]

Sacrilege, but very true.

If the Lakers end up rebuilding a good team before us I may commit basketball suicide! Seriously, the thought of this makes me sick.

 

[206Fan]

Whether its enough or not entirely depends on the defense snapping to. And obviously the last two games have been big steps back. You'll struggle long and hard to find strong offensive players on the Jazz, but they stop the other team from scoring, so it works out ok. Despite people liking to overrate their offensive guys, Memphis really just had three 17ppg type scorers, and then some roleplayers scattered about under Joerger, but again, you stop the other team from scoring and you are in games. That's the whole ball of wax with us. Are we going to get it together on that end or not? Because offensively it is as you say.

I think a team like the Jazz is a bad example because they have good scorers from positions 1-5. Hill(13ppg), Hood(18ppg), Hayward(18ppg), Gobert(weakest), and Favors (16ppg). Lots of capable scorers. On their bench, they also have Mack, Burks(injured), Joe Johnson with Exum and Diaw on the side.

With Memphis, I think is a better comparison. However, it took them years to build what they have now. Gasol was around 22, Conley 20, Gay 21, but Randolph was near 30. Even taking out Gay, their big three grew their game together around each other. The Kings don't have that luxury anymore because of expiring contracts and age.

I think it's certainly possible for this current team to win 45+ games, but that means you need your role players to step up and play their A game every night, 100%. I just don't think they're capable of doing that anymore. That's why initially, I did predict lots of wins for this team. I fully expected our vets to come out, and at least play consistently. We just haven't gotten that from them this year. Afflalo has been ok on defense, but his offense has been horrible outside of 1 game. Lawson isn't a scoring threat, and he's regressed. Tolliver has been OK, but inconsistent. Same with Temple. Barnes is our best vet, but when you're forcing him to pick up the slack of everyone else and be our 3rd best player, it's just not acceptable.

When we're already missing a good 15ppg scorer in DC, we need more scoring from elsewhere. No one has stepped up for that role. Off the bench, the only player that has stepped up this year imo, is Ben. That's why I think it's a bigger problem than just missing DC's overall production. The entire inconsistent role players problem could be avoided if we actually had another star next to Gay and Cousins. The Kings just have been asking way too much out of them. As good as Cousins-Gay are, they're not Westbrook and Durant. It's just not going to win us any games this year if this is the road we continue on.

 

[kingdivac]

The Lakers don't bother me as much with Bryant finito......
Teams change.....but arrogant primadonnas in sports make great villains.

 

[Entity]

The write off on Afflalo is occurring. He can't get away with what he's doing. Other options

temple starting when collison gets back is my vote

 

[jcwkings]

The Jazz/Memphis have intelligent players who compete we don't and those teams currently athletically are far superior it's a horrible comparison imo.

We also dont have a DPOY in Marc Gasol or a potential future one in Gobert paired with Favors and good wing and guard defenders.

 

[hrdboild]

People keep crapping on about Rudy and needing to trade him but if this game showed us anything it is how much we need him or a player that is at least as good a scorer as Rudy. Cousins is dominant but he is also human. Not having Rudy and Collison out there allows other teams to double and triple team Cousins and dare us to beat them with our crappy shooting. Add a healthy Rudy and DC to that mix and its looking a heck of a lot better

It's because he doesn't want to be here. And that means in 6 months he won't be. This isn't really anything new either. He played all of last season like he didn't want to be here. He's only playing better now because there's light at the end of the tunnel. Here's what I think happened in that meeting Vivek didn't want to fly out for -- I think Rudy spoke to Vlade and said "I'm leaving no matter what so you might as well trade me" and Vlade said "you want out of here so bad, play better so I can trade you".

Of course we need a second option but any possibility of Rudy filling that role for us died after Petey D inked him to an extension and then promptly fired the coach he took less money to play for. I think he's fed up with this front office, he's fed up with Cousins' antics, and he'd like to play for a team that has some clue about what they're doing. I bought into Rudy when Coach Malone was still here but it's over. We can pretend it's not but that just means losing him for nothing. At least trading him gives us a chance to recoup some value.

