[KINGS] Comments that don't warrant their own thread (Redux)

Capt. Factorial

ceterum censeo delendum esse Argentum
Staff member
Athletic’s team shooting rankings

20. Sacramento Kings | Average rank: 17.6

2022 rank: 11th

Greatest strength: Third in 3s per game
Greatest weakness: 29th in midrange field goals per game

Analysis: Sacramento’s entire perimeter rotation hunts 3s, which puts pressure on teams. But De’Aaron Fox is the only consistent threat in the midrange, while the Kings are relatively average when it comes to shooting accuracy. The Kings also are hurt by Fox (73.8 percent) and Domantas Sabonis (66.5 percent) being poor free-throw shooters.
From a statistical point of view, the midrange shot is the least efficient shot in the game. Any analysis that suggests that our shooting is "weak" because we avoid inefficient shots is...lacking.
 
From a statistical point of view, the midrange shot is the least efficient shot in the game. Any analysis that suggests that our shooting is "weak" because we avoid inefficient shots is...lacking.
I agree except on the nights where we are shooting 20 percent from deep on 40 attempts. Also, I hadn’t considered it until just now but I wonder if there is any uptick in fast break points on missed threes due to the weird angle long rebounds? Might be worth looking into
 

Warhawk

Give blood and save a life!
Staff member
Love Fox, but keeping him instead of TH was a mistake for this franchise.
But...that wasn't an option with Indy anyways according to all reports I've seen (due to Fox's new contract, I believe). You are wishing for an impossibility.

This whole Fox vs. Hali topic is just so abused and old. They didn't work together and trading one unlocked both of them and brought back one of the best big men in the game for the Kings, turning around our franchise. The guy we kept and the guy we got are both freaking all-stars, for crying out loud.

Can't we just be happy that a trade worked out to be a win-win for once? :rolleyes:
 
But...that wasn't an option with Indy anyways according to all reports I've seen (due to Fox's new contract, I believe). You are wishing for an impossibility.

This whole Fox vs. Hali topic is just so abused and old. They didn't work together and trading one unlocked both of them and brought back one of the best big men in the game for the Kings, turning around our franchise. The guy we kept and the guy we got are both freaking all-stars, for crying out loud.

Can't we just be happy that a trade worked out to be a win-win for once? :rolleyes:
I didn't say the move had to be Indy. I'm saying TH is far better far earlier in his career then Fox who has had a longer development process to the all star player he is, but TH is arguably the best PG in the entire league and the franchise would have benefitted in the long run by keeping the player who is better and younger.
 
love Tyreke, but drafting him instead of Steph was a mistake for the franchise
Watching guys like Luca and TH play I really don't get how you can just ignore it.

People will always bring up Sam Bowie forever and this is one of those things. I'm just tired of not being on the better end of things.
 
Watching guys like Luca and TH play I really don't get how you can just ignore it.

People will always bring up Sam Bowie forever and this is one of those things. I'm just tired of not being on the better end of things.
Brotherman, we're in the year 2024, not 2021. Things have changed in the last few years.

Bagley over Luka is our Sam Bowie over MJ moment. No matter how much the media WANT this to be the case, trading Hali, who absolutely is one of the best players in the league, to unlock our own 29-6-5 guard on elite efficiency AND getting a 20-13-8 center as compensation is not it. I think a big part of the reason Sabonis doesn't get his respect from the media is because they SO badly wanted to dunk on us for dealing Hali, but he's making it impossible.

Sure, we traded a guy who's developed into one of the best players in the NBA. We received one of the best players in the NBA in return. And we unlocked our guy to also become one of the best players in the NBA. Anyone still trying to say we lost this trade is just being delusional.
 

Tetsujin

The Game Thread Dude
Watching guys like Luca and TH play I really don't get how you can just ignore it.

People will always bring up Sam Bowie forever and this is one of those things. I'm just tired of not being on the better end of things.
Harden-style hero ball like both guys play has yet to actually have won anything in the NBA. Just because a bunch of the Ringer surface-level analytics nerds (And i use that term extremely loosely because pretty much all of those guys have an extremely basic understanding of those at best) love it when one guy dominates the offense for 75% of every single possession doesn’t mean that’s actually the future of the league/it won’t be until at least one of the Luka/Harden/Tyrese guys learns how to not be a complete and total traffic cone on defense.
 

