[Game] Kings vs. Pelicans, 1/17/21, 6pm PST, 9pm EST

[pdxKingsFan]

Haha, maybe that's it, Walton is just waaay too good at the gameplan. If early on he hadn't have misused them all so extensively to the point where their effort and/or role is up in the air at every moment it might make it a little more likely. And hence all the potential issues with a team like this with where they are at if that was the goal all along. If the idea was to juggle value, raise draft standing, while keeping it a positive environment with the illusion of a bright future ahead then they are failing about as hard as Vivek has in his stewardship. All in all, it's hard to know what the plan is when they have the lingering existence of the prior guys "plan" leading the charge on the floor. Then that doesn't even remotely get into the whole Dumars stuff. Whatever it is at some point, it will be revealed.

The crazy thing is if he could just so some consistency, he could probably get a positive endorsement on the way out. He knows he's Vlade's guy and he can't save this, so stop reshuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. Go down with dignity.

 

[ppine]

DA Fox was very impressive. I love his game.
Unfortunately Williamson is unstoppable. Ingraham is also. Bledsoe can play.
Bagley played a whole game and did better. He is trying to be more physical. He took a charge.
Christie pointed out his "hoppy defense." A good observation of fundamental problems in his game.
Robinson, Hield, Joseph and Bagley are weak defenders. When the guys they cover get by them, Holmes has to provide help and often loses his man.
The Kings won the third quarter for a change. They tied in the second. It was the first that killed them even after all the talk about getting physical getting ready to play. The Kings play soft and nearly always have. There have been exceptions like Cousins, Shumpert and a few other guys. Lin and Whiteside. It is an element that is really missing on defense.

 

[Capt. Factorial]

Some of this "worst ever" business is overstated, I think. Scoring is up league wide this year. We have 2 teams (the Bucks and Wizards) both averaging over 120 a game right now. Yes it's technically true but teams are breaking franchise records every season right now for three point attempts so obviously that's going to add up to a whole lot of points allowed for somebody. And we're talking about a sample of 14 games.

I get that it's a small sample size. And I do understand that scoring is up due to three point shooting, which is why when I looked at how bad the Kings were defensively a few days ago, I didn't look just at raw DRtg (we are the worst ever), but I also looked at DRtg relative to league average. Yep, still the worst ever. Currently we are 10.5% worse than a league average team at defense. If I recall correctly, among the other worst teams in defense, only two reached 8% worse than league average, and none reached 8.5% worse. We're in uncharted territory here, even taking into account the fact that scoring is up.

Maybe we turn it around. But I'm not sure I've seen any reason to believe we will.

 

[ppine]

It doesn't matter if league scoring is up when your team is last in team defense.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

I will grant that I am not always watching with a keen eye, but I have watched most of the games this year and it certainly feels like in the second half the team doesn't even attempt to defend against the 3 on many nights. And when I'm not watching closely, that's when a 1 or 2 point game is a 15 point game 3 minutes later, so I have to assume the same.

Which is crazy because the first 4 games this season also happened.

 

[FaStRmAn]

Well I for one am concerned about how poor the Kings perimeter defense is. Cant stop the 3 and cant Stop drives to the hoop. Since whiteside has been down the defensive effort has been atrocious.
I’m concerned about Bagley’s overall game but he is literally a rookie still because of injuries. Same Ol KANGS...