sactowndog
All-Star
Well the good news is we got done with a likely sure loss Bogdan included or not. We also lost decisively enough so people got plenty of rest for tomorrow’s game. We will see how they bounce back from a bad game.
[Game] Kings @ Nuggets - October 23 - 6pm PST
- Thread starter lwc
- Start date
Kangztillidie
Bench
Only transgression has been the Stauskus trade. Giving up the pick and the swaps was egregious without knowing cap rules. Hard to place that on a new GM without a team in place to explain cap rules to him. That's really on Vivek and Petey D's tenure/departure. Vlade made the trade of Chriss for Fagnoramus(who is now out of the league as should Chriss) but he got Bogie, Skal and Malachi in the deal. He won that one.
He might have missed on Collins and Bam with Justin but that is still undetermined and he did get Giles in that deal also.
I love Bagley. And Fox. Hard to give him a bad grade for those 2. And Yogi and Bjelica are great role players.
I dont get the disappointment from the reset from Cousins.
Kings Fans haven't all been on the same side since Game 2. And maybe not even then.
Livinthedream
All-Star
I've taken the snarky remarks as more relief than an attack. There was a lot of tension built up after this year's pick and it's all being released.
Many have noted the extra negativity, so you're right. It's there. The fan base has transformed a bit. There is a whole generation of people who have never seen the Kings win and they want that glory now. It's making them emotional and sometimes irrational.
You don’t want the answer to that let’s just be happy Bagley look is good
gunks
Hall of Famer
So much salt after an L!
The Nuggets are legit (good for Malone, always liked the guy) so it's not the end of the world that we lost to them. They could end up top 3 in the West.
Bagley is looking waaaaaaay better than the player I was afraid he'd be. I'm very happy to eat crow on that one! 5 blocks! That's legit! The 20/9 is nice too!
Fox will have games like this. He's still scrawny and raw. I expect a bounce back tomorrow.
On to the next one! Go Kings!
The Nuggets are legit (good for Malone, always liked the guy) so it's not the end of the world that we lost to them. They could end up top 3 in the West.
Bagley is looking waaaaaaay better than the player I was afraid he'd be. I'm very happy to eat crow on that one! 5 blocks! That's legit! The 20/9 is nice too!
Fox will have games like this. He's still scrawny and raw. I expect a bounce back tomorrow.
On to the next one! Go Kings!
It's worse than that. What it is is a generation of fans whose first exposure to the Kings was winning: they didn't go through the fifteen years of losing that came before it. Or the thirteen-in-seventeen pre-Sacramento years of losing that came before that. They don't see the Kings as the historically loser franchise that it always has been, they see it a franchise that they think should be contending, and they feel entitled to be in contention; they saw the Warriors turn it around, after years of losing, and they're jealous, and they want it to be their turn. And those unjustified expectations lead to much of the animosity.
The other thing to consider is that the anonymity of the internet makes it so that, almost by design, it becomes a place that is more attractive to confrontational people. And, when confrontational people treat sports like they're SERIOUS BUSINESS~!, what happens after that is pretty much inevitable. Even if the Kings start winning, it's not going to change things significantly around here: that horse has left the barn. It seems almost counterintuitive to suggest this, but if you want to get back to how things were, you probably need more people who take the Kings less seriously.
Wtf is our opening schedule? 4 playoff teams to start off, 3 on the road, (probably a 5th tomorrow with the Grizzlies healthy), and have to play a B-B with Denver being one of the games?
The snark you're seeing is more or less directed at a couple people who declared after 1 preseason game that we were "already getting bit in the ass by passing on Doncic", and a bunch of comments in that vein. Even in this thread we're seeing dumb ass comments like "We can hope and dream big that Bagley MAYBE can be better than JJJ or Doncic."
It's deserved.
parker
Bench
Right. Then they come home for two (the first is the second of a back to back) before going on an East coast swing that includes another back to back. The Kings were going to struggle out of the gate as it is, but this schedule is not doing them any favors.
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I mean... everybody is a loser until they find a way to win. And sadly, those Rick Adelman teams for as good as they were they never did find a way to win when it mattered most. As much as we want to go on about Game 6, that was one game in one season. The legacy of that team for me personally has always been the feeling that they were not lacking for talent against any team in that era but choked under pressure over and over again. The high point for them, in retrospect, was a splashy cover story about "The Greatest Show on Court" and that ended basically the same way as CWebb's other culture-defining team, the one in Michigan, with no championships and a lot of 'what ifs'.
