Kings get James Johnson, who is he???

[uolj]

THIS is our freaking big move!? It's not a bad move...but come on. Don't hype us up that there is going to be a potentially big move coming and then it be us getting some mediocre small forward...

I don't think there was any hype or even a suggestion that a big move was coming. Only that some move was coming. In fact, if you read Petrie's quotes it sure sounded like it was going to be a small move or two.

 

[The_Jamal]

You all would complain if God himself suited up to play SF for us. James Johnson is a nice upgrade over anything we have. He's big, athletic, had a really nice defensive last year, blocks shots (thought the shot-blocking cult would go nuts for this), rebounds well for the SF position and really doesn't demand or need the ball on offense. What's even more nice is that he's still young and can and will most likely improve. A Twill/JJ platoon at SF might be worth another 4-5 wins by themselves with how bad our production was from that position last season. James Johnson will not be the savior of the Kings. But he should be able to give us 20-25 minutes of solid defensive production from the SF position, something we've been missing the last 4 years.

 

[OnYouLikeGlue]

I was really hoping Smart would move MT to 6th man, but if JJ starts, then they will need MT's shooting in the starting lineup.

PG Tyreke
SG MT
SF JJ
PF JT
C Cousins

Unless Smart mixes it up and starts Jimmer with Tyreke. Not saying that's what I'd do, but this current roster is really unbalanced, especially lacking 3pt shooting and passing. Offseason isn't over, but I'm not optimistic there will be any other deals worth talking about.

You do realize that IT shot a better 3pt% than Thornton last year right?

 

[Circa_1985_Fan]

You all would complain if God himself suited up to play SF for us. James Johnson is a nice upgrade over anything we have. He's big, athletic, had a really nice defensive last year, blocks shots (thought the shot-blocking cult would go nuts for this), rebounds well for the SF position and really doesn't demand or need the ball on offense. What's even more nice is that he's still young and can and will most likely improve. A Twill/JJ platoon at SF might be worth another 4-5 wins by themselves with how bad our production was from that position last season.

Sweet, 4-5 more wins!!...26-27 win season, netting us the 7th pick
...again!! So...what was the real difference between JJ and Donte, other than a couple inches and JJ being slower??

 

[Mass]

Personally, I'm fine with this move. He's young, he has the size to play SF, doesn't need many shots, plays defense, is a good shot blocker, his FG% is pretty good, he has room to improve. That's how I see it. We just gave them a 2nd round pick, so I don't see the problem here. Of course he's not a star, but we don't need one. We need role players willing to play D, and who know their role. I know Iguodala or Gay are much better player, but do you think the Maloofs are going to pay for one of them, and then throw a max contract at Cousins and/or Tyreke? I don't think so.

Johnson is our best option right now, and this should mean the end of Tyreke at SF. I also believe there's should be a trade coming up, because we just have too many SFs right now, and I'm pretty sure our FO would like to bring Williams back for the right price. Garcia, Salmons, Outlaw: I know it's hard to trade those guys, but maybe we can pack one of them with Jimmer or Hassan and see if someone out there is interested.

 

[Capt. Factorial]

You all would complain if God himself suited up to play SF for us.

All the talent in the world, but just disappears on the court for millennia at a time.

 

[steelevt]

You all would complain if God himself suited up to play SF for us. James Johnson is a nice upgrade over anything we have. He's big, athletic, had a really nice defensive last year, blocks shots (thought the shot-blocking cult would go nuts for this), rebounds well for the SF position and really doesn't demand or need the ball on offense. What's even more nice is that he's still young and can and will most likely improve. A Twill/JJ platoon at SF might be worth another 4-5 wins by themselves with how bad our production was from that position last season. James Johnson will not be the savior of the Kings. But he should be able to give us 20-25 minutes of solid defensive production from the SF position, something we've been missing the last 4 years.

eh, id take a flyer on him if it only cost us a 2nd rounder

 

[gatoradeSD]

so is there no way we can sign T-Will now or is it still possible?

 

[Kingster]

All the talent in the world, but just disappears on the court for millennia at a time.

Here's a stat question for you, Captain:

Given the following 3s in the Kings lineup - Garcia, Honeycutt, Outlaw, Salmons, T-Will and Johnson - how many lineup scenarios (permutations as they say in stat land) could you come up with, given the 14 man roster?

What are we talking about? Hundreds? Thousands? If we can't win, at least we can be entertained with all the different lineups...

 

[Hallama]

You do realize that IT shot a better 3pt% than Thornton last year right?

