It's Amin Elhassan Memorial Night at Golden 1 Center!!!!!!*
*injury reports pending
Rose are Red
Violets are Blue
I'm tired of losing.
How about you?
Awards time!
Tony Delk Memorial Award - Michael Carter-Williams. While it's tempting to give it to the dude who dropped forty points on our heads like a grand piano in a Tex Avery cartoon, Nikola Vucevic is an all-star so it's not an entirely out of nowhere night. And by the criteria of out-of-nowhere performances, Michael Carter-Williams dropping 21-7-7 in his first game back from missing an entire month due to a leg injury takes the cake.
Cory Joseph Award- Cory Joseph. The good news: CoJo scored 12 points in the game. The bad news: CoJo scored only three points in the entire second half despite playing the most minutes out of anyone in that time frame and also managed to get badly burnt repeatedly by a guy coming off of a leg injury. It's really not the badness part of the performance that gifts him the CoJo however but rather the fact that he was the guy playing the important minutes in the forth quarter as the Kings were trying to mount a comeback instead of the young rookie wh generally needs to accumulate experience in these sorts of situations. If Walton wants to play CoJo big minutes on a night where we're missing our star point guard, fine. But it shouldn't be at the expense of the guy who's actually going to be on this roster in two seasons.
Mikki Moore - Glenn Robinson III. With Bagley out and Walton shifting the starting lineup smaller to compensate (more on that in a second), GRIII got the rare start. While I'd like to say that he did something with the extra opportunity, Glenn Robinson did Glenn Robinson things, that is to say, sorta hung around the perimeter until someone passed it to him and generally sorta existing on defense without doing much of anything good or bad. But he won a dunk contest once. Also it should be noted that Robert Woodard is currently averaging 22.5 points/9 rebounds/1.7 steals a game in the G-League bubble but could see a minute in the Kings rotation because Glenn Robinson needed to play.
Luke Walton Vacuum Cleaner Award - Luke Walton. There is something to be said for sticking to your guns, especially if the guns in question work. But when you're Luke Walton and coming off the most successful stretch of basketball in your short reign as head coach of the Sacramento Kings, going back to the well and the systems that you had in place before that stretch of good basketball is absolutely not a good thing. For the first time in a couple of weeks, Luke legitimately deserved this award and he got it.
Hassan Bein' Hassan Moment of the Game:
***
As stated before, it's the all important Amin Elhassan Memorial Game in which families all across America gather to see De'Aaron Fox and Ja Morant battle it out and then make vast blanket statements one way or another about the character of either player and/or call them out on their TV show for some reason.
Of course, the comes with the important caveat that De'Aaron is currently listed as questionable on the injury report and missed the Orlando game. (No news on whether or not De'Aaron missing this game counts as him ducking Ja). After an entire several month period of people making lofty comparisons between the two young guards, it would be incredibly unsatisfying if they ended up not matching up at all.
Memphis is currently dealing with injury woes of its own, with seven players listed as either out or questionable. For all the attention devoted to Marvin Bagley as being injury prone or whatever, Jaren Jackson hasn't played a game of basketball since the first couple of games of the NBA bubble and had missed nine games in a row before that. Also the Grizzlies traded all their good vets for Justise Winslow in the middle of a playoff run last season and the dude still hasn't suited up for them.
The Grizzlies will also be missing *extremely muffled mask voice* Desmond Bane and back-up guard De'Anthony Melton. Brandon Clarke is also listed as questionable with a calf injury which is another big blow to the Grizzlies, who rely on him heavily to make their defense go around.
So who will be playing for the Grizzlies tonight? Ja probably will and he's still good, though he still hasn't taken that superstar leap that pundits seem to believe than all young guards will take after a year or two in the season for some reason. Still quick and aggressive, Ja's struggled a bit offensively as his perimeter shot seems to have left him completely, with him shooting a rough 28% from three. He's still very much a beanpole and watching footage of him immediately after De'Aaron will give you a good illustration of just how much bulk Fox has added to his frame since coming into the league. Of course, knowing our luck, he's going to shoot like Steph tonight and go for a new career high.
