[Game] Kings @ Suns, Wednesday, October 23rd - 7PT/10ET

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Trevor Ariza completely sucks and has no business playing 20+ mins in an NBA game. Us Suns fans learned this the hard way last season.

I know the Kings probably signed him because of Kokoskov having a weird thing for Ariza (which was why the Suns signed him last season) but he's absolutely not worth it. Kings would be better of DNP'ing him and keeping him for the locker room veteran presence only.

 
Hield is the only guy who looked good for us tonight. Barnes made a couple nice shots but they were forces that went in. I liked Corey Joseph's defensive fundamentals. I can't remember the last time a member of the Kings actually got down in a defensive stance! Seeing that shook me a little -- in a good way. Wanna take bets on how many games that lasts before all the confused looks which seem to say "this is Sacramento homie, we don't do that around here" shake him out of his old Popovich/Casey/McMillan habits? :)

But as regards Bagley, yeah I was sortof mixed on his play tonight. His energy and effort are obvious. He beats guys to the ball. He can also create good looks for himself but wasn't making enough of them tonight. He needs more counter-moves and he needs to slow down a little and stop rushing things, especially when he's already got his man beat and just needs to square up the basket and knock it down. These are young player mistakes though. I'm not going to fault him for going one-one-one when that's essentially what everyone in a Kings uniform was doing tonight. He's a skinny PF being asked to play C defensively and the results there have been about as expected but I can't fault him for the positional mismatch either. That's not his decision and he was competing out there despite being over matched physically. And in any case, I've long since learned to separate his performance from the guy we could have drafted instead. Yes I'm still mad about it but we also can't undo it so I'm choosing not to look at it that way anymore.
The reason the Kings were winning and playing the way they were was because of Fox. He out SO much pressure on the defense Buddy was just out there firing. As was Barnes. Once Fox went out with foul trouble and Cojo stepped in they started having to okay half court which they are NOT ready to do.

The whole game flipped after Fox went out. Rewatch it if you dont understand.

And as far as your love affair with Doncic just stop it. Compare him to Fox all you want because that is what the sacrifice would have been. You draft Doncic you trade Fox and rebuild around Doncics play style. You cant meld the 2, two different speeds.
 

hrdboild

Hall of Famer
I'd agree with you were it not for the fact that Joerger pulled the exact same maneuver in Memphis.
I don't think Sacramento has a monopoly on NBA front office dysfunction. It's not like I go out of my way to follow the daily happenings of the Memphis Grizzlies franchise, but there's been a lot of buzz coming down the usual NBA channels the past few years about the chaos taking place in that front office... (Some examples here, here, here and here) ... Dave Joerger just strikes me as a guy who doesn't suffer fools gladly.
 
Also, I'm not condemning Walton after 1 game. Far from it. But I think it's fair to say that the Kings are 100% playoffs or bust this season. He doesn't get a learning curve with the new team and the players don't get time to learn the system. That's the pressure you out on when you fire a successful coach of an up and coming team
 
How often has the team played this bad in the past 3 seasons with significantly less talent?

Thought so.
They started 1 - 3 last year with a 20 point blow out and a double digit blowout. Those blowouts were against better teams, but this looked like a team that lacked awareness of where other teammates would be. Little passing, lots of dribbling. Hopefully, they can figure things out soon.
 

hrdboild

Hall of Famer
The reason the Kings were winning and playing the way they were was because of Fox. He out SO much pressure on the defense Buddy was just out there firing. As was Barnes. Once Fox went out with foul trouble and Cojo stepped in they started having to okay half court which they are NOT ready to do.

The whole game flipped after Fox went out. Rewatch it if you dont understand.

And as far as your love affair with Doncic just stop it. Compare him to Fox all you want because that is what the sacrifice would have been. You draft Doncic you trade Fox and rebuild around Doncics play style. You cant meld the 2, two different speeds.
No one is a bigger De'Aaron Fox fan than me. I've been on that dude since HS. That's why I'm disappointed when he doesn't have a good game. I think Buddy making those shots is the reason why the Kings had a lead at half-time. Fox wasn't impacting the game defensively like he usually does (he had a couple of near steals though), he got outscored by a PG who's notorious for his inability to score, and he had 5 TO against 5 assists. That's a bad game. Some of it was foul trouble but the bulk of the problem was that he wasn't pushing the pace like he did last season. Fox is capable of pushing the accelerator so hard that the other team can't catch a breather. I saw none of that from him tonight. For one thing, too many guys were freelancing or bringing the ball up themselves and looking to create. When Fox did have the ball he looked like he was waiting for guys to get to their spots. If that's our gameplan, we're already hosed.