I really like IT, don't get me wrong, but he's not a starting PG on a playoff caliber team. And if that's the goal, I like him as a change of pace PG off the bench.

And just comparing % isn't the best way to gauge a guy like MT. He was 7th in the league in makes per game, which means he's a focus of the other teams D and stretches/spaces the floor for others. IT shot the 3 much better than expected and I hope he continues to surprise.

 

[DesertFox]

Sweet, 4-5 more wins!!...26-27 win season, netting us the 7th pick
...again!! So...what was the real difference between JJ and Donte, other than a couple inches and JJ being slower??

JJ does everything better. Heck, his shot isn't as pretty but he actually hit the 3 better as well. I'd rather have a cheap Donte than Outlaw/Garcia/Salmons, but JJ's clearly an upgrade for the team.

 

[The_Jamal]

Sweet, 4-5 more wins!!...26-27 win season, netting us the 7th pick
...again!! So...what was the real difference between JJ and Donte, other than a couple inches and JJ being slower??

+the addition of Trob, + Boogie, IT, Reke, Thornton, JT all likely improving,+another year of play together,+ No more Salmons, Outlaw, Garcia, Jimmer getting big minutes. I would not be surprised in the slightest to see us a 34-35 win team next season. Which is not a bad thing considering how young we are

 

[swisshh]

Don't understand this move instead of Dorrell Wright. I don't think its a bad move, but I hope we can still resign TWill and maybe move some of the excess wing players.

 

[hrdboild]

You all would complain if God himself suited up to play SF for us. James Johnson is a nice upgrade over anything we have. He's big, athletic, had a really nice defensive last year, blocks shots (thought the shot-blocking cult would go nuts for this), rebounds well for the SF position and really doesn't demand or need the ball on offense. What's even more nice is that he's still young and can and will most likely improve. A Twill/JJ platoon at SF might be worth another 4-5 wins by themselves with how bad our production was from that position last season. James Johnson will not be the savior of the Kings. But he should be able to give us 20-25 minutes of solid defensive production from the SF position, something we've been missing the last 4 years.

I'd be more intrigued if he had more than 1 year left on his contract. It's a low risk move for us, but there's also very little upside. What's the best-case scenario? If he has a career year and locks down the starting SF spot we're going to have to pay him starters money to re-sign him (ie Beno Udrih, Marcus Thornton). As I've said in the past, I think a frontline starter at $10-12 million a year is a better bargain than a mediocre starter at $5-6 million per year. We already have more than enough of those. This makes us slightly better next season but longterm the effect is nil other than to postpone the SF problem another season while we get another year closer to Tyreke and DeMarcus deciding how much they want to stay with this team. It's not a bad move, and in relative terms maybe that's worth celebrating, but it's hardly the shot in the arm this team needs right now to become relevant.

 

[Kings Faithful]

Regardless of whether it was a good trade for us.... I think we "won" the trade. Most of the Raptors fans think he was worth alot more. I'm happy with being on the "winning" end of a trade again.

 

[Section 101]

I think this settles that we can't trade our #1 draft picks until the hickson trade is completed.

 

[The_Jamal]

If we do bring back T-will, our top 8 guys should look something like this:

IT
Reke || Thornton
T-will || JJ
Trob || JT
Cousins

Needless to say, no one would take us for an undersized, wimpy team anymore.

 

[steelevt]

Regardless of whether it was a good trade for us.... I think we "won" the trade. Most of the Raptors fans think he was worth alot more. I'm happy with being on the "winning" end of a trade again.

valuewise i agree that maybe we "won" as you put it, if you consider johnson being a good bench player/decent possible starter. that's all you really want your second rounder to be. most of the time they dont pan out, sometimes a team lucks out and they turn out to be a good starter. so in this case, the trade was ok. if you factor in other things like using up capspace, limiting our chances of getting twill or another sf since we just traded for a sf, then i consider it a push at best.

2nd rounders arent really valued in the league so if you lose a decent player for it, of course you might be upset. how would you feel if we still had twill and traded him for a second rounder? he's a fringe starter/good bench player. i would think he is worth more than a 2nd rounder. yet we could have had him and kept our high 2nd rounder that probably would have been in the 30s

 

[HereWeBoogie]

this better not be the moves petrie was referring too

 

[The_Jamal]

I'd be more intrigued if he had more than 1 year left on his contract. It's a low risk move for us, but there's also very little upside. What's the best-case scenario? If he has a career year and locks down the starting SF spot we're going to have to pay him starters money to re-sign him (ie Beno Udrih, Marcus Thornton). As I've said in the past, I think a frontline starter at $10-12 million a year is a better bargain than a mediocre starter at $5-6 million per year. We already have more than enough of those. This makes us slightly better next season but longterm the effect is nil other than to postpone the SF problem another season while we get another year closer to Tyreke and DeMarcus deciding how much they want to stay with this team. It's not a bad move, and in relative terms maybe that's worth celebrating, but it's hardly the shot in the arm this team needs right now to become relevant.

