Kings Offense so Far

[mac]

What do you guys think of our offensive sets so far?

Personally I have only two main complaints, both of which are rather closely related.

1. We're giving Carl Landry too many outside shots. A large percentage of our offense is just Carl shooting 18ft jump shots. There is no ball movement, and guys are left standing around. It usually goes like this, Tyreke brings the ball up, gets it to Landry around the elbow, Landry turns, faces up, defence gives him space, he shoots. Problem is, he doesn't make it that often and it leaves only our center to try and get the offensive rebound.

2. This is done with more than 10 seconds left on the shotclock, often around 13ish. Same goes with a lot of other shots that are taken by other players. For example, Luther Head's threes, Tyreke's threes. Even Garcia coming off the screen catching and shooting, although more successful than Evans and Head shooting pull up threes, is done fairly early in the shotclock.

Also, I haven't really analysed why we're getting beaten on the fast break and outlet passes so easily, but from what I gather it has to do with our spacing and guys not moving after the shot is taken. I like that Omri is trying to crash the boards more, but sometimes him trying to get the rebound has resulted in a opponent fast break if we end up not securing the offensive board.

IMO, Landry should try to take his shots closer to the basket so that he is not so far out of position to try and get a board. That way, Omri and Garcia needn't always run in to try and get the board while leaving their man running to the other side of the court wide open.

What are your views?

 

[Kingstime]

Personally I don't see much wrong with out sets although I feel the same about Landry's shots, I feel he is shooting too much even if it's automatic from the right baseline.

I think both Beno and Tyreke our doing fine running the offense, however I think Reke could feed DMC ALOT more in the post. I see Beno giving him the ball alot down there, where as Reke is doing alot more driving and dishing which is more what we want out of him. I like the offense though we have alot of weapons, tons of shooters at Reke's disposal. As the year goes on I really believe the offense will run smooth as hell, our only real problem is our defensne and hopefully with Dally starting that will change.

 

[Asaf]

I think the offense looks better than it did last year, a lot of it due to the fact that we got cousins, and also because we are playing quite a bit with Beno as pg and Tyreke as SG, which means the ball moves a bit more. I still feel, though, that we are not really in control of what we're trying to do on offense. It was pretty clear to see in the game against the Lakers the difference between a team that knows what its doing on both offense and defense and a team that's still trying to figure it out. There is an illusion that our offense is good because we scored a lot in our games so far, but we have to consider that a) we played really bad teams for the most part, and b) our transition D is so bad that a lot of the opposing teams take only a few seconds to score against us, which creates games with a lot more possessions than the average game. Hopefully, now that Westphal has settled on a starting lineup (or at least he says he did. Let's give it a week and see...), perhaps he will start developing a more coherent offensive scheme.

 

[cuad]

I think our offense looks good when the guys are actually screening players rather than areas on the court. Our team is horrible at screening players. I also think our offense looks good when they're hitting Casspi in the corner... it means they've at least got their positioning right.

 

[mac]

What also needs improvement is our adjustment to the defense when they take away our first option on offence. The Lakers swing the ball around so well, and when you cut off one of their moves they just get another shot that is just as good. Our offence is too dependent on the first guy making the right move/ making the shot. It's sort of like if say Landry or DMC get double teamed or cut off, then the ball just goes out to Tyreke and we'll go into freestyle offence. Guys are not moving enough, not making strong cuts etc. All part of the learning curve though, hopefully we learn it as time goes by

 

[kingsboi]

Our offense pretty much is dependent on Tyreke's penetration or scoring for himself. Along with throwing the ball to Carl and him facing his man up and 90% of the time shooting the J. Cousins gets a couple of touches here and there and he usually produces for us, I don't know why we don't do it enough. What I do like is setting screens for Cisco to curl off of and hit the mid range shots. They need to corporate Casspi into something like that as well or just slashing to the basket. I do not want to ever see Dalembert shoot a jumpshot or anything unless it's a dunk/lay up. We have been scoring a lot of points as a team, but it has been against some bad defensive teams. I want to wait a couple more weeks before making further evaluation on our offense, we need to see how we score and do we make it efficient enough on ourselves or just play iso basketball. That is the question.

 

[rainmaker]

Since Landry is pretty much a black hole, I wish he would stop settling and attack more often. Since he's not going to beat opposing pf's with size, why not use his quickness and athleticism? He's pretty quick going to the rim, and can explode off the floor and either dunk or draw a foul. But he does settle for jumpers too much, and what pisses me off more about it is that he NEVER passes or even looks at cutters. Never.

