[Game] Kings @ Jazz - Sunday, Nov. 25 - 5:00 PT

We need to get Harry more minutes.

That's a tough one. The more minutes your young raw players play, the more losses you can mark down on the calendar. There are little mistakes on both ends that negate a lot of the positives which isn't their fault because that's how young players learn.
 

Tetsujin

The Game Thread Dude
That's a tough one. The more minutes your young raw players play, the more losses you can mark down on the calendar. There are little mistakes on both ends that negate a lot of the positives which isn't their fault because that's how young players learn.
The thing though is that post-Stockton, I think Harry's positive contributions have far outweighed the negatives. Still gets beat on defense due to not being strong enough to battle yet and still gets called for stupid fouls but his instincts and passing give the team a completely unique element.
 
Bagley and Giles did well. JJ getting beat by Burks every play and Frank giving us absolutely nothing from the back up PG spot killed any chance to get back into the game.

They did do well individually but that unit didn't have the scoring potential nor the experience defending that they needed. When they played Bagley and Giles in there the game inherently slowed and became interior based. When you are already behind and give up it back up on the other end it's impossible to catch up. Nearly the only deep shots the Kings found were for Giles and Bagley. Teams will give them that shot all night and tonight they were the only way they could spread at times. I'm noticing more and more that some lineups Joerger puts out there are almost entirely dependent on broken plays, put backs, or foul calls to get consistent points on the board. Tonight was as much about energy and a terrific gameplan from the opposing coach but it's something to watch out for as they head along.
 
Does Willie play big?
The Kings were outscored by a whopping 2 points with Willie on the floor in this game and were trounced with Marvin(-28) and Harry(-15) on the floor.. Reading this gamethread you'd never know that though.


Marvin is standing out at the 3pt line at the end of this game chucking up 3's., this is whom you place your faith with to play bigger? He's 6'10½ with unremarkable length for the PF position, let alone C, or starting C.... I thought Marvin could play C too, but that was 3-4 years ago when I thought he might grow to a legit 7'...
 
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I’ve had Willies back but the duds are starting to add up. Basically outside of @Utah he’s really struggled the last couple of weeks.

I think the reason we lose it on Willie when he sucks is that his body language when it’s going bad has a sort of “so what” look. Not stoic either...but like defeatist and given up.
 
That's a tough one. The more minutes your young raw players play, the more losses you can mark down on the calendar. There are little mistakes on both ends that negate a lot of the positives which isn't their fault because that's how young players learn.
I would love to see more of the Wet Bandits, but I also struggle with this. Of players that saw meaningful minutes, Bjelica's +3 and WCS's -2 were the best on the team, tonight.
 

Tetsujin

The Game Thread Dude
The Kings were outscored by a whopping 2 points with Willie on the floor in this game and were trounced with Marvin(-28) and Harry(-15) on the floor.. Reading this gamethread you'd never know that though.
Part of that comes from lineups though. Harry and Marv got stuck with Mason and JJ while Willie played with the starters. Not saying I disagree with you but I don't think the difference is as drastic as those numbers suggest.
 
The thing though is that post-Stockton, I think Harry's positive contributions have far outweighed the negatives. Still gets beat on defense due to not being strong enough to battle yet and still gets called for stupid fouls but his instincts and passing give the team a completely unique element.

Yeah but you're still playing back and forth at best. And if it means Bjelica sits then it's a bad thing according to the W column. They defied the curse of Bjelica tonight but he was the only player in the + tonight outside of garbage time skewing and it showed visually which is rare. Also there is no way he should have only played 18 minutes tonight. In the wins he's played near 30 so this is kind of a fake break of the curse at best. I'm not saying they would have won, but every metric says playing him the way he was played tonight was a mistake.
 

Kingster

Hall of Famer
WCS just baffles the hell out of me. He's had some good games against Miami and Utah and the Thunder, and then he he's had absolutely worthless games like the last two.

My God, the guy won't even put his hand up on defense. How can Joerger possibly justify starting him if he's under the basket and a freaking guard shoots it over him for a layup with WCS not raising his hand, much less going for a block? If he's out on the floor thinking in the back of his mind that he can't put his hand up or swipe at a guy's shot because he might get hurt that is incredibly weak on his part, and it must affect his overall game. Sometimes he just looks like a mental patient out there.
 
Part of that comes from lineups though. Harry and Marv got stuck with Mason and JJ while Willie played with the starters. Not saying I disagree with you but I don't think the difference is as drastic as those numbers suggest.

Yeah, it was that Mason, Buddy, JJ, Giles, and Bagley lineup in the fourth that was the equivalent to throwing in the towel. I know there was a lack of energy from the others but that was a rare sight for Joerger to do that. I thought the best bet for the team this year was to lose and look good doing it because that's usually the best case for rebuilding teams. This team has outperformed taking that route IMO.
 
I usually find + / - as a stat is only convenient until it isn’t. Lol

You can't always trust it with the way Dave Joerger subs players in and out but tonight it didn't lie. Tonight is a good example of how his random his patterns can be. He plays Buddy almost the whole first quarter then takes him out after like 4 minutes in the 3rd to put in Jackson which did nothing to help the team tonight.
 

Kingster

Hall of Famer
Yeah but you're still playing back and forth at best. And if it means Bjelica sits then it's a bad thing according to the W column. They defied the curse of Bjelica tonight but he was the only player in the + tonight outside of garbage time skewing and it showed visually which is rare. Also there is no way he should have only played 18 minutes tonight. In the wins he's played near 30 so this is kind of a fake break of the curse at best. I'm not saying they would have won, but every metric says playing him the way he was played tonight was a mistake.
The "Bjelica thing" is ridiculous. You'd have a better chance going to an astrologer and correlating the wins to Saturn in retrograde.
 
Yeah, seeing so much Jackson is making me appreciate Shumpert so much more
For my sanity I chose to subscribe to the theory that Joerger is playing him per mandate from the higher ups. The theory goes something like this: We need to prove definitively he is not an NBA player. We spent the 15th pick on him so we owe to ourselves and him to see if this investment will garner any return. We need to give him every chance to fail. We have fairly good indication he will follow in the footsteps of Malachi, Jimmer and Papa G but let's see if we may be surprised (shocked). Let's see what happens between now and the all-star break. Hence play him until he fails or disproves the null hypothesis. I chose to subscribe to this theory because to believe otherwise, that Joerger would trot this bum out for 20 MPG, undermining his team, his playoff and contract extension aspirations of his own volition is maddening.

Troy Williams did more in garbage time than Jackson in the last two games. Do you know how much difference one player can make in a rotation? Look what happen to the Rockets when they got rid of Melo! I said that guy was pure garbage for the longest time because it was clear as Jackson being pure garbage! The team went from futile to formidable just like that! It changed everything! On a night that Fox struggles you need to an infusion of energy and playmaking. Troy Williams gives you that. 5 seconds into checking in tonight he tried a reverse layup that attracted the attention of the defense and left Bagley open for an easy putback. That's the kind of energy you need. I am sick of typing into the wind so I will just conclude saying we'd be 12-8 if Troy Williams got all the minutes Jackson got the last two nights. He would have buoyed the team at critical junctures and broken a couple of guys out of their funks, namely Bjelica and Fox.

There is a big difference between 12-8 and 10-10. If we had better decision makers we'd have the former record instead of the latter.
 
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