Maybe you're right about Kings fans being jealous of the Warriors but personally I haven't seen that. I have seen a lot of new Warriors jerseys being worn in Sacramento though, because it's simply more fun to root for a team that not only wins but has a good time doing it. And chasing the legacy of 'The Greatest Show on Court' has been more of a detriment than anything for this franchise ever since. I've never felt like this fanbase was robbed of a championship. I feel like our team was bullied by three of the biggest egos in professional sports and they folded. They couldn't beat them mentally. "Big Apple" Phil Jackson (from Nowheresville, Montana btw) dismissed Sacramento fans as yokels and the team as wannabes and then he got the last laugh. He got the rings to prove it while we got Chris Webber folding and a half-decade hangover named Kenny Thomas. For a brief moment -- 3 or 4 games in 2006 -- the players in Sacramento were the bullies for once and that felt pretty damn good but never before or since has that been the case.
Living in LA now for almost two decades I've seen first-hand how quickly championships are forgotten. Doesn't matter what sport it is -- everyone gets excited for a week or so and then it's back to business as normal. I'm sure it would mean a lot more to the city of Sacramento but 2 or 3 years later even that feeling would start to fade. So no, the championship isn't even the ultimate end goal that matters. That's just some meaningless jewelry. What matters is how you treat people, how you go about earning respect, meeting challenges and overcoming them. That goes for life and for basketball. And what we've got instead is 12 years worth of ownership continually looking for the quick fix over the long-term plan, telling us that we want to see high-flying offense rather than grit and grind, flaunting their computer-aided brain power and next-level thinking.
When I started watching this team they were a joke of a franchise whose only real accomplishment was selling out games regardless of how terrible they were. They played in a leaky dump with uncomfortable seats and signed players nobody else wanted but we watched them anyway because it was something to do. I don't consider those the golden days. And so much has changed since then culturally that has nothing to do with this franchise. There was no NBAtv then, you couldn't pull up any game you wanted to watch on your cell phone or endless hours of highlights on Youtube. I can actually watch live broadcasts of the Japanese version of the World Series in bed on my laptop now (because it's on at 2:30am PST). I watched a dozen Euroleague games this year. I can watch full Grateful Dead concerts from the 70s. I can watch 82 straight hours of Seinfeld if I want to, whenever I want to. You simply have to do more these days to attract an audience.
All I really want for this team and for this city is to exorcise the demons of that 2002 series once and for all. Take on Goliath (in whatever form that takes) and go home the victors for once. It's barely even about basketball. It's about humility and hard-work beating ego and hubris. It's about a cynical, fame-seeking world conforming to some kind of moral order, if only for a brief moment. Some people seem to think "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" is the way to go here. If we become the biggest cyncics, the biggest jerks, the biggest egos in the room than maybe we'll be allowed to hold the trophy too. But from where I sit, winning a championship that way won't mean anything. Actually it will mean less than nothing. It will mean losing the war.
I believe we have a lot of bright spots and we have some very good players that are coming along nicely.
I like the fast paced offense and if they are hitting their shots great.
But we have to stop that lay up drill that every opponent gets way,way to many times a game.
Hopefully we can figure out how to stop the poor interior defense.
I see Bagley coming up the floor last getting back on defense way to many times but I give him the benefit of the doubt because he’s about the only one putting the effort offensively down low the last game anyway.
We can play fast but we need to have better defense period!
I like the fast paced offense and if they are hitting their shots great.
But we have to stop that lay up drill that every opponent gets way,way to many times a game.
Hopefully we can figure out how to stop the poor interior defense.
I see Bagley coming up the floor last getting back on defense way to many times but I give him the benefit of the doubt because he’s about the only one putting the effort offensively down low the last game anyway.
We can play fast but we need to have better defense period!
As far as the snark regarding Bagley, it’s all in good fun where as the other side was more just taking unwarranted potshots at the pick or passing of Doncic. It will go away...you would think. Turns out that either guy would have been a good pick. Turns out we needed to fill out both the PF and SF positions despite the amount of bigs on the roster.
What I see in Bagley is a guy who can fill up the stat sheet without needing the ball in his hands that much. That doesn’t suck at all. And he is going to potentially be a plus defender once he learns the nuances of the NBA. Sky is the limit for the kid.
