http://www.sacbee.com/content/sports/basketball/kings/story/13953725p-14788178c.html
Mark Kreidler: Kings' Big 3 have been less than big so far
By Mark Kreidler -- Bee Sports Columnist
Published 2:15 am PST Thursday, December 8, 2005
In one of the more candid moments of his coaching career, Rick Adelman acknowledged before this season began that he absolutely did not know what he had in this churned, burned and reconstituted Kings roster of his.
Looking back on those words: genius!
But what Adelman was absolutely sure of was this: Mike Bibby, Brad Miller and Peja Stojakovic all had to take their games to levels heretofore unseen, or the new-and-not-necessarily-improved Kings would sink like a stone in the Western Conference.
It made all the sense in the world, really. Bibby wanted to take over a team and make it his. Miller was the anointed successor to Vlade Divac as the pass-master in the Princeton offense. Stojakovic was the person who could literally shoot his team into, or out of, any contest.
If they were great, or even consistently very good, then Adelman's offense had a chance to take root in the new guys. If they were ascendant, the rest of the Kings just might follow.
Your 18-game update: Missed it by that much.
"They haven't done it," Adelman said Wednesday, offering the sentence as fact, not criticism. "Each of them has had a tough period."
Tough period? Each of the "core" guys has disappeared altogether at one time or another. Collectively, they've thrown doubt over the concept that they can lead the team anywhere it might actually want to go.
Sure, it's early. I'm the original (and, to my knowledge, only) proponent of the two-month theory. I still maintain that these Kings will be defined by what they do in January and February, not November and December.
Still, Miller, Stojakovic and Bibby are on trial here. They're the ones with the chance to make a difference on this team. They've got the deepest knowledge about the stuff Adelman is trying to teach.
Heck, Bibby and Stojakovic ought to be table to teach the system themselves by now - and not just the system, but the camaraderie and esprit de corps that accompanied it during the pass-first, score-second winning years here.
If these Kings don't rise up over the next month or six weeks and figure out how to be more than the sum of their parts, it will be Adelman who'll play the role of pin cushion. That's not the same as saying he'll be the only one who failed.
"I said at the beginning of the season, 'I'll take the blame.' If you're gonna blame me, I'll take the blame," Bibby said after his coach put the Kings through a hard workout at their practice facility.
"We've got to play together on both ends of the court. ... I say it before every game, try to put it in everyone's head: When we win, everybody looks good."
And right now, not so much. Did you see that stretch run Tuesday? Painful. Five guys trying to force the action, while LeBron James looked so comfortably in control for Cleveland at the other end of the floor.
Bonzi Wells and Shareef Abdur-Rahim have both been solid pickups on this team; anybody think they're the problem? If either man has a shortcoming, it's simply that he is still learning how to run Adelman's offense. That's not fatal - unless the players who do know it aren't able to pass it along.
"I take a lot of it," Miller said of the responsibility for Sacramento's 7-11 situation. "The other guys don't have as much of a clue or idea of how things kind of work - the joking atmosphere, the way the fans really get into it when we get it going well, just everything.
"This isn't a normal year for Sacramento, so we've just got to keep fighting. ... I've said before, I didn't come to California to lose."
If Miller wants to turn this thing, he's going to add some interior defense, and he's going to keep shooting that outside jumper even on a slow night. He should never have a four-or six-attempt game again.
If Bibby wants to turn it, he's going to get more vocal with his teammates, and he's going to sacrifice some of his energy for defense. He's going to tell new teammates where to be on the floor. Mike might not say it, but, look: He knows where they should be.
Stojakovic's situation is more transparent: He's a shooter who has to be brilliant from the perimeter to really help his team. It's clear that he came back too soon from his hand injury, probably as a reaction to the criticism that accompanied him missing games, and he spent a long time on the court Wednesday after practice had ended, trying to relocate his stroke.
It's a start - and, sure, none of it will cure the other problems. None of it will make the Kings older or more experienced along the bench, and it isn't as though Stojakovic, Bibby and Miller will suddenly become the Detroit Pistons on defense.
But they're the key here all the same. They simply are. Adelman was dead right: His three returning letter-winners needed to be better than they'd ever been. It was never more true than it is right now.
About the writer: Reach Mark Kreidler at (916) 321-1149 or mkreidler@sacbee.com.