But our defense is more of a problem than our offense. We get good looks, but aren't hitting a lot of them. Movement needs to improve, both on the ball and off. Tyreke is doing a good job penetrating and looking for others, but needs picks set for him sooner and guys need to start hitting their open shots. If guys start hitting the open jumpers Tyreke is creating for them, that right there will make the offense look much better, or at least have more of a rhythm to it. With Cousins coming off the bench, he should get more touches in the post which will help. Really if the off the ball screens improve, and the slashes to the basket are crisper, and the guys get more comfortable with each other, the offense will look better. I'm not worried about it, although Tyreke will need to attack earlier with Dally in the starting lineup now. I also expect within a month or two Cousins will start to draw double teams somewhat consistently in the post, and he'll create a lot of open shots for others. He'll already showing he's an unselfish passer from the post.

 

[Bricklayer]

Some of this takes times. Teh Lakers main offensive players are all 10 year NBA vets, and they have played together as a unit for years. Kobe and Fisher have been together in abackcourt for the better part of 10 years. Then you have us, starting (until next game) a rookie and 2 second year players, and with no two of them having started next to each more than Beno and Reke, who did so for maybe 30-35 games last year. Beno started about 41 games, + Reke was hurt for some of them. Landry was wiht the team for only 27 games. Cousins is new. Etc. Some of that just takes time, and is one of those big reasons why teams have to build until they become contenders.

This whole arena thing is pissing me off. The future is so bright for this team, I would love to just relax and say it just takes time and watch it unfold. But we've got a lockout looming that could wipe out our season next year. Adn we have an arean issue looming whihc may mean that when there finally is basketball it won't be in Sacto anymore. Adds this sense of "it all has to happen now" to a process that should just percolate along until inevitably, in about 2-3 years, this team emerges as a n up and coming playoff contender.

 

[Flopi]

One thing that I really like about the offense is that Kings players seem to really take care of the ball.
I've noticed during the games I saw that they commit much less turnovers and stupid errors than last year.

As I write this, I checked the stats and Kings are actually the best team in turnovers (for what it means after 5 games...) :
http://www.nba.com/statistics/sortable_team_statistics/sortable3.html?cnf=1&prd=1#top

 

[Gabriel]

I think our offense is fine and healthy UNTIL...

the final minutes of a close game. I am tired of seeing Landry out there trying to take over the game throwing up 17 footers. What's up with that?

 

[Bricklayer]

One thing that I really like about the offense is that Kings players seem to really take care of the ball.
I've noticed during the games I saw that they commit much less turnovers and stupid errors than last year.

As I write this, I checked the stats and Kings are actually the best team in turnovers (for what it means after 5 games...) :
http://www.nba.com/statistics/sortable_team_statistics/sortable3.html?cnf=1&prd=1#top

That's actually a good catch. I had not paid attention to that, but being #1 in the entire league for fewest turnovers helps explain why we've scored so much in the early season. Especially surprising when you consider that two of our main ballhandlers, Evans and Cousins, you would expect to make occasional mistakes.

 

[mac]

You're right that our offence is not what we should be worried about - it's our defence that truly has much more room for improvement. What I'm wondering is do the quick shots taken and Landry being used so far away from the basket somehow lead to opponents getting easy fast breaks against us? In almost every game so far there have been a couple times where off our miss the opponents just throw the ball downcourt to a wide open guy.

 

[Kingster]

Good pickup by Flopi noting the low turnovers.

In a broad sense I think of a continuum with the Adelman Kings of yesteryear on one side and the Atlanta Hawks of last year on the other. So, on the one extreme you have a team that gets a great deal of points in their set offense from cuts and passes and screens; on the other you have a team that virtually plays all one-on-one basketball. The Kings have moved more to the Atlanta side. The benefit is that they are doing the "safer" one on one stuff, meaning there's less risk of turnover. The downside is that they aren't getting nearly the number of easy baskets of yesteryear because their offense is oriented more toward the one-on-one side than the passing side. Look at the Lakers game to see how many incredibly easy shots they got at the basket with their triangle offense. Then look at the Kings offense and how few easy shots they got in the set up offense. It's amazing the Kings stayed as close as they did for as long as they did. That's a testament to the Kings talent.