Warhawk

Give blood and save a life!
Staff member
I didn't say the move had to be Indy. I'm saying TH is far better far earlier in his career then Fox who has had a longer development process to the all star player he is, but TH is arguably the best PG in the entire league and the franchise would have benefitted in the long run by keeping the player who is better and younger.
Then please show me the other trade that was on the table for Fox (and his salary at the time) that would bring back a player better than Sabonis. Because, frankly, I think either Fox or Hali could play with Sabonis and be successful.

I'll be waiting.
 
This conversation really gets old after awhile lol. Two things: one, if the decision was to trade Fox at the time, the player most heavily linked to us was Julius Randle, so unless you think Julius/Tyrese would be a better pair than Fox/Sabonis, then I'm all for arguments there, however, I do not. Second, Tyrese is having a great year and is one of the best PGs in the league no doubt, but let's wait till we see him in the playoffs where defense is much more important.
 
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Sure, we traded a guy who's developed into one of the best players in the NBA. We received one of the best players in the NBA in return. And we unlocked our guy to also become one of the best players in the NBA. Anyone still trying to say we lost this trade is just being delusional.
Tyrese Haliburton is an excellent player, but he's the shiny new offensive toy in an era where gaudy offensive stats/efficiency are no longer scarce. Every week some player or another ends up on some sort of "historical" list for having done something that would have been impossibly impressive in any other era, but is just another day at the office within the context of modern supercharged NBA offenses. The difference is that Hali plays pretty, while Domas barrels his way to the rim on offense and absolutely gobbles up rebounds on defense, which is perhaps the least sexy measure of efficiency for both ends of the court (and is, for my money, made even more impressive given the volume of "long rebounds" that result from the typical shot profile of a modern NBA team).

I mean, if we wanna get gaudy, Sabonis is 12th on the all-time triple-doubles list and he's only 27 years old. The guy leads the league in rebounds this season and he's 8th in assists per game as a center not named Nikola Jokic while still tossing up a shade under 20 points per game. And last year, in his first full season with the Kings, they became a playoff contender in the tougher conference after over a decade-and-a-half of postseason futility. Whatever the Kings might have become if they had not traded Tyrese Haliburton, you're going to have a hard time convincing me that they would have evolved into an overnight success the way the Kings did after acquiring Domas. His impact has been incalculably large, particularly in the ways he's helped unlock Fox's next several gears, which include All-Star, All-NBA, and fringe MVP considerations.

That said, this "traded the wrong guard" argument is terribly misguided in its willful ignorance of context. And the media are fickle in an online age that's constantly desperate for novelty. NBA journos are always chasing fresh narratives. Last season, the Kings' rise up the standings and Fox's leveling up were the surprise narrative that took the league by storm. This season, the Pacers' rise up the standings and Haliburton's leveling up are the surprise narrative that's taking the league by storm. They can have their moment. They've earned it. The Kings are trying to figure out how to be more than just a flash in the pan, and we'll see if the Pacers have what it takes to pose any kind of threat come playoff time (if their putrid defense doesn't drop them back into the play-in bracket again before season's end).
 

pdxKingsFan

So Ordinary That It's Truly Quite Extraordinary
Staff member
I didn't say the move had to be Indy. I'm saying TH is far better far earlier in his career then Fox who has had a longer development process to the all star player he is, but TH is arguably the best PG in the entire league and the franchise would have benefitted in the long run by keeping the player who is better and younger.
Tyrese is 2 years younger and I still say Fox is the better player.

