Kings Vs. Trail Blazers Game Thread, 4/3, 7 p.m. PST

WTF player of the game?

  • Corey Brewer

    Votes: 2 7.4%
  • Darko Milicic

    Votes: 21 77.8%
  • Beno Udrih

    Votes: 4 14.8%

  • Total voters
    27
Can't wait for the season to end. 7 losses in a row now with 5 games to go for the season to end. My preseason prediction of 33 wins went down the toilet. Losing is getting old. The talent on the team is just not there. I guess we have to wait for the summer to see how the team improves. I'm so bummed.
 
Why not draw up a play for Evans?


I didn't watch the very end (turned it off around 1:30 mark) but my guess is because he was flat all night and nothing was going in. Beno was the hot hand.


Lins are all good but this is just getting depressing. I was feeling good about this season until the last week or so...things just falling flat
 
Goodbye MJ, LB, OR... Hello Grant Hill (his rookie numbers: 19.9, 6.4 and 5.0)


cant have any more games like tonight, that's for sure. but i think he'll bounce back strong, question is, how soon?


on a side note, if tyreke doesnt win ROY we are going to need some crisis counselors for this site
 
Yeah, this season, regardless of how good we played at the start, has been a losing season, and an overall disappointing one. the only bright spot in my opinion, has been Tyreke Evans. Thank heavens for this man. I don't think we would have won 12 games this year without him. Other than him, the talent is just not there for this team. Spencer, JT, Donte, these guys show signs of being able to play, but they can't be your core group. You can just watch them play to realize that even with more years of experience, they will never be what kings fans are making them up to be. Hopefully GP and the maloofs realize that this offseason.
 
Yeah, this season, regardless of how good we played at the start, has been a losing season, and an overall disappointing one. the only bright spot in my opinion, has been Tyreke Evans. Thank heavens for this man. I don't think we would have won 12 games this year without him. Other than him, the talent is just not there for this team. Spencer, JT, Donte, these guys show signs of being able to play, but they can't be your core group. You can just watch them play to realize that even with more years of experience, they will never be what kings fans are making them up to be. Hopefully GP and the maloofs realize that this offseason.
i will answer you with a question.
how many games did Oklahoma won last year? (and Durant wasn't even a rookie).
be patiant there is enough talent in those kids.
beside there is no way Tyreke won't win the ROY, if he won't win it will be the biggest robbery in sport since another roy (jones junior) lost in the olympics.
 
Yeah, this season, regardless of how good we played at the start, has been a losing season, and an overall disappointing one. the only bright spot in my opinion, has been Tyreke Evans. Thank heavens for this man. I don't think we would have won 12 games this year without him. Other than him, the talent is just not there for this team. Spencer, JT, Donte, these guys show signs of being able to play, but they can't be your core group. You can just watch them play to realize that even with more years of experience, they will never be what kings fans are making them up to be. Hopefully GP and the maloofs realize that this offseason.

So you just want to throw in the towel on Donte, JT, and Hawes. You think players just come into this league and just step right in and pick up where they left off in college. Donte showed tremendous improvement his year. Why would you think he wouldn't continue to improve? JT has finally started playing the way I thought he should since he came back. I think watching Landry and being around him has helped him. Hawes is the one I'm concerned about the most. He needs to get stronger. But that means he'll carry more weight. And that means more stress on his knee. He's a guy that you want to be more physical. But there's the worry that more physical play will lead to more injuries. So I'm not sure what the answer is there.

I'm not sure what your definition of a core group is? I think Thompson can average 15 and 10 once he's a finished product. And I think thats being realistic. Those would be good averages for a PF or a center in the league. No, there not all star averages, but every player on a good team isn't an all star. So I guess it comes down to what people really expect from players. And are those expectations realistic. Would I like Hawes and Thompson to be 20 and 10 guys with 1.5 blocks a game? Well sure I would. But is that realistic. What is your realistic idea of core guys. Here are some from around the league to compare with JT.

Jason Thompson: 2nd year - 12.5 PPG - 8.3 RPG - 1.0 BPG

Anderson Varejao: 6th year - 8.7 PPG - 7.8 RPG - 0.9 BPG

Udonis Haslem: 7th year - 9.7 PPG - 8.1 RPG - 0.3 BPG

Michael Beasley: 2nd year - 14.9 PPG - 6.4 RPG - 0.5 BPG

Marc Gasol: 2nd year - 14.6 PPG - 9.3 RPG - 1.6 BPG

LaMarcus Aldridge: 4th year - 17.6 PPG - 8.0 RPG - 0.6 BPG

Tyrus Thomas: 4th year - 9.8 PPG - 6.2 RPG - 1.6 BPG

Al Holford: 3rd year - 14.3 PPG - 9.7 RPG - 1.1 BPG

Nene Hilario: 8th year - 14.1 PPG - 7.7 RPG - 1.0 BPG

Joakim Noah: 3rd year - 10.3 PPG - 10.7 RPG - 1.5 BPG

David West: 7th year - 19.0 PPG - 7.4 RPG - 0.7 BPG

Emeka Okafor: 6th year - 10.3 PPG - 9.1 RPG - 1.6 BPG

Now I could do more, but I think you get my point. The majority of these players would be considered core players and JT's stats are certainly in the mix. The last five games he has averaged 15.8 PPG and 8.2 RPG. In January, his worse month in just about every catagory he averaged 4.2 fouls per game. In Feburary it went down to 3.6 fouls per game and in March it went down again to 3.3 fouls per game.

