[Game] Kings @ Hornets, 12/10/21 4pm Pacific 7pm Eastern

[SLAB]

Reading posts at this site, its pretty well settled that the large majority think Fox is the best player on the kings. Am I wrong there?
Listening to sports radio around sacramento and online, seems most people also consider Fox the best player on the kings.
Regardless of what happened prior to Fox being at the free-throw line, Fox had the chance to put the kings ahead and probably win the game. He went to the line and the highest paid player and the best player on the kings missed both free throws. Couldn't even make 1 to tie and go to overtime. Your best player can't hit free throws to win or tie the game. Personally, I would consider that a pretty big problem. I don't have a dog in this fight. Im just trying to understand the state of talent on the sacramento kings. Personally I would rather have halliburton on my favorite team rather than fox. Fox is decent but he's not a dog. He's got no passion. Give me halliburton everyday of the week. Just my opinion.

Fox is absolutely the best, most talented player on the team. Unfortunately he hasn’t really grown into any sort of a leader, even seeming to fall off in that department even more after signing the contract which I think is where a lot of the negativity is coming from. Slumps happen, but to slump as Fox did and just come off as completely indifferent rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.

I said last year, I think long-term Hali will end up the better player. I still believe that (not quite as sure of myself) but he isn’t there yet and there are also flaws in his game. Leadership wise, it’s no question Hali has that quality,

To me the free throws were an outlier. I’m not up in arms about it. He makes one an overwhelming majority of the time. He may have directly lost the game, but how about the entire team refusing to play defense against a team missing half their roster for the first 47 minutes and 58 seconds? That’s where we should be more upset.

 

[SacTownKid]

Better for the team? LOL. Yeah, it's better for the stat hogs, better for destroying any attempt whatsoever at building a tough, defensive minded team. Culture? The culture is soft as tissue, fragile as a petal, and weak as a baby kitten. Fox isn't showing me anything at this point other than he's a talented soft selfish stat hog loser. He's a leader all right - he leads this team in putrid defense, softness, and an attitude that wreaks of "I'm just playing for me and my pay check." Losers get stats at the expense of wins. Winners sacrifice stats to get wins.

This team looks worse than it did under Walton. Hard to believe I'm saying it, but they look soooo incredibly soft, soooo weak, soooo bad, it looks like a full wave the white flag moment by Gentry, and then at the end he's acting as if he shouldn't have abject shame over his team's performance. Gentry: "You know, it's just one of those games, the NBA is tough, we "struggled" (Ha Ha). Question to Gentry and Kayte, who loves the word, "struggle": How is it possible to "struggle" if one puts up no resistance? Without major changes by McNair I could easily see this team go from .423 down to .300 in the standings.

Stat hogging still makes your players look better. People were already talking about how Fox couldn't get you a chicken salad in return after 7 iffy games, lol. This team looks worse? I seem to remember a hopeless losing streak number whatever after years of players looking less than consistently being the catalyst for the change.

 

[SacTownKid]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1469514878763212805

Which begs the question why Buddy closed the last 17 minutes of the game last night?

The only thing I can think of is better spacing and Barnes was struggling? Other than that, I think the 4 guard lineup at the end was a mistake. They can't afford not to have Barnes in there size wise when playing against such a perfectly sized modern small ball team like the Hornets. Until Haliburton puts on a little size he's going to be targeted defensively, and playing that small at 1-4 almost gives them no choice but to help on defense.

 

[SacTownKid]

Reading posts at this site, its pretty well settled that the large majority think Fox is the best player on the kings. Am I wrong there?
Listening to sports radio around sacramento and online, seems most people also consider Fox the best player on the kings.
Regardless of what happened prior to Fox being at the free-throw line, Fox had the chance to put the kings ahead and probably win the game. He went to the line and the highest paid player and the best player on the kings missed both free throws. Couldn't even make 1 to tie and go to overtime. Your best player can't hit free throws to win or tie the game. Personally, I would consider that a pretty big problem. I don't have a dog in this fight. Im just trying to understand the state of talent on the sacramento kings. Personally I would rather have halliburton on my favorite team rather than fox. Fox is decent but he's not a dog. He's got no passion. Give me halliburton everyday of the week. Just my opinion.

Fox has been clutch more than a few times in his career and missing clutch free throws happens. My problem? Why did they let the Hornets use that big TT/Bagley lineup against themselves at the start of the third and get them down by 3 possessions before asking the other guys (mainly Fox) to bail them back out? Gentry's adjustments thusfar are MUCH better than Walton. By far, but they have to go a little further. I think there is bit of a duality going on here. I think Gentry is being asked to showcase guys a little bit. Especially Bagley. This isn't just a coach flying by the seat of his pants here I don't think.

 

[SacTownKid]

Fox is absolutely the best, most talented player on the team. Unfortunately he hasn’t really grown into any sort of a leader, even seeming to fall off in that department even more after signing the contract which I think is where a lot of the negativity is coming from. Slumps happen, but to slump as Fox did and just come off as completely indifferent rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.