What kind of team do you expect to field if we're paying every starter 10-12 mil? It's not realistic for ANYBODY much less the Sacramento Kings.

We aren't trying to become relevant this season. We are still struggling with the steps BEFORE we actually start becoming relevant. And part of that process is finding productive players (T-will, JJ) to replace the blackholes on our team (Outlaw, Salmons, Greene, Garcia). We've spent the last 6 years trying to become a positive franchise again and picking up a productive role player like Johnson for nothing is absolutely a positive move in the right direction as a franchise. He might only be here for 1 season, but I sure as hell would rather watch him at SF than live through another year of Salmons/Garcia/Outlaw/Tyreke at the position.

 

[theclash4u5]

I'm still confused why people are saying that he shot a good FG%. If you ignore anything within 5 feet of the rim, the guy shot 40% from the field. Although I guess after dealing with Salmons, Garcia and Outlaw all year, I can see why people are somewhat happy with the trade. It's not a bad value trade, just a bad fit. Another treading water type of trade.

 

[Mass]

+the addition of Trob, + Boogie, IT, Reke, Thornton, JT all likely improving,+another year of play together,+ No more Salmons, Outlaw, Garcia, Jimmer getting big minutes. I would not be surprised in the slightest to see us a 34-35 win team next season. Which is not a bad thing considering how young we are

Actually, 4-5 more wins mean a 32/33 win season. Last year we won 22 games, but we had a 66 game season. It's like 27/28 wins in a regular 82 game season. So, if we consider that DMC, Reke, IT and Thornton should improve their game, a little better chemistry, the addition of T-Rob and JJ, I have hopes for a 40 win season if everything works out.
Now, let's just hope we find a way to dump some players, like Salmons, Garcia or Outlaw. I know it's hard to trade those guys, but maybe if we propose a package with Jimmer or Hassan, someone will be interested.

 

[Capt. Factorial]

Here's a stat question for you, Captain:

Given the following 3s in the Kings lineup - Garcia, Honeycutt, Outlaw, Salmons, T-Will and Johnson - how many lineup scenarios (permutations as they say in stat land) could you come up with, given the 14 man roster?

What are we talking about? Hundreds? Thousands? If we can't win, at least we can be entertained with all the different lineups...

Well, I'll go on the assumption that these six players would be played exclusively at SF (never at SG/PF) and that all other players would be played without regard to position (i.e., Tyreke, IT, MT, Jimmer at the guard slots, and DMC, JT, Robinson, Hayes, Whiteside at the 4/5). That gives six possible guard lineups, ten possible big-man lineups, and six SFs, for a total of 6x6x10 = 360 different rotations.

Now if you want to start allowing Tyreke smallball, or Robinson at the 3, or some of these SFs to slide into SG/PF it's going to go up a lot.

 

[steelevt]

Actually, 4-5 more wins mean a 32/33 win season. Last year we won 22 games, but we had a 66 game season. It's like 27/28 wins in a regular 82 game season. So, if we consider that DMC, Reke, IT and Thornton should improve their game, a little better chemistry, the addition of T-Rob and JJ, I have hopes for a 40 win season if everything works out.
Now, let's just hope we find a way to dump some players, like Salmons, Garcia or Outlaw. I know it's hard to trade those guys, but maybe if we propose a package with Jimmer or Hassan, someone will be interested.

so are you saying can be close to .500 after replacing donte and twill with johnson? that's mighty high hopes considering we won 24 and 25 games the years before last, and that with 22 wins last year we were .333. also just about everyone in the pacific got better. lakers got nash, clippers resigned billups and got jamal crawford, the suns who we thought were on their way down and rebuilding, sped it up with dragic, beasley, scola and were going to get eric gordon before the hornets matched.
the warriors who are always at the bottom with us now look pretty good on paper. bogut/lee/barnes/thompson/curry. if they stay healthy, we just might be at the bottom of the pacific again. im having high hopes of 30 wins this season if everything works out. 35 is my goal if we dont make any other moves

 

[Bricklayer]

Well, I'll go on the assumption that these six players would be played exclusively at SF (never at SG/PF) and that all other players would be played without regard to position (i.e., Tyreke, IT, MT, Jimmer at the guard slots, and DMC, JT, Robinson, Hayes, Whiteside at the 4/5). That gives six possible guard lineups, ten possible big-man lineups, and six SFs, for a total of 6x6x10 = 360 different rotations.