No slight on Tyrese. He's just not good on defense. Fox showed the tools and stumbled under bad coaching. There is no way that if Fox had been the one traded that Tyrese would still be getting all the adoring love he gets now in Indy, but if Fox broke out on a good team we'd certainly be the laughingstock of the league. And combine that with the fact that I just don't think there was another player of Sabonis's caliber out there on the trade market so we'd have either gotten a bust/reclamation project like Ben Simmons or gone into Presti mode, which is something Vivek made clear was not an option. I guess you can debate the merits on that last point, but as a fan base we didn't deserve another 5+ year wait.
 

hrdboild

Moloch in whom I dream Angels!
Staff member
It's unfortunate that there are still Kings fans who want to make this about Fox vs. Haliburton. This was a last place team with very few tradeable assets making one of the few deals available to them and the turn-around for the franchise was both immediate and definitive. The Kings won their division last season, had two players make 3rd team All NBA, had the Coach of the Year and the Executive of the Year, and set (short-lived) records for their offensive efficiency. Is there any reasonable world where that should not be considered a successful outcome?

The goal of any deal is to improve the team and sometimes we end up losing players that we all love in pursuit of that goal. I refuse to pick apart Haliburton's game just because he's not the guy Monte chose to build around. The dude is a stud, will get a starting spot in the All Star game this year, and looks like he's headed for a Hall of Fame career. As a fan of Haliburton, I'm thrilled that he ended up in a situation where he's thriving. There's no reason why we can't continue to be fans of both Tyrese and the Kings and for anyone who wants to take potshots at Fox every time he has a bad game or pine for Haliburton, I would hope that y'all will find peace with it once we win a championship. :D
 

pdxKingsFan

So Ordinary That It's Truly Quite Extraordinary
Staff member
It's unfortunate that there are still Kings fans who want to make this about Fox vs. Haliburton. This was a last place team with very few tradeable assets making one of the few deals available to them and the turn-around for the franchise was both immediate and definitive. The Kings won their division last season, had two players make 3rd team All NBA, had the Coach of the Year and the Executive of the Year, and set (short-lived) records for their offensive efficiency. Is there any reasonable world where that should not be considered a successful outcome?

The goal of any deal is to improve the team and sometimes we end up losing players that we all love in pursuit of that goal. I refuse to pick apart Haliburton's game just because he's not the guy Monte chose to build around. The dude is a stud, will get a starting spot in the All Star game this year, and looks like he's headed for a Hall of Fame career. As a fan of Haliburton, I'm thrilled that he ended up in a situation where he's thriving. There's no reason why we can't continue to be fans of both Tyrese and the Kings and for anyone who wants to take potshots at Fox every time he has a bad game or pine for Haliburton, I would hope that y'all will find peace with it once we win a championship. :D
For me it's less about Fox vs. Haliburton than who we got back for either and I'm hard pressed to find any deal that's better that wasn't just getting draft capital and praying for the best.

But what I can't get away from is the notion that the thing that is holding Fox back from all-star starter isn't his play, it's an anti-Sacramento media bias. Whichever player left Sacramento was going to be catapulted to instant star status and used as exhibit 746 as to why Sacramento is horrible.
 

hrdboild

Moloch in whom I dream Angels!
Staff member
For me it's less about Fox vs. Haliburton than who we got back for either and I'm hard pressed to find any deal that's better that wasn't just getting draft capital and praying for the best.

But what I can't get away from is the notion that the thing that is holding Fox back from all-star starter isn't his play, it's an anti-Sacramento media bias. Whichever player left Sacramento was going to be catapulted to instant star status and used as exhibit 746 as to why Sacramento is horrible.
Yeah, that's been painfully apparent this season .. though the All Star game is in Indy this year so I don't know how much his (Hali's) All Star votes have been boosted by that. But in terms of on-court performance, Fox has been just as much of a breakout star this year as Tyrese yet he's getting maybe 1/10th of the national media attention for it and he continues to get no respect from the officials.

Fox has been the third best guard in the league so far and is hovering around 5th overall in PPG yet he's 8th in his own conference for All Star votes. Domas is tied with Luka for second most triple doubles and one behind Jokic last I checked for most double doubles and leads the league in RPG yet he didn't even crack the top 10 in voting for frontcourt players. I guess we'll see what happens with end of the year awards voting. The fan voting has always been a popularity contest and we just don't garner much attention at the national level.