Like I said, maybe everyone just had the jitters. But there's already a lot of articles and videos out there criticizing Walton's ineffective offensive scheming with the Lakers. This one, in particular, is very detailed. I think Vlade picked a coach because he's his buddy and failed to do any of the necessary homework to inform that decision and now we're saddled with an offense that's going to make our best players look worse than they are. I have nothing but love for Fox but he just didn't look good tonight and the most worrying part of that is that I don't even think it's his fault.
 
I saw zero postive influence from Walton out there. He might as well have been a ghost, which is coincidentally the same coaching style he employed when he "lead" the Warriors to success, and also got him canned by his hometown team. Ive not seen one shread of evidence to suggest Luke Walton is even a mediocre coach, let alone a good one. His hiring REEKS of Vivek. The ghosts of Mike Malone and Dave Joeger will haunt this franchise.
 
The way I saw it...
  • Fox - Plain, uninspiring, merky decisions, did not set people up, did not run the team, did not pass go. That first wild 3 airball was wtf chucking and set a precedent for crappy ball movement rest of game.
  • Buddy - Did his thing, really couldn't get free much tho, some loose handles and wild passes. Trying to do too much at end caused that injury.
  • Dedmon - Hardly contributed anything. Bad shooting night but no real inside game to fall back on. Shades of Willy.
  • Bagley - Pushed around and slow, needed to play with more force, intent and determination... the #2 pick needs to act like he was worthy of it. I'd like to see more of a chip on his shoulder.
  • Barnes - Horrible bad hands. Missed a number of passes, rebounds and scrapples.
  • Joseph - Thank god somebody came ready to play. Only time the game looked fun.
  • Bogie - Contributed absolutely nothing, nothing and nothing. Couldn't find an open shot and ran himself in circles.
  • Bjelica - like a few others gave us jack sqwat and looked super soft.
  • Ariza - If anybody should have been motivated to have a good game it should have been him. Boo'd, tattoo'd and screwed the pooch. Too many min coach.
  • Holmes - Also should have been more focused at PHX.
  • Walton - Seems they tuned you out dude. I hardly believe this was your game plan.. but sheesh, when we are choking try something else. Adapt. Counter, Hail Mary. Something.
  • Kokoskov - Didn't you have some tiny inside info we could have used to counter this embarrassment???
I refuse to believe PHX defense is this good. One thing for sure tho our defense is horrible.
But even then... if Dedmon, Bogie, Bjelica, and Ariza just contributed anything this game might have been a win still.

Just my take.
 
That was pathetic for a season opener against a bottom dweller. Kings better buck up fast if they don't want to find themselves in a hole early in the season. I've been very nervous about the Joerger firing and the hiring of Walton, and this is not helping. Only one game, yes, but the rotations were not good last night and the players were completely uninspired (apart from Buddy, who was sloppy outside of the hot shooting).

Never liked the Ariza signing and he flat out sucked last night. Hope Luke isn't planning on him playing significant minutes although it looks like he is.
 
That was pathetic for a season opener against a bottom dweller. Kings better buck up fast if they don't want to find themselves in a hole early in the season. I've been very nervous about the Joerger firing and the hiring of Walton, and this is not helping. Only one game, yes, but the rotations were not good last night and the players were completely uninspired (apart from Buddy, who was sloppy outside of the hot shooting).
Are they? Next game both teams play last year WC PO opponents. We will see. Hopefully, both Kings and Suns win, to make this loss easier to swallow.
 
Are they? Next game both teams play last year WC PO opponents. We will see. Hopefully, both Kings and Suns win, to make this loss easier to swallow.
Yes. They have good young talent but they're a bottom dweller until proven otherwise. Of course, we are too. But our expectations are higher this year. Not a good start but I guess it's only game one.
 
I can't believe this crap from Bogi. Has a sterling FIBA and a preseason where it seems he may be back to his rookie self, and what's he do in the first game? It's right back to the shoot first, second, and third chucker from last year.

Theoretically, this second unit shouldn't have any problems with offense with Bogi leading the way. But if he's going to keep up with this nonsense, then the entire unit is just going to break down. Inject Giles into the second unit and have him run the offense because I have no faith in Bogdanovic.