I said last year, I think long-term Hali will end up the better player. I still believe that (not quite as sure of myself) but he isn’t there yet and there are also flaws in his game. Leadership wise, it’s no question Hali has that quality,

To me the free throws were an outlier. I’m not up in arms about it. He makes one an overwhelming majority of the time. He may have directly lost the game, but how about the entire team refusing to play defense against a team missing half their roster for the first 47 minutes and 58 seconds? That’s where we should be more upset.

In what way? As a go to I wouldn't expect that to happen unless he learns to navigate pressure and double teams like a go to, which I still think hurts him more than helps him. The only thing he's got is a step back 3 and a side step 3 if he can't get to his side or a floater on his drive. He's been improving his mid-range game off side pick and roll but once a defender steps up on him or they commit to pressuring him or double teaming you best bet, he's making the smart role play and that's swinging the ball. We've seen enough of him to know it's a pretty foundational instinct at this point. Squaring up a defense is something you either have, or you don't. Fox does. Mitchell, might have a bit of it. They've been giving him more Mike Bibby style mid-range peak over the screen pick and roll into the jumper and he's looked good so far.

 

[hrdboild]

Reading posts at this site, its pretty well settled that the large majority think Fox is the best player on the kings. Am I wrong there?
Listening to sports radio around sacramento and online, seems most people also consider Fox the best player on the kings.
Regardless of what happened prior to Fox being at the free-throw line, Fox had the chance to put the kings ahead and probably win the game. He went to the line and the highest paid player and the best player on the kings missed both free throws. Couldn't even make 1 to tie and go to overtime. Your best player can't hit free throws to win or tie the game. Personally, I would consider that a pretty big problem. I don't have a dog in this fight. Im just trying to understand the state of talent on the sacramento kings. Personally I would rather have halliburton on my favorite team rather than fox. Fox is decent but he's not a dog. He's got no passion. Give me halliburton everyday of the week. Just my opinion.

It's clear that he didn't hit two free throws to tie or win this game. It's not clear that he can't do it in the future. Steph Curry routinely misses 10+ three point shots a game and he's inarguably the best shooter in NBA history. All this stuff about him not being a dog and having no passion is not coming from one game -- that's obviously an opinion which you have shaped over quite some time. I also remember that Lebron had a reputation as a choker and an empty stats guy for the first 6 years of his career because people overreacted to a couple of bad decisions in the playoffs. Then he went to 10 straight NBA Finals.

The main thrust of my argument here is that we're 11-15 right now and we've been a lottery level team for over a decade. Kings fans clamoring to trade one of our better players because he "can't lead us to a championship" is ludicrous considering our current position and yet it happens almost every year. I love Tyrese Haliburton. I hope he grows into an All Star for us too. And yet, even if he does, he won't be able to do it on his own either. There are contexts in which to discuss trading players to make the team better. Immediately after a game in which Fox very nearly willed us back from an embarrassing blowout loss to a team at half strength and got all but one of the important defensive stops in the last 5 minutes strikes me as a pretty poor moment to jump into the game thread and talk about how terrible he is.

 

[The_Jamal]

The only thing I can think of is better spacing and Barnes was struggling? Other than that, I think the 4 guard lineup at the end was a mistake. They can't afford not to have Barnes in there size wise when playing against such a perfectly sized modern small ball team like the Hornets. Until Haliburton puts on a little size he's going to be targeted defensively, and playing that small at 1-4 almost gives them no choice but to help on defense.

barnes was hurt im pretty sure

 

[BillyStrings]

The immediate reaction from a lot of people was that Fox can't miss those potentially game-winning free throws because superstars always deliver in the clutch, without exception. It's verifiably not true. If you want to go down a rabbit hole of proving "clutchness" with statistical data, that's your business. I don't feel like a regular season road game against the Hornets is the make-or-break point for Fox's NBA career. I wish we'd won but I'm not any more upset about this loss than any other loss. And I still think the game was truly lost in the first half when we showed no urgency whatsoever and let Charlotte score whenever and from wherever they wanted to. There were other factors but we're not good enough to play defense selectively, it needs to be the whole game and it needs to be everyone not just 2 or 3 players.

Maybe you are quoting me but replying to someone else? Like the post before where you stated that I called him a “scrub”, I’ll ask you to point out where I stated or even came close to implying that last night’s game was the “ make or break point for Fox’s NBA career. I’ll say it one last time…those missed free throws last night were a problem. And I spent some time doing my own research if my overall impression proves out or not about how her performs under pressure. One set of data that seems pretty reasonable suggests he is about league average.

 

[Kingster]

Stat hogging still makes your players look better. People were already talking about how Fox couldn't get you a chicken salad in return after 7 iffy games, lol. This team looks worse? I seem to remember a hopeless losing streak number whatever after years of players looking less than consistently being the catalyst for the change.

Sure, it's good for his trade value. Pad those stats, Fox, so we can get something for you in trade! And yes, the team looks worse than even a month ago. Their defense was definitely better.