And on a related note, why the hell hasn't Sacramento gotten an All Star game yet? We even got jumped by Las Vegas which isn't an NBA city.
 
Harden-style hero ball like both guys play has yet to actually have won anything in the NBA. Just because a bunch of the Ringer surface-level analytics nerds (And i use that term extremely loosely because pretty much all of those guys have an extremely basic understanding of those at best) love it when one guy dominates the offense for 75% of every single possession doesn’t mean that’s actually the future of the league/it won’t be until at least one of the Luka/Harden/Tyrese guys learns how to not be a complete and total traffic cone on defense.
This. In the history of the NBA, point guards like Hali who racks up the assists and dominates the APG every year (Chris Paul/Trae Young/John Stockton/Steve Nash/Luka/Harden/Westbrook/TH) has NEVER won the championship.

Until TH wins the chip, I think having an all around good and well balanced team with good defense wins championships and not having one guy dominate the ball the whole game and average 12 assists per game.
 
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Yeah, that's been painfully apparent this season .. though the All Star game is in Indy this year so I don't know how much his (Hali's) All Star votes have been boosted by that. But in terms of on-court performance, Fox has been just as much of a breakout star this year as Tyrese yet he's getting maybe 1/10th of the national media attention for it and he continues to get no respect from the officials.

Fox has been the third best guard in the league so far and is hovering around 5th overall in PPG yet he's 8th in his own conference for All Star votes. Domas is tied with Luka for second most triple doubles and one behind Jokic last I checked for most double doubles and leads the league in RPG yet he didn't even crack the top 10 in voting for frontcourt players. I guess we'll see what happens with end of the year awards voting. The fan voting has always been a popularity contest and we just don't garner much attention at the national level.

And on a related note, why the hell hasn't Sacramento gotten an All Star game yet? We even got jumped by Las Vegas which isn't an NBA city.
As a new NBA fan, the most frustrating part to watch is how certain players are reffed differently. That impacts performance and awards.

I’ve said this before, but if Fox got the same whistle as SGA, Fox might average 50pts per game. Same with Luka. Those guys just throw their head back and yell and get a whistle even if there is little or no illegal contact.

Meanwhile, guys like Fox and Sabonis get clobbered consistently and can’t get a call.

It also applies on the defensive end. They will allow players with a reputation of being elite defenders to be extremely physical and grab and swipe without problem but other players get called for every ticky tack thing it seems.

Overall, I don’t have a problem with the officiating most nights but I hate playing against certain teams where I know the whistle will be extremely inconsistent.
 
For me it's less about Fox vs. Haliburton than who we got back for either and I'm hard pressed to find any deal that's better that wasn't just getting draft capital and praying for the best.

But what I can't get away from is the notion that the thing that is holding Fox back from all-star starter isn't his play, it's an anti-Sacramento media bias. Whichever player left Sacramento was going to be catapulted to instant star status and used as exhibit 746 as to why Sacramento is horrible.
They need to win a playoff series or two, to get the respect and attention. It happened back in 2001, but then was erased by the historic drought after 2006
 
Then please show me the other trade that was on the table for Fox (and his salary at the time) that would bring back a player better than Sabonis. Because, frankly, I think either Fox or Hali could play with Sabonis and be successful.

I'll be waiting.
Hali wouldn't be "transcendent" Hali if he were on the Kings and playing with Sabonis for the simple reason Hali wouldn't be averaging 12+ assist per game with Sabonis on the floor. You take away Hali's "superpower" when he has to share the rock, much like when he had to share the ball with Fox.

Fox on the other hand has flourished sharing the rock with Sabonis. Hali would still be very good, but he wouldn't be "superstar" Hali if he were still on the Kings with Sabonis.
 

hrdboild

Moloch in whom I dream Angels!
Staff member
As a new NBA fan, the most frustrating part to watch is how certain players are reffed differently. That impacts performance and awards.

I’ve said this before, but if Fox got the same whistle as SGA, Fox might average 50pts per game. Same with Luka. Those guys just throw their head back and yell and get a whistle even if there is little or no illegal contact.

