Kings.com Weekly Roundtable

[ReinadelosReys]

http://nba.com/kings/news/Kings_Weekly_Roundtable.html

November 15 through November 22

Brad Miller was dominant versus the Nuggets on Sunday, giving the Kings their third win of the week.
NBAE/Getty Images
Rollin, Rollin, Rollin…
The Kings are rollin’ baby!

Finishing the week by going 3-0 at home, Sacramento now has the longest winning streak in the NBA at five games and is well on its way to sweeping a five-game homestand at ARCO.

Although the wins haven’t all been pretty—Sacramento struggled to put Memphis and Milwaukee away, they are what they are, victories. The Kings have rebounded from a 0-3 start to go 6-1 and vault right back into the thick of things in the Pacific Division.

Nothing like some home cooking and a big win (vs. Phoenix) to get the ball rolling.

Comings and Goings…
Courtney Alexander’s short-tenure with the Kings ended with a whimper on Saturday thanks to the guard’s release.

Alexander’s sore foot kept the athletic wingman from ever really getting on the floor, in practice or games—his only action came in one contest in China against the Rockets. In the end, the Kings just felt that he had missed too much time to catch up and become a factor this season.

The Kings will most likely not sign another player to take Alexander’s place unless someone gets hurt, with the roster already standing at 12. So all those chat room discussions about the Kings’ next free-agent pickup can now end.

Speaking of moves, how many people out there still want the Kings to do that rumored Ron Artest for Peja Stojakovic trade? Besides the Pacers that is…

Since there are various media outlets that put out weekly NBA power polls rankings, we at the Roundtable decided to one of own. Because we have journalistic intregity though, we knew that we couldn't get away with having the Kings at the top of the polls each week, so we decided to leave them out. Here are the top five teams in the NBA right now, minus the Kings:
1.—San Antonio: They're once again the best team in the league.
2.—Phoenix: Amare Stoudamire is leading the league in scoring and Steve Nash is a fantasy hoops dream—this team is fun to watch
3.—Miami: They are playing the best in the East, but you can't sleep on the Pistons.
4.—Dallas: Playing well, but injuries should start to take their toll. Looks like Dirk is getting Chris Webber's old sprained-ankle curse.
5.—Seattle: The Sonics were kicking heiney, but their blowout loss in Boston drops them a few notches

 

[ReinadelosReys]

Part II:

Doug Christie is feeling good these days, as are his teammates thanks to a five-game winning streak. Either that or he's doing his favorite Fire Marshall Bill impression..."LET ME SHOW YOU SOMETHING!"
courtesy NBAE/Getty Images

This is Darryl Arata. Darryl is in charge of writing game notes for the Sacramento Kings and keeping track of all the team’s stats. He is one of the best in the NBA as well as in all of sports, and once a week Darryl will give us his most useful Kings’ Stat of the Week.

Darryl Says This Week:
The Kings are ranked third in the NBA in free throw percentage (includes games on Nov. 22), making 81 percent of their free throw attempts. Sacramento joins New Orleans, Indiana, and New Jersey as the only teams shooting above 80 percent from the foul line. The Kings have shot .800 or better from the free throw line in seven games this season, including the last five.

 

[KingKong]

"The Kings will most likely not sign another player to take Alexander’s place unless someone gets hurt, with the roster already standing at 12. So all those chat room discussions about the Kings’ next free-agent pickup can now end."

uh-oh!!!

How credible is this?

 

[bibbyweb]

"The Kings will most likely not sign another player to take Alexander’s place unless someone gets hurt, with the roster already standing at 12. So all those chat room discussions about the Kings’ next free-agent pickup can now end."

uh-oh!!!

How credible is this?

It sounds to me that Petrie is up to something.

 

[Bricklayer]

"The Kings will most likely not sign another player to take Alexander’s place unless someone gets hurt, with the roster already standing at 12. So all those chat room discussions about the Kings’ next free-agent pickup can now end."

uh-oh!!!

How credible is this?

I'm really not sure who this is or how credible he is, so I don't know.

But I will say that unfortunately I probably agree with his assessment. We likely won't pick anybody up until/unless we have a significant injury. Not that I agree that that's a good idea -- think the bench this year could actually end up being a factor holding us back one more time from our goal of a championship (if we have to play all of our starters 35+ minutes every night all year long I will virtually guarantee an injury sooner or later). But there are no JJ level players out there this time. And we technically have 12 men on the roster -- albeit that 4 of those 12 just simply are not ready to log major minutes on a championship squad.

 

[KingKong]

As it stands:

Mike Bibby
Doug Christie
Peja Stojakovic
Chris Webber
Brad Miller

Bobby Jackson
Maurice Evans/ Kevin Martin
Matt Barnes
Darius Songaila/ Erik Daniels
Greg Ostertag

I'm not comfortable with Evans/ Martin and OTag filling in for our starters. They just haven't impressed me at all out there, although Martin is still young. I agree that if Adelman sticks to his stringent rotations there will be an injury or two looming in our future which could be detrimental. You don't think a Corey Blount or a Gary Trent can help us out there to at least give the starters some rest?

 

[Bricklayer]

Corey Blount = absolutely not. He'd just be a 5th big man -- worse than Darius or Greg. I wouldn't mind the extra depth and would certainly trust him to be a solid backup 4/5 more than I do Erik Daniels. But not a guy who would make any sort of difference to our healthy rotation. Not going to steal minutes from any of our top 4 big guys.

Gary Trent is more of a question mark. I've always thought he had a little talent. But it seems the rest of the league doesn't agree with me. Anyway, at his size he's purely a backup undersized 4, so it would be Darius's minutes he would take, if anybody's. And while Darius does not blow me away, I'm not sure he's really where we need the most help back there.

In a perfect world, I would love to have an strong 4/5 off the bench AHEAD of Darius and Tag, and them be big men #4 and #5, a scoring swingman off the bench in the Hedo/JJ mold (big + strong + able to really spell Peja), and a 3rd string PG down near the end of the bench in case of injury. But its not a perfect world, and the only position where we are likely to find somebody better than what we have right now might be that backup swingman spot that Barnes now occupies. I like Matt, but I'd be more comfortable if he was player #10 or #11 than player #8/#9.

Maybe Kevin can develop quickly this year, but given his total lack of bulk, he really can't play the 3, and with Bobby eating up a lot of the backup OG minutes, even if Kevin blossoms he really can only help us for short stints. We have a 1/2 for major minutes. What we could really use is a 3/2 for major minutes, and then a 4/5 for major minutes (the same structure we had with Bobby/Hedo/Pollard in our glory days). Instead we have a pure 4 (Songaila) for 15 min or so, a pure 5 (Tag) trying to find his game who is only getting spot minutes, and a 3/2 (Barnes) for spot minutes. Along with the deep bench guys who are probably two pure 2s (Martin, Evans) and one 3/4 (Daniels).

Just feels like just random players who impressed us for one reason or another rather than a well constructed and balanced bench. unfortunately i just do not see that major minute 3/2 or 4/5 still sitting out there. So barring trade, almost anybody we picked up would probably just add to the random talent on the deep bench.