What I see in Bagley is a guy who can fill up the stat sheet without needing the ball in his hands that much. That doesn’t suck at all. And he is going to potentially be a plus defender once he learns the nuances of the NBA. Sky is the limit for the kid.
sactowndog
All-Star
One of the big problems has been Giles and his lack of defense. Many of us believed the hype because we desperately wanted something to believe in and because Giles seems like such a great kid. But currently he Defense is no better than Skal’s.
kb02
All-Star
Injuries sapped his agility. He's playing like an older version of CWebb.
His offense, at the high post will be fine. Needs to hit his shot from there and take defenders off the bounce every so often to keep defenses from sagging on him. Rushing things a bit. But the vision and passing will translate.
He needs to work on his positioning on defense to be serviceable. As a 5, he's currently undersized and also lacks the agility to slide on PnR. Truth be told, no Kings player, outside of Kosta plays the PnR defense well at the 5. Guards need to do a better job of disrupting the play at the point of the attack and weak side defender needs to be more aware when the play is shaded their way. It'll come.
As for Skal, dudes a bust. There's really no other way to say it. He's bound for Europe.
Well, there's the rub, innit? One man's "good fun" is another man's cheap shot.
You would, huh? Let me know when the shots at Cousins stop happening... The Webber/Stojakovic sniping didn't die down until the bulk of the Serbian posters left the board.
There's not a doubt in my mind that there's some jealousy involved: Kings fans used to refer to Oracle as "ARCO West," and it eats some of them alive to see the Warriors on top now. And it's not even just the championships: for a long time, the one thing that Kings fans and Warriors fans had in common was that both their teams were irrelevant... and then, suddenly, the Warriors became the new hotness. The gd lakers have always been relevant, even when they're terrible... even the Clippers have been relevant more recently than the Kings, and it's led to Sacramentan's insecurities rearing their heads, and the stress of feeling the need to be relevant again has led to much infighting.
I will agree with you, at least from a management and executive level, about the "Greatest Show on Court" thing being a detriment to the franchise, but I don't blame the Kings or Kings fans for wanting the team to have some type of 'hereditary' identity, in the way that Memphis and Detroit always seem to end up being lunch pail, 'blue collar', 'grit-and-grind' teams, regardless of their coach or their personnel, or the way that Denver always seems to end up being a high-scoring team, even if they've got a defensive-minded coach. Sacramento wants to have an identity in that way, and I don't necessarily fault them for that, but many Kings fans don't seem to recognize how unique that team was, and how hard it is to replicate.
Livinthedream
All-Star
That team was unique and the turnaround literally happened overnight. No one expected it or anticipated it. Most of the initial moves to get that team were controversial and met with a lot of skepticism, jokes and snark. People were not happy about trading Mitch Richmond for a cry baby who didn't want to be here. People freaked out over drafting Peja who nobody had a clue who he was and the kid wasn't even ready to come over. Vlade signing? Joke. Drafting Jason Williams, a bad boy off the court and wild on the court. They stepped on the court and all of a sudden the NBA fell in love. Timing was right too since this core came together during a strike year and the NBA itself needed a poster team for excitement and the right way to play. A ton of things just really went right out of luck. How do you replicate that? You can't. The team has to be built from the ground up and go through growing pains. I think the pain has been dragged out because we didn't start the rebuild soon enough.
allrightythen
Starter
Fox had a really rough game and WCS was just ok. At this point if those 2 aren't good we have little to no chance of competing with good teams.
And here's the thing: can you even imagine Kings fans, in 1996, either Stanning so hard for John Wallace, or being being so hard up for the team to win, that they care more about whether or not they were right about the pick than they did about whether Stojakovic was actually any good?
It's not even that, because the Kings have tried that, too, in the last twelve years; they just got cold feet. Or, perhaps more accurately, they decided too early in the rebuild that they were done, and that it was time to win. The trouble is that they keep trying to rebuild in a way that recaptures that GSOC magic (Tyreke Evans, with his skill set, should have been a Super Saiyan version of Doug Christie, DeMarcus Cousins should have been a Super Saiyan version of Chris Webber, Isaiah Thomas should have been a Super Saiyan version of Mike Bibby, Omri Casspi should have been a more athletic version of Peja Stojakovic, Marcus Thornton should have been a bigger version of Bobby Jackson, etc.), but the players that the Kings drafted weren't temperamentally suited for the roles they were acquired to fulfill. Combine that with the utter failure to find a coach that could get them to come together, and so the whole ended up being much, much less than the sum of its parts. On paper, having a team with Cousins, Evans, Thomas and Thornton, and being unable to win even thirty games with them is damned near a magic trick.
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