Now this isn't about me trying to make JT or Donte or even Hawes out to be stars. Its about improvement. Improvement in the team and improvement in the young players. In JT's and especially in Donte's case, I see improvement. Hawes worries me, because of his inconsistancy, and possibly being injury prone. But he is still young. At worse, he could be a decent to good backup off the bench.
 
Thanks bajaden, that was more complete a response than I was willing to give. Nicely said.
 
I'm with Bajaden.

We have a good young core. After this draft, we'll have an even better one. We're weakest in the frontcourt (especially at the 5). So hopefully we'll end up with Udoh, Aldrich, or Whiteside....OR if we're really lucky in the lotto, Cousins or Favors.

Sure we are ending the season in a really disappointing fashion, but didnt OKC have less than 25 wins last season? And now look at them. I'm not saying we're going to be that good in 2010, but I have a feeling the rebuild is pretty much done after this summer.

Reke is amazing, JT is going to be solid, Greene and Omri have shown flashes of brilliance, Brockness should be back to his bruising self next season (assuming we keep him), and Hawes is still young. Landry has also been pretty good for us.

We have a lot less wins this season, but we are waaaaaaaay better off now than a couple years ago when we had Bibby and Miller dogging it, no PF over 6'7, and our "promising young core" was only Martin and Cisco (not to knock those players).
 
Bajaden, I see where your coming from and I understand your perspective, but we can't always base everything upon stats. Stats are only stats, and if you're going to judge players or compare them based on stats, we can argue till' the sun sets. As much as Kings fans want to believe Spencer and JT are the guys that are going to be holding it down on the frontcourt for our team, sometimes you have to look beyond the stats. Just because a group of players have blossomed into solid players their 4th or 5th years respectively, that doesn't mean our guys' will. You can't change personality. Spencer Hawes is not going to be marking fear in the eyes of opposing players coming into the lane or pulling down 12 boards a game. I don't care if we keep him for 10 years, he will never be that kind of player because he just isn't. Now, I may be wrong about JT and Donte, maybe someday they will become solid players, but what I've seen from these two guys up to this point doesn't give me much reason to believe so. So we all have our own opinions on that.

What I mean by core group is basically your starting 5. The players you think give you the best chance of winning every night.
 
Bajaden, I see where your coming from and I understand your perspective, but we can't always base everything upon stats. Stats are only stats, and if you're going to judge players or compare them based on stats, we can argue till' the sun sets. As much as Kings fans want to believe Spencer and JT are the guys that are going to be holding it down on the frontcourt for our team, sometimes you have to look beyond the stats. Just because a group of players have blossomed into solid players their 4th or 5th years respectively, that doesn't mean our guys' will. You can't change personality. Spencer Hawes is not going to be marking fear in the eyes of opposing players coming into the lane or pulling down 12 boards a game. I don't care if we keep him for 10 years, he will never be that kind of player because he just isn't. Now, I may be wrong about JT and Donte, maybe someday they will become solid players, but what I've seen from these two guys up to this point doesn't give me much reason to believe so. So we all have our own opinions on that.

What I mean by core group is basically your starting 5. The players you think give you the best chance of winning every night.

Believe it or not, I'm not really a stat guy. I place more value on watching players play the game. Now its easy to say that just because a lot of players come into their own in the third and fourth year, that doesn't mean that Donte and Thompson will. Thats true! It doesn't mean they won't either. You have to go with some sort of average that you base things on as a way of judging progress.

Rule number one is that if the player has the size, athleticism, IQ, and work ethic, you don't give up on them after just two years. Both Greene and Thompson have improved their team defense. Greene has really improved his man defense. Thompson still has a ways to go, but he has improved. Thompson defends the pick and roll much better than he used to. Greene needs to improve his rebounding, ballhandling, and decision making. Thompson needs to improve his left hand, and his man defense technique, which is usually what gets him into foul trouble. Of late he seems to learned to be more patient on offense and just take whats there..

Hawes is another story. He plays great one game and not the next. Really, really hard to get a read on him. Next year will be an important year for him. I certainly hope he puts in a lot of work this offseason..

One thing I know, is that when fans get down on a player, rightly or wrongly, they tend to look for everything that player does wrong and not notice the things he does right. I'm not saying you in particular, but in general. People will jump on a bandwagon of any kind, just as long as its crowded
 
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