Is this offense a function of design by Westphal or a function of the inefficiency of the younger players? If I had to guess, I'd say some of both. Westphal knows the trials and tribulations this young team has had in the assist to turnover department. It just hasn't been a strength. So if you're designing an offense, it's likely you're designing it to minimize the turnovers at this stage in their development. It's like giving a young quarterback in football fewer reads so he he has fewer chances of making a mistake, but having the tradeoff that he'll also probably make fewer big plays. Westphal probably figures that with the size we have we can be a solid rebounding and defensive team (eventually) and then have enough one-on-one talent in Tyreke, Cousins, Landry, and to some degree Beno, to get enough points to be pretty decent this year. I would expect that as this team matures over months and years that Westphal will tweak the offense to make it more of a passing offense and less one on one oriented. And, even if the offensive design remains the same, the young players should get better at it and be able to get more easy baskets eventually.

 

[skte1ement]

Our offense as other people have stated is primarily one on one. I would definitely like to see more off the ball movement instead of people sitting around and watching the ball. Another thing that bugs me is someone needs to teach DeMarcus to set screens. He hardly ever puts a body on someone, more often than not screening air.

The defense is also pretty lazy, and needs to be approached with more effort. Our rotation is bad and we don't have any good perimeter defenders with quick feet in the starting line up.

It makes me wonder about the coaching of this team. I hope westphal can get the job done but I don't really see him phicilitating any improvement from his players so far (I know I know it's early this isn't a final judgement). I was really hoping to see an improvement from Casspi but I haven't at all. With his lazy defense and streaky offense I think he's much more suited as bench player

 

[bajaden]

The Lakers run a triangle offense, which is a version of the Princeton offense. The Lakers, as pointed out by Bricky are one of the most experienced teams in the NBA. The Kings are a very young team with a few rookies and many players under the age of 25. Many of these guys have never played together before, so to run an offense thats as error free as possible, you have have to keep it simple stupid. The triangle offense, like the princeton is based on ball movement, which requires that everyone on the floor be able to pass the ball. And I'm not just talking about, Oh gee, I think its time to pass the ball kind of passing. The Kings simply aren't at that level yet. And one shouldn't expect them to be.

So far I'm not that disappointed with the Kings offense. Its far from perfect, but the whole idea of any offensive set is to get a good shot. If that good open shot comes with 12 or 15 seconds on the shot clock, you still take the shot. If you pass it up you may end up taking a forced shot with one tick left on the clock. Some nights the shots just aren't going to go in. While I'll admit that Landry isn't going to lead the league in assists anytime soon, he does for the most part take open shots. I do think a time comes though, when a player has to realize that its just not his night, and he needs to do something different. I remember Rick Barry having bad shooting nights (very few), and he would just start attacking the basket. Of course he was also a very good passer who could create for others. Landry isn't that type of player. But he could start attacking in the post more.

The Kings have a lot of talented pieces. Most of them young and inexperienced. Its going to take time for it all to come together. Right now the team is winning games the ugly way. If we can keep this group together, and possibly add to it, the sky is the limit. One positive they have is that they believe in themselves. When they lose they believe its their fault, and not that the other team has more talent. And to a certain extent, they're right. I want them to believe that they can win every game, and that when they lose, its because of their own mistakes, and not because they think the other team is better than they are. Most failures in life are self-imposed. Good reason to draft players that have always been winners..

 

[Prince_XY]

I am pretty sure the coaching staff sees what we see. Watching and analyzing the replays of those games are their line of work. I can hardly believe adjustments are not being made after each game.

I think the problem lies on our players. Most are young and inexperience. A few of them are stubborn too or simply lacking the needed skills. Another problem is lack of intensity in their game. How is it that we get beaten on the fastbreak and outlet passes so easily if these guys are playing intense defense? So many times I've seen the slow Cisco and Beno, and even Evans not running back that fast to prevent those fastbreaks.

If our guys will only treat each game as if their life is dependent on it, then we'll do very well this season.

 

[Kingster]

I am pretty sure the coaching staff sees what we see. Watching and analyzing the replays of those games are their line of work. I can hardly believe adjustments are not being made after each game.

I think the problem lies on our players. Most are young and inexperience. A few of them are stubborn too or simply lacking the needed skills. Another problem is lack of intensity in their game. How is it that we get beaten on the fastbreak and outlet passes so easily if these guys are playing intense defense? So many times I've seen the slow Cisco and Beno, and even Evans not running back that fast to prevent those fastbreaks.

If our guys will only treat each game as if their life is dependent on it, then we'll do very well this season.

Yeah, they should read my signature line!