On the inside, the Grizzlies are anchored by Jonas Valanciunas, who at 28 years old, 6'11" and 270 pounds doesn't exactly fit with the run and gun style you'd assume a young roster spearheaded by Ja Morant would run. Acquired in the Marc Gasol trade, the Lithuanian big man is a load offensively and also a solid defensive player. Knowing our team's proclivity for giving up huge nights to big men, he could be in for quite the career highlight of an evening.
Elsewhere, Kyle Anderson and Dillon Brooks round out the core starters. Anderson is a former Spur who I can best describe as Boris Draw but a combo forward. He's not exactly fat but he certainly doesn't move like an NBA athlete. Dillon Brooks is also having a bad shooting season if you're someone who believes in the Brooks being an elite NBA shooter narrative. He's sorta like a tall Marcus Thornton who is a little peskier on defense.
King for one second Xavier Tillman and former Kingsfans.com trade crush Gorgui Dieng are the bigs off the bench though Tillman has been starting some games due to the clown car of injuries the Grizzlies have suffered. Like almost all the young Grizzlies, he's been a nice tool on the defensive end and has enough skill on offense to stick. Dieng is Dieng.
Former Grant Napear crush Grayson Allen and Tyus Jones are the other Grizzlies who will probably see playing time tonight. Grayson has shot well from beyond the arc and is overdue for another bout of gotta-punch-a-guy-in-the-balls-itis so fingers crossed it ain't against us. Tyus is a solid small guard who sees the floor well and won't get killed on defense (in other words, the anti-CoJo).
The Kings have a good chance to win this (if De'Aaron Fox plays). If De'Aaron doesn't play, hopefully Walton will have noticed that (a) the schemes from the past good stretch of basketball work better and (b) DaQuan Jeffries deserves all of GRIII's minutes going forward and (c) Kyle Guy should be seeing at least some of CoJo's minutes. If by some miracle Luke does these three things, there's a chance the Kings can still comfortably win this game tonight.
Final Predictions (Swipa Plays Edition): Kings 118, Grizzlies 111
With De'Aaron playing, the Kings simply have too much offense available to be stopped by the incredibly depleted Grizzlies team. De'Aaron and Ja both go off. Some dude on twitter says something dumb. There is much rejoicing.
*injury reports pending
Rose are Red
Violets are Blue
I'm tired of losing.
How about you?
Awards time!
Tony Delk Memorial Award - Michael Carter-Williams. While it's tempting to give it to the dude who dropped forty points on our heads like a grand piano in a Tex Avery cartoon, Nikola Vucevic is an all-star so it's not an entirely out of nowhere night. And by the criteria of out-of-nowhere performances, Michael Carter-Williams dropping 21-7-7 in his first game back from missing an entire month due to a leg injury takes the cake.
Cory Joseph Award- Cory Joseph. The good news: CoJo scored 12 points in the game. The bad news: CoJo scored only three points in the entire second half despite playing the most minutes out of anyone in that time frame and also managed to get badly burnt repeatedly by a guy coming off of a leg injury. It's really not the badness part of the performance that gifts him the CoJo however but rather the fact that he was the guy playing the important minutes in the forth quarter as the Kings were trying to mount a comeback instead of the young rookie wh generally needs to accumulate experience in these sorts of situations. If Walton wants to play CoJo big minutes on a night where we're missing our star point guard, fine. But it shouldn't be at the expense of the guy who's actually going to be on this roster in two seasons.
Mikki Moore - Glenn Robinson III. With Bagley out and Walton shifting the starting lineup smaller to compensate (more on that in a second), GRIII got the rare start. While I'd like to say that he did something with the extra opportunity, Glenn Robinson did Glenn Robinson things, that is to say, sorta hung around the perimeter until someone passed it to him and generally sorta existing on defense without doing much of anything good or bad. But he won a dunk contest once. Also it should be noted that Robert Woodard is currently averaging 22.5 points/9 rebounds/1.7 steals a game in the G-League bubble but could see a minute in the Kings rotation because Glenn Robinson needed to play.
Luke Walton Vacuum Cleaner Award - Luke Walton. There is something to be said for sticking to your guns, especially if the guns in question work. But when you're Luke Walton and coming off the most successful stretch of basketball in your short reign as head coach of the Sacramento Kings, going back to the well and the systems that you had in place before that stretch of good basketball is absolutely not a good thing. For the first time in a couple of weeks, Luke legitimately deserved this award and he got it.
