[Game] Kings v. Mavericks - Wednesday, Jan. 15 - 7PT/10ET

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Amick: "Part of the friction that he had last year was that he had wanted (Sacramento) to draft Luka, and there was frustration stemming from that."
Gotcha. Basically Amick is just recalling the info that came out last year. Dave wanted Luka. Williams was pushing hard for Bags--arguing essentially that Luka would not translate, especially on defense (ironic, given Bags def bb iq issues), and Vlade decided to ultimately go with Bags (because of Williams, playing issues with Fox, and unverified rumors of Vlade not liking Luka's dad).
 
I think Vlade deserves his fair share of criticism for some questionable transactions, but he also deserves credit for drafting Fox and Bagley - two talented young players who complement each other and who both have very “high ceilings”. If the Kings can hang on to these two and build around them, then the future looks bright for Sacramento. The process of becoming a legitimate playoff contender (and hopefully much more than just that) is the difficult and tricky part - acquiring the right kind of talent in the draft and through free agency, along with keeping the right pieces that we have already and dumping the ones that don’t fit via trades (if possible). Despite the slew of injuries that disrupted this season and made an accurate evaluation of the team’s trajectory difficult, I think we have seen enough to know that there are some glaring deficiencies with personnel that need to be addressed. We need a different group of role players to serve as the supporting cast for our two future stars - De’Aaron and Marvin. Some more length, athleticism, and quickness (particularly on the wings) would help the team match up better against the other squads in the League - I think these are the main areas where the Kings are lacking. Holmes has been a top-notch addition (as a reserve or as a starter) and there are a couple of others we should try to keep, but I think a significant re-shuffling of the roster is in order. Given the current situation with contracts and such, it’s not going to happen overnight. Granted, all of the preceding is just an opinion but I think there are other fans that feel similarly. Constructive, civil feedback is welcome.
not sure how you can say Vlade deserves credit for drafting Bagley. In a re-draft on RealGM Bagley went 10-12. Drafting him at 2 is hardly something for which he should be given credit.
 

Kingster

Hall of Famer
well if you are talking about pairing him with a poor defender I’m surprised you didn’t mention a Beli-Bagley starting 4-5 combination. I agree however Beli is much more effective paired with Holmes.
Bagley is much more mobile in space than Beli. Not close. At this point in their careers, Beli is stronger, as you would expect of a 30+ year old.
 
I don't understand a lot of things right now. Maybe there are good reasons, but I'm not smart enough to see it. Most of what I don't understand is why, when this team's defense has been so poor of late, especially in the first half, does Walton play Hield and Bjelica as much as he does instead of more minutes for Joseph, JJ, and Ariza, who played 37 minutes? (JJ played zero minutes). Hield and Bjelica played a total of 73 minutes. In this game, Bjelica and Hield took a total of 35 shot attempts; they made 36 total points. Now if your "offensive" players, who have defensive limitations, are essentially only making a point a shot attempt, you are in deep trouble. At the minimum, in order to justify their existence on the floor, they need to be making 1.3 points per shot attempt, which would translate to 46 points, a differential of 10 or more points. If they aren't justifying their existence on the floor with their offense, you've just got to reduce their minutes on the floor, imo.

Another thing I don't understand is why no Dedmon after he showed he could be productive? Did Walton think that Bjelica would be better on D than Dedmon in the match ups? Or does Walton know that Dedmon is as good as gone in a trade so there's no point to playing him? And maybe the trade scenario has something to do with playing Hield and Bjelica all these minutes? Or maybe there's another reason.

I just keep thinking that if my team was continually getting destroyed on defense in the first half, I'd shake things up and put the best defensive lineup I could come up with for the first half. And like I've said before, I wouldn't play Hield and Bjelica together on the floor. That's 40% of your team being flat-footed and is just too difficult to overcome on the defensive end, imo.
the reason Hield and Bjelica are played even though they are not making shots is that they are still covered by the defense allowing Fox to.do what he did. I would be curious to see what Foxes effectivness is playing with a defensive lineup
 