Mark Kreidler: Kings' Big 3 have been less than big so far
By Mark Kreidler -- Bee Sports Columnist
Published 2:15 am PST Thursday, December 8, 2005
In one of the more candid moments of his coaching career, Rick Adelman acknowledged before this season began that he absolutely did not know what he had in this churned, burned and reconstituted Kings roster of his.
Looking back on those words: genius!
But what Adelman was absolutely sure of was this: Mike Bibby, Brad Miller and Peja Stojakovic all had to take their games to levels heretofore unseen, or the new-and-not-necessarily-improved Kings would sink like a stone in the Western Conference.
It made all the sense in the world, really. Bibby wanted to take over a team and make it his. Miller was the anointed successor to Vlade Divac as the pass-master in the Princeton offense. Stojakovic was the person who could literally shoot his team into, or out of, any contest.
If they were great, or even consistently very good, then Adelman's offense had a chance to take root in the new guys. If they were ascendant, the rest of the Kings just might follow.
Your 18-game update: Missed it by that much.
"They haven't done it," Adelman said Wednesday, offering the sentence as fact, not criticism. "Each of them has had a tough period."
Tough period? Each of the "core" guys has disappeared altogether at one time or another. Collectively, they've thrown doubt over the concept that they can lead the team anywhere it might actually want to go.
Sure, it's early. I'm the original (and, to my knowledge, only) proponent of the two-month theory. I still maintain that these Kings will be defined by what they do in January and February, not November and December.
Still, Miller, Stojakovic and Bibby are on trial here. They're the ones with the chance to make a difference on this team. They've got the deepest knowledge about the stuff Adelman is trying to teach.
Heck, Bibby and Stojakovic ought to be table to teach the system themselves by now - and not just the system, but the camaraderie and esprit de corps that accompanied it during the pass-first, score-second winning years here.
If these Kings don't rise up over the next month or six weeks and figure out how to be more than the sum of their parts, it will be Adelman who'll play the role of pin cushion. That's not the same as saying he'll be the only one who failed.
"I said at the beginning of the season, 'I'll take the blame.' If you're gonna blame me, I'll take the blame," Bibby said after his coach put the Kings through a hard workout at their practice facility.
"We've got to play together on both ends of the court. ... I say it before every game, try to put it in everyone's head: When we win, everybody looks good."
And right now, not so much. Did you see that stretch run Tuesday? Painful. Five guys trying to force the action, while LeBron James looked so comfortably in control for Cleveland at the other end of the floor.
Bonzi Wells and Shareef Abdur-Rahim have both been solid pickups on this team; anybody think they're the problem? If either man has a shortcoming, it's simply that he is still learning how to run Adelman's offense. That's not fatal - unless the players who do know it aren't able to pass it along.
"I take a lot of it," Miller said of the responsibility for Sacramento's 7-11 situation. "The other guys don't have as much of a clue or idea of how things kind of work - the joking atmosphere, the way the fans really get into it when we get it going well, just everything.
"This isn't a normal year for Sacramento, so we've just got to keep fighting. ... I've said before, I didn't come to California to lose."
If Miller wants to turn this thing, he's going to add some interior defense, and he's going to keep shooting that outside jumper even on a slow night. He should never have a four-or six-attempt game again.
If Bibby wants to turn it, he's going to get more vocal with his teammates, and he's going to sacrifice some of his energy for defense. He's going to tell new teammates where to be on the floor. Mike might not say it, but, look: He knows where they should be.
Stojakovic's situation is more transparent: He's a shooter who has to be brilliant from the perimeter to really help his team. It's clear that he came back too soon from his hand injury, probably as a reaction to the criticism that accompanied him missing games, and he spent a long time on the court Wednesday after practice had ended, trying to relocate his stroke.
It's a start - and, sure, none of it will cure the other problems. None of it will make the Kings older or more experienced along the bench, and it isn't as though Stojakovic, Bibby and Miller will suddenly become the Detroit Pistons on defense.
But they're the key here all the same. They simply are. Adelman was dead right: His three returning letter-winners needed to be better than they'd ever been. It was never more true than it is right now.
About the writer: Reach Mark Kreidler at (916) 321-1149 or mkreidler@sacbee.com.