Meanwhile, guys like Fox and Sabonis get clobbered consistently and can’t get a call.

It also applies on the defensive end. They will allow players with a reputation of being elite defenders to be extremely physical and grab and swipe without problem but other players get called for every ticky tack thing it seems.

Overall, I don’t have a problem with the officiating most nights but I hate playing against certain teams where I know the whistle will be extremely inconsistent.
I'm glad you see it too. After 30 years it's hard to tell sometimes if the calls are really that bad or if I just have Kings colored glasses on. I'm sure bias plays a role too but a lot of these calls are not subtle. The Sacramento Kings have been terrible on defense for nearly their entire history so it's extra frustrating to see them called for ticky-tack foul after ticky-tack foul when they actually do play nearly flawless defense. Especially when other teams (like Boston and LA) are given extra leeway to be extremely physical. It starts to feel like the league just has no interest in allowing us a place at the winner's table.
 

pdxKingsFan

So Ordinary That It's Truly Quite Extraordinary
Staff member
Hali wouldn't be "transcendent" Hali if he were on the Kings and playing with Sabonis for the simple reason Hali wouldn't be averaging 12+ assist per game with Sabonis on the floor. You take away Hali's "superpower" when he has to share the rock, much like when he had to share the ball with Fox.

Fox on the other hand has flourished sharing the rock with Sabonis. Hali would still be very good, but he wouldn't be "superstar" Hali if he were still on the Kings with Sabonis.
This is a pretty good observation. If you look at both teams stat tables Sabonis + Fox average 12.8 assists per game while Hali is 12.7.

The next two leaders on the Pacers for assists are backup PGs followed by Bruce Brown and Buddy Hield. Obi Toppin is the first big man on the list with 1.4apg at 7th. (Turner 9th with 1.2). Keegan edges out Obi, and HB, Lyles and Len all round out the Kings top 10 with 1.3 - slightly above Turner.

I don't know what a Hali/Sabonis lead offense would look like but if it were to be like the Fox and Ox combo, Hali's assist totals would be cut in half.
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Tyrese Haliburton is an excellent player, but he's the shiny new offensive toy in an era where gaudy offensive stats/efficiency are no longer scarce. Every week some player or another ends up on some sort of "historical" list for having done something that would have been impossibly impressive in any other era, but is just another day at the office within the context of modern supercharged NBA offenses. The difference is that Hali plays pretty, while Domas barrels his way to the rim on offense and absolutely gobbles up rebounds on defense, which is perhaps the least sexy measure of efficiency for both ends of the court (and is, for my money, made even more impressive given the volume of "long rebounds" that result from the typical shot profile of a modern NBA team).

I mean, if we wanna get gaudy, Sabonis is 12th on the all-time triple-doubles list and he's only 27 years old. The guy leads the league in rebounds this season and he's 8th in assists per game as a center not named Nikola Jokic while still tossing up a shade under 20 points per game. And last year, in his first full season with the Kings, they became a playoff contender in the tougher conference after over a decade-and-a-half of postseason futility. Whatever the Kings might have become if they had not traded Tyrese Haliburton, you're going to have a hard time convincing me that they would have evolved into an overnight success the way the Kings did after acquiring Domas. His impact has been incalculably large, particularly in the ways he's helped unlock Fox's next several gears, which include All-Star, All-NBA, and fringe MVP considerations.

That said, this "traded the wrong guard" argument is terribly misguided in its willful ignorance of context. And the media are fickle in an online age that's constantly desperate for novelty. NBA journos are always chasing fresh narratives. Last season, the Kings' rise up the standings and Fox's leveling up were the surprise narrative that took the league by storm. This season, the Pacers' rise up the standings and Haliburton's leveling up are the surprise narrative that's taking the league by storm. They can have their moment. They've earned it. The Kings are trying to figure out how to be more than just a flash in the pan, and we'll see if the Pacers have what it takes to pose any kind of threat come playoff time (if their putrid defense doesn't drop them back into the play-in bracket again before season's end).
This post makes me feel even better shedding light on other aspects of this argument I had missed :D