(Luka Watch: 34/9/8 and a W)
 
This is what happends when you give out a bunch of money (overpay) to guys that don't make a difference but put up ok stats, also defensively other than Fox (who should be a way better defender) everyone has there feet in the sand we have zero explosiveness on the wings when it comes to short quick movements Buddy/Bogi/Ariza/Banres might be the least athletic wing combo in NBA history. The Kings badly needed a explosive wing e.g Oubre Jr in the past off-season.

Bagley tries really hard but man the basketball IQ/awareness is just not there atm unless he's getting spoon feed or combating a offensive rebound he looks terrible. Also it took 1 year but I can see why Ayton had hype around him he looks super beastly now.
 
Playing defense doesn't mean slowing down the offense. It means playing defense. Not only do they have tighten up the D considerably, there has to be some serious talk about role definition on this team. The dribble act has got to stop, except for those who actually know how to dribble.
Good post, and it falls on Walton......that was not a good first impression or look for Walton.
 

dude12

Hall of Famer
It’s just one game but after one game, the firing of Joerger and hiring of Walton looks bad. Sure, there’s going to be 81 more games for that to change, but we fired a guy who brought about all this potential playoff hype. It wasn’t Walton that developed these guys and brought about the improvement. So yeah, the team looking this crapty in its debut, Walton deserves criticism right now. I mean, WTF was that.
 
And as far as your love affair with Doncic just stop it. Compare him to Fox all you want because that is what the sacrifice would have been. You draft Doncic you trade Fox and rebuild around Doncics play style. You cant meld the 2, two different speeds.
I think this game was a perfect example on how a team can use more than one good ball handling creator.

About the game:
It looked to me that we didnt generate nearly enough easy baskets offensively. Especially in a half court. Transitions help when we get to do it more but the half court offense cant look that bad. These sets we ran didnt really get people open, it didnt seem to have many pick n rolls with Fox as a ball handler and it just looked like contested 1-1 shots.

We wont be a great defensive team because of our personnel but the point total will be lower when we dont turn the ball over constantly. Now its time for Walton to do something because even the Suns looked to have a much better offensive system than us and we should compete for a playoff spot with teams that are on another level compared to Suns.
 
Didn’t watch the game last night because I had big money on the World Series so the only thing I got from changing to it every once in a while is my observation of Bagley.
He looks like he wasn’t in the weight room at all this off-season. I’m bringing up Luka because people better get use to it. It’s gonna happen their entire careers.
Luka has put on some serious muscle. He looks better than last year. His numbers were pretty damn good last night against a decent bullets teams. Like it or not Luka is gonna haunt us for a decade or more.
 
Didn’t watch the game last night because I had big money on the World Series so the only thing I got from changing to it every once in a while is my observation of Bagley.
He looks like he wasn’t in the weight room at all this off-season. I’m bringing up Luka because people better get use to it. It’s gonna happen their entire careers.
Luka has put on some serious muscle. He looks better than last year. His numbers were pretty damn good last night against a decent bullets teams. Like it or not Luka is gonna haunt us for a decade or more.
Hope you had scratch on the Nats!
 
When Fox went to the bench, so did the Kings offense. Otherwise this game looked like the India games against the Suns. Too much dribbling and one on one play.

Monty Williams deserves some credit as the Suns look improved. Rubio looked pretty good running that team. Ayton was a Bully and has improved.
 
After watching the Clippers and the Lakers, this looked like a D League game. It will take some time to get with the new coach. The lack of effort, soft d inside, and crummy rebounding are disappointing. There was a lack of ball movement and few assists during most of the game. The Kings are really good at move the ball and throw up a 3. Buddy fits that scheme really well. It is my least favorite type of basketball.

From a Walton coached team I would expect defense, and unselfish movement of the ball on offense. The Kings played like young guys that forgot everything they worked on in practice. Deer in the headlights in the third q. Bagley was the biggest disappointment. Maybe he put pressure on himself. Deadmon is not the answer at the 5 either. Ayton pushed both of them around and played really well against them. Bagley and Dedmon are going to look slow and frail playing against teams like the Clippers and the Lakers.

Now back to reality. The Western Div is tough. We do not match up well against big strong teams. Dedmon so far is not an improvement over Willie.
 
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