Bagley is much more mobile in space than Beli. Not close. At this point in their careers, Beli is stronger, as you would expect of a 30+ year old.
Bagley is more mobile but he does not have a good instinct on where to mobile to yet. physical attributes such as speed, size, strength are important, but so is knowing what to do and when to do it. he'll get there
 
I don't understand a lot of things right now. Maybe there are good reasons, but I'm not smart enough to see it. Most of what I don't understand is why, when this team's defense has been so poor of late, especially in the first half, does Walton play Hield and Bjelica as much as he does instead of more minutes for Joseph, JJ, and Ariza, who played 37 minutes? (JJ played zero minutes). Hield and Bjelica played a total of 73 minutes. In this game, Bjelica and Hield took a total of 35 shot attempts; they made 36 total points. Now if your "offensive" players, who have defensive limitations, are essentially only making a point a shot attempt, you are in deep trouble. At the minimum, in order to justify their existence on the floor, they need to be making 1.3 points per shot attempt, which would translate to 46 points, a differential of 10 or more points. If they aren't justifying their existence on the floor with their offense, you've just got to reduce their minutes on the floor, imo.

Another thing I don't understand is why no Dedmon after he showed he could be productive? Did Walton think that Bjelica would be better on D than Dedmon in the match ups? Or does Walton know that Dedmon is as good as gone in a trade so there's no point to playing him? And maybe the trade scenario has something to do with playing Hield and Bjelica all these minutes? Or maybe there's another reason.

I just keep thinking that if my team was continually getting destroyed on defense in the first half, I'd shake things up and put the best defensive lineup I could come up with for the first half. And like I've said before, I wouldn't play Hield and Bjelica together on the floor. That's 40% of your team being flat-footed and is just too difficult to overcome on the defensive end, imo.
He seems to always go all or nothing with his lineups. He'll sometimes go with all defense and typically that seems to bring negative results. Fox and Joseph together is just asking for it. Fox has been hitting his shots and Joseph has had games where he's been on but it's a gamble offensively. I think they need more balance and with the way he wants them to defend, his best shot, and maybe his only shot, is clearly playing small. He still isn't committing to extending his defense on the ball until they get down in a hole. He wants them helping back and out on pick and roll or penetration. That's a tough cover for a traditional big lineup.
 
This game really is emblematic of the Kings being in a funk. A look at the basic team stats suggest that we won the game; we outperformed Dallas, if only marginally, in every category. It's tough to make the playoffs when you perceivably outperform your opponent and still lose the game.
Points are the only thing that counts. It not how, its how many.
 
What are they saying in particular?
Can't compare Bagley to Luka because they're two different players.
If the Kings had Fox and Bagley all year, they'd have 5 more wins.
Luka gets his rebounds because the bigs on the team just clear the lane out and let him get them.
Jason Anderson of the Bee is way off base by saying the Kings aren't good. He's not allowed to say that because of injuries.

The usual stuff.

Oh and yesterday they talked about how great Bagley's game against Orlando was where it took him 16 shots to get 17 points. Then they talked about how poor Luka's last game was against us earlier this year because he wasn't efficient...

I don't think Grant realizes how much better the Kings record has been when Fox and Bagley don't play. But as I said in another thread, the team being worse with Fox out there is on Walton because he's a far better player than CoJo. It's just CoJo's style fits Walton's scheme better. Which to me, is a fireable offense. I wish I knew how to scam these franchises out of millions of dollars like a lot of these coaches and GMs do. They're so incompetent it's just unfathomable to think how they ever got into these positions when you see how dumb they actually are.
 
Can't compare Bagley to Luka because they're two different players.
If the Kings had Fox and Bagley all year, they'd have 5 more wins.
Luka gets his rebounds because the bigs on the team just clear the lane out and let him get them.
Jason Anderson of the Bee is way off base by saying the Kings aren't good. He's not allowed to say that because of injuries.

The usual stuff.

Oh and yesterday they talked about how great Bagley's game against Orlando was where it took him 16 shots to get 17 points. Then they talked about how poor Luka's last game was against us earlier this year because he wasn't efficient...