Hassan Bein' Hassan Moment of the Game:
***
As stated before, it's the all important Amin Elhassan Memorial Game in which families all across America gather to see De'Aaron Fox and Ja Morant battle it out and then make vast blanket statements one way or another about the character of either player and/or call them out on their TV show for some reason.
Of course, the comes with the important caveat that De'Aaron is currently listed as questionable on the injury report and missed the Orlando game. (No news on whether or not De'Aaron missing this game counts as him ducking Ja). After an entire several month period of people making lofty comparisons between the two young guards, it would be incredibly unsatisfying if they ended up not matching up at all.
Memphis is currently dealing with injury woes of its own, with seven players listed as either out or questionable. For all the attention devoted to Marvin Bagley as being injury prone or whatever, Jaren Jackson hasn't played a game of basketball since the first couple of games of the NBA bubble and had missed nine games in a row before that. Also the Grizzlies traded all their good vets for Justise Winslow in the middle of a playoff run last season and the dude still hasn't suited up for them.
The Grizzlies will also be missing *extremely muffled mask voice* Desmond Bane and back-up guard De'Anthony Melton. Brandon Clarke is also listed as questionable with a calf injury which is another big blow to the Grizzlies, who rely on him heavily to make their defense go around.
So who will be playing for the Grizzlies tonight? Ja probably will and he's still good, though he still hasn't taken that superstar leap that pundits seem to believe than all young guards will take after a year or two in the season for some reason. Still quick and aggressive, Ja's struggled a bit offensively as his perimeter shot seems to have left him completely, with him shooting a rough 28% from three. He's still very much a beanpole and watching footage of him immediately after De'Aaron will give you a good illustration of just how much bulk Fox has added to his frame since coming into the league. Of course, knowing our luck, he's going to shoot like Steph tonight and go for a new career high.
On the inside, the Grizzlies are anchored by Jonas Valanciunas, who at 28 years old, 6'11" and 270 pounds doesn't exactly fit with the run and gun style you'd assume a young roster spearheaded by Ja Morant would run. Acquired in the Marc Gasol trade, the Lithuanian big man is a load offensively and also a solid defensive player. Knowing our team's proclivity for giving up huge nights to big men, he could be in for quite the career highlight of an evening.
Elsewhere, Kyle Anderson and Dillon Brooks round out the core starters. Anderson is a former Spur who I can best describe as Boris Draw but a combo forward. He's not exactly fat but he certainly doesn't move like an NBA athlete. Dillon Brooks is also having a bad shooting season if you're someone who believes in the Brooks being an elite NBA shooter narrative. He's sorta like a tall Marcus Thornton who is a little peskier on defense.
King for one second Xavier Tillman and former Kingsfans.com trade crush Gorgui Dieng are the bigs off the bench though Tillman has been starting some games due to the clown car of injuries the Grizzlies have suffered. Like almost all the young Grizzlies, he's been a nice tool on the defensive end and has enough skill on offense to stick. Dieng is Dieng.
Former Grant Napear crush Grayson Allen and Tyus Jones are the other Grizzlies who will probably see playing time tonight. Grayson has shot well from beyond the arc and is overdue for another bout of gotta-punch-a-guy-in-the-balls-itis so fingers crossed it ain't against us. Tyus is a solid small guard who sees the floor well and won't get killed on defense (in other words, the anti-CoJo).
The Kings have a good chance to win this (if De'Aaron Fox plays). If De'Aaron doesn't play, hopefully Walton will have noticed that (a) the schemes from the past good stretch of basketball work better and (b) DaQuan Jeffries deserves all of GRIII's minutes going forward and (c) Kyle Guy should be seeing at least some of CoJo's minutes. If by some miracle Luke does these three things, there's a chance the Kings can still comfortably win this game tonight.
Final Predictions (Swipa Plays Edition): Kings 118, Grizzlies 111
With De'Aaron playing, the Kings simply have too much offense available to be stopped by the incredibly depleted Grizzlies team. De'Aaron and Ja both go off. Some dude on twitter says something dumb. There is much rejoicing.