Now if you want to start allowing Tyreke smallball, or Robinson at the 3, or some of these SFs to slide into SG/PF it's going to go up a lot.

List them all or we won't believe you.

 

[Glenn]

I'm still confused why people are saying that he shot a good FG%. If you ignore anything within 5 feet of the rim, the guy shot 40% from the field. Although I guess after dealing with Salmons, Garcia and Outlaw all year, I can see why people are somewhat happy with the trade. It's not a bad value trade, just a bad fit. Another treading water type of trade.

We don't know if we are treading water but that would be the most discouraging out put. If he is a starter, we came out ahead. As he is a defensive, somewhat good shot blocking, big SF, I suspect we came out ahead and he is a good fit. That's what we wanted unless people have forgotten what type of SF fits best with this team. We won't know for sure about the wisdom of this trade until the season starts. I'm a little puzzled unless Petrie saw something very good and given the reaction of the fans of the team he came from, maybe there IS something.

Of course this is one of the trades Petrie was talking about. He never promised a big trade and with the age of the huge majority of the team, maybe a big trade is premature. We don't know what we have. Well, I don't know what we have as a team. There are a lot of question marks with IT, Jimmer, Tyreke, Hassan, Honeycutt, and TRob. The rest I think we know what we have. I place IT in that group as the league will adjust to him and he may not be so super next year.

I suspect a final trade for a PG. No matter who you think can play PG on this team, one injury and we are in trouble.

 

[cuad]

Synergy says that James Johnson is a 37.5% spot up 3pt shooter (48 of his 60 attempts). Synergy also says that D. Wright hit 37.9% on spot up 3s on 208 attempts. Still... can't T-Rob do this?

 

[Kingster]

Well, I'll go on the assumption that these six players would be played exclusively at SF (never at SG/PF) and that all other players would be played without regard to position (i.e., Tyreke, IT, MT, Jimmer at the guard slots, and DMC, JT, Robinson, Hayes, Whiteside at the 4/5). That gives six possible guard lineups, ten possible big-man lineups, and six SFs, for a total of 6x6x10 = 360 different rotations.

Now if you want to start allowing Tyreke smallball, or Robinson at the 3, or some of these SFs to slide into SG/PF it's going to go up a lot.

Beautiful. Can't wait to see it play out...

 

[Schmoe]

I don't think scoring was this team's problem last year. I think we lost a lot because we couldn't play defense. So by adding a guy who plays D and who could do no worse offensively than our SF platoon last year, I fail to see the downside.

And if the argument is that he's not Iggy or Gay, well then pass me that bowl you're smoking.

 

[rainmaker]

We don't know if we are treading water but that would be the most discouraging out put. If he is a starter, we came out ahead. As he is a defensive, somewhat good shot blocking, big SF, I suspect we came out ahead and he is a good fit. That's what we wanted unless people have forgotten what type of SF fits best with this team. We won't know for sure about the wisdom of this trade until the season starts. I'm a little puzzled unless Petrie saw something very good and given the reaction of the fans of the team he came from, maybe there IS something.

Of course this is one of the trades Petrie was talking about. He never promised a big trade and with the age of the huge majority of the team, maybe a big trade is premature. We don't know what we have. Well, I don't know what we have as a team. There are a lot of question marks with IT, Jimmer, Tyreke, Hassan, Honeycutt, and TRob. The rest I think we know what we have. I place IT in that group as the league will adjust to him and he may not be so super next year.

I suspect a final trade for a PG. No matter who you think can play PG on this team, one injury and we are in trouble.

I think he's a better version of Donte, or rather, the Donte we all wanted. If Donte became a consistent defensive SF who could play 20-30mins a night, hit 3's at an least a decent rate and stayed out of the way of IT/Reke/Cuz on offense, he would have fit very well. Never happened. But that's my hope for JJ, he's already better than Donte, and has shown improvement unlike Donte, and at 24 should still improve some more.

Of course I'd rather we go Iggy or Prince. Part of this does scream, the Maloofs are cheap. But, with restraints on him Petrie has made some horrible decisions lately wthi Salmons, Chuck and Outlaw. Given his restraints, this is finally a move which potentially fills a couple needs and improves us. Much better than getting a gunner or a non defensive guy because you feel you have to do something and don't have the flexibility you'd like, as well as handicap us going forward, which is what happened with Salmons/Chuck/Outlaw.