Does it make us worse this season? Probably, but what difference does it make if we're only a 38 win team with Rudy or a 30 win team without him? Our season is over mid-April regardless.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

The results post-Spurs game don't give me much hope though. We are overly reliant on Cousins and Gay just to be in games, and every night is just a prayer that Cousins doesn't foul out or that Matt Barnes can step up just so that we have a chance to win. We can talk all we want about defense looking better but teams are still dropping lots of 3s on us and we haven't held any opponent other than Phoenix to less than a 100 points. Sure, things could turn around, but if you ask me the early evidence is pointing more to the negative end than to upside for those hoping to make the playoffs. But hey, if you're content with having a coach active on the sidelines, good veteran presence in the locker room and talk of defense by all means be happy with a 2-5 start (soon to be 2-6) with losses against some teams that fans here automatically assumed we'd beat. I mean, as long as Cousins gets all-nba all is good in Kings land right?

First of All™, you've been here long enough that, unless your baseline standard for a Cousins 'Stan' is "Someone who doesn't bash Cousins," then should have read enough of my posts to know that I don't really like Cousins. You may have me confused with another mod, if you think that I'm sweating him making the All-NBA team.

Second of all... holy excluded middle, Batman! You do realize that being a fan is not a binary experience, right? There a whole lot of ways to be a fan that exist in the space between being pessimistic (oh, I'm sorry, you fellas like to call yourselves "realists," right?) and watching the games through purple-colored sunglasses. You should try one some time.

 

[Sac.Kings]

10 years? I've been a fan of the Kings since 1985. There have been a lot more than 10 years of misery in that time.

Fair enough, can't argue that one!

 

[Kingster]

Did people really expect smooth sailing for the first 10-15 games especially with DC missing a bunch of them and a long trip in there to start the season.

We are very unsettled for a bunch of reasons. Lawson just does not fit, we are missing DC's play, especially shooting out there. Offensive scheme is just partly implemented and some players like Afflalo are just going through a major shooting slump. He is missing some excellent looks he is getting. These things will turn around. Road games means very little if any practice time when this team needs it the most.

As soon as we lost Rudy for this game, this was going to get pretty ugly for us with lack of other firepower. They double and triple teamed Cousins as soon as the pass was heading his way and we kept bricking away open look after open look. Players that are known as good shooters are bricking them.

This thing will turn. It might very well be that our first 10-15 games costs us a play off spot but I am not sure there is much of a way around it. We just need to play through it, practice hard, settle at both ends, get some continuity with our line ups and build some chemistry that way.

People keep crapping on about Rudy and needing to trade him but if this game showed us anything it is how much we need him or a player that is at least as good a scorer as Rudy. Cousins is dominant but he is also human. Not having Rudy and Collison out there allows other teams to double and triple team Cousins and dare us to beat them with our crappy shooting. Add a healthy Rudy and DC to that mix and its looking a heck of a lot better

As far as Gay is concerned, it's irrelevant whether we want him to be on the team or not. He doesn't want to be on the team. And with the way the team is playing, it seems doubtful that he will change his mind on that score. I just hope that he comes back soon from injury so his trade value is pretty high.

 

[peacelate]

Where is the optimism comg from? This team is as bad defensively last year and people think Collison is going to help on that end. This franchise seems to not understand that defending the 3 pt line is important.

 

[IfAt1st]

What I REALLY don't get is -

Why are our guards and small forwards STILL sucking into the paint area while leaving their men wide open at the 3 pt line, and somehow expecting to be able to teleport the 12 feet of space before they get the shot off?

It's like they didn't watch last season's historical futility under Karl while doing that same thing!

Newsflash to Kings - you HAVE to let your big men patrol the paint, and deal with the penetration there - if they repeatedly fail, THEN think of a different defensive approach.

But while you continue to get beat repeatedly by team's throwing up 30+ mostly-uncontested threes, you are morally- and strategically-obligated to stay on the three point shooter! (which in today's NBA, is almost everyone)

 

[ParniValjak]

As far as Gay is concerned, it's irrelevant whether we want him to be on the team or not. He doesn't want to be on the team. And with the way the team is playing, it seems doubtful that he will change his mind on that score. I just hope that he comes back soon from injury so his trade value is pretty high.

People are jumping at shadows and its rather hilarious!

Whatever Gay's value is, as an expiring contract it is pretty darn low. We are better off keeping him for the whole season and losing him for nothing in the offseason (if it gets to that) than it is to trade him for minimal return which is what you are getting for him.

We are 8 games into the season and a 3-5 record. This team will improve. It was always going to be a pretty slow start. Let things settle a bit and reevaluate once players become more comfortable with the system and each other. Way to early to jump at shadows. Realistically all of us would have taken 4-4 before Collison returns. We are 1 game off that. It is not the end of the world. Sit back and relax and don't jump at shadows.