I don't think Grant realizes how much better the Kings record has been when Fox and Bagley don't play. But as I said in another thread, the team being worse with Fox out there is on Walton because he's a far better player than CoJo. It's just CoJo's style fits Walton's scheme better. Which to me, is a fireable offense. I wish I knew how to scam these franchises out of millions of dollars like a lot of these coaches and GMs do. They're so incompetent it's just unfathomable to think how they ever got into these positions when you see how dumb they actually are.
The Kings insiders are starting to show chinks in their shill armor which I don't think has happened yet this year, but Grant is a bit higher on the shill-o-meter so it's not surprising he's holding the company line.

Still, the cracks are starting to show and I'll be using Kings media to gauge how close we are to FO turnover.

Ham wrote this article today.

https://www.nbcsports.com/bayarea/k...nduring-most-disappointing-season-over-decade
 
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Tetsujin

The Game Thread Dude
Whilst I generally enjoy your insightful and - on occasions - humorous posts, I will admit that your contribution to this thread (or anything Luka related, for that matter) leaves much to be desired.

There is no need to deflect. The Kings had the asset needed to get Luka and decided to pass on him. There is a person in the organisation that should be held accountable. Who that person is and where the buck stops - I guess that is up for discussion. But asking for accountability does not make anyone, in my view, less of a fan.
Dude all I literally asked is if the completely hypothetical situation brought up involves the player in question missing most of the season due to injury.

I’ve kept myself out of the Luka thread because some of y’all are too sensitive.
 
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The Kings insiders have starting to show chinks in their shill armor which I don't think has happened yet this year, but Grant is a bit higher on the shill-o-meter so it's not surprising he's holding the company line.

Still, the cracks are starting to show and I'll be using Kings media to gauge how close we are to FO turnover.

Ham wrote this article today.

https://www.nbcsports.com/bayarea/k...nduring-most-disappointing-season-over-decade
Yep It's just the same old cycle we've seen time and time again. Things were cooled off for the last couple years with the rebuild and no expectations but now the expectations are back and the losing is still occurring due to terrible front office decisions being made over and over.
 
Can't compare Bagley to Luka because they're two different players.
If the Kings had Fox and Bagley all year, they'd have 5 more wins.
Luka gets his rebounds because the bigs on the team just clear the lane out and let him get them.
Jason Anderson of the Bee is way off base by saying the Kings aren't good. He's not allowed to say that because of injuries.

The usual stuff.

Oh and yesterday they talked about how great Bagley's game against Orlando was where it took him 16 shots to get 17 points. Then they talked about how poor Luka's last game was against us earlier this year because he wasn't efficient...

I don't think Grant realizes how much better the Kings record has been when Fox and Bagley don't play. But as I said in another thread, the team being worse with Fox out there is on Walton because he's a far better player than CoJo. It's just CoJo's style fits Walton's scheme better. Which to me, is a fireable offense. I wish I knew how to scam these franchises out of millions of dollars like a lot of these coaches and GMs do. They're so incompetent it's just unfathomable to think how they ever got into these positions when you see how dumb they actually are.
If the Kings had Bagley and Fox all year they might have 5 wins right now
 
Whilst I generally enjoy your insightful and - on occasions - humorous posts, I will admit that your contribution to this thread (or anything Luka related, for that matter) leaves much to be desired.

There is no need to deflect. The Kings had the asset needed to get Luka and decided to pass on him. There is a person in the organisation that should be held accountable. Who that person is and where the buck stops - I guess that is up for discussion. But asking for accountability does not make anyone, in my view, less of a fan.
Whether or not any kings fan want to admit it or not, the Kings F’d up not drafting Luka. Right now, he is better than Bagley. Some can argue Bagley can be better in the future. Some can argue Luka might not be where he is if he was on the Kings. But as it is right now Luka is a better player than Bagley and Kings would probably be better if we drafted him. Yeah it sucks. I wanted us to draft him. BUT WE DIDN’T. Bitching and moaning won’t change that. Firing Vlade won’t change that. Praising Luka while complaining about Bagley (whom you should be rooting to do well) won’t change that. Why bring it up so much? How does that make your day better? Damn, it’s like if life gives you lemons, instead of making lemonade, some of you would rather squeeze lemon juice in everyone’s eyes.

(btw this is not directed at you R2D2. It’s to all the people that fit the description of the post. I just quoted you because it mentioned Luka)
 
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