You know, I was not going to comment on any of this stuff, Willie has moved on and I think it was in his best interest to move on from the Kings. I was glad to see him move on from the situation in Sacramento and wish him well. I believe GS will provide him with a “Golden” opportunity he was never going to get in Sacramento.
But apparently people here won’t do the classy thing, just won’t let it die, beating that dead horse. So, I guess I will PO some people. But what the heck, it’s the off season.
Willie has been one of my favorite players, I followed his career at UK and here. Cauley-Stein has always been a different dude. That’s what made him such a joy to watch, from the changing hair color/style to the new tattoos to the thoughtful, candid non-PC answers to most every media question. Cauley-Stein was a breath of fresh air. Not to mention the outstanding athleticism and potential.
Willie’s time in Sacramento was underwhelming, a lot of that falls on him, but also some blame must be laid on an inept, unstable front office, at least the first couple of years. Multiple coaching changes, changes in team direction, philosophy, etc.
Unfortunately, Willie became a lightning rod for fan discontent, his laid-back demeanor, his habit of being honest and saying what was on his mind rubbed a small core of keyboard warriors the wrong way and they seized every opportunity to pounce on his faults (and he has many as do most young players), many times exaggerating or cherry-picking stats, taking his quotes out of context or twisting his words to suit their narrative, changing a word here and there. It’s all about the “eye test” with them. It has been my experience that when people start talking about how someone doesn’t meet the “eye test”, a high percentage of time, their “eye test” is based on their preconceived prejudices against that person.
Really, on this site, there were only a handful of truly dedicated Willie haters, I used to privately refer to them as the “Hater’s Eight” (it’s not only Willie who was the object of the malice). They are only a handful, but their negative post numbers are way out of proportion to their small numbers.
Sadly, some people on here that I used to have a lot of respect for have jumped on the I hate Willie bandwagon, too, much like bystanders would join in with the school yard bullies when they had a victim chosen.
Willie was labeled by the haters as “inconsistent”, and he is, at least up to this point in his career. However, there is also a certain myth of consistency associated with their narrative, like other players he has been compared to going out night after night and putting up the same consistent numbers.
Point in case, his replacement, Dewayne Dedmon. I challenge the open minded among you to compare Willie’s and Dewayne’s stats from last year. Check out the chart below. You can see that their stats are amazingly similar for the most part. Even their minute averages are close. Their PER36 are close. But, but, but, Dedmon is so much more consistent, Willie gets 18 rebounds one night and then 0 the next night! Well, check it out, Dedmon had 12 games where he got 4 or fewer rebounds. Willie only had 8 games where he got 4 or fewer rebounds. Also, Dedmon missed 18 games, only playing in 64 games. So, 12 out of 64 games is 18.7%. Dedmon failed to get more than 4 rebounds in almost a fifth of the games he played in. Willie played in 81 games, 8 out of 81 is approximately 10%. Willie failed to get 4 or more rebounds in only 10% of the games he played in.
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Now this is not to say Willie is a better rebounder than Dedmon, or that Demon is not a good player. It’s just to point out how people got caught up in that myth of consistency. Most players are inconsistent to a point, young players especially. Don’t forget Willie is 4 years younger than Dedmon, with 4 years NBA experience to Dedmon’s 6 years NBA experience.
Now, where Dedmon is going to help the Kings this year, I hope, is with his 3-point shooting, spread the floor more than Willie. However, Kings will lose something in rim running. Dedmon may be a decent rim runner, but he is not there with WCS. Also, interesting to note, Dedmon never even took a 3-point shot in the NBA until 2 years ago. Hopefully, he will be able to continue shooting the 3 at the rate he has for the last two years to provide the floor spacing the Kings need.
The other area of improvement that it is hoped Dedmon will provide, the latest cause célèbre of Willie’s detractors, is rim protection. Last season Dedmon blocked almost twice as many shots as Willie per game. This was one area where Willie was really weak last year, and I am not sure why. I feel like he could have done a better job at rim protection. However, I agree with Bajaden (and others), that the Kings perimeter defense was terrible and gave up straight line drive after straight line drive to the basket and that Willie was the last line of defense. Many times, Willie was put in a lose/lose situation.
Willie is an elite perimeter defending big, which means he was not always near the paint. Having to leave his man on the perimeter to challenge those straight-line drives to the basket was a recipe for a foul. I suspect that at times Willie was frustrated with the guards and wings porous defense and declined to challenge the shots and get into foul trouble. They put him in a bad position. I don’t know how much of that was on Joerger’s defensive scheme. Also, it’s kind of on Joerger not to get more out of Willie (and also the guards and wings) in those situations, the bench is a good motivator. Hopefully, the perimeter defense will be improved this year and Dedmon won’t be put in that position or he may have trouble staying on the court. Dedmon is not an elite perimeter defending big like Willie, so he may be near the defensive paint more than Willie was.
Dedmon is a much better FT shooter than Willie. Again, I’m surprised that Willie is such a poor FT shooter. His shot doesn’t look broken, his form doesn’t look that bad. I think eventually he will become a better FT shooter. It seems to me that he picked his percentage up a little bit late in games at critical junctures. Interesting to note that at age 25 (2014-2015 season) Dedmon was a just a 53% FT shooter. He has improved to an 81% FT shooter last year.
As I said, I’m glad to see Willie move on from the Kings, it just was not working out for the Kings or him. But despite his detractors, I do not believe he was anywhere near as bad as they have made out. I think Willie was a big part of the Kings success last year. If Golden State only gets the same kind of stats out of him that he put up last year for the Kings, they will be getting a real bargain. However, I can see Willie taking a big leap forward in the Warriors system with a coach like Kerr and mentors like Green and Looney. The opportunity is there for him.
Also Willie was classy about his exit from the Kings and didn't have anything bad to say about the Kings:
https://www.sacbee.com/sports/nba/sacramento-kings/article232433112.html
