http://www.sacbee.com/content/sports/basketball/kings/story/14135950p-14964779c.html
Mark Kreidler: One man won't turn this team around
By Mark Kreidler -- Bee Sports Columnist
Published 2:15 am PST Tuesday, January 31, 2006
The best thing that could possibly happen to Ron Artest as a King already did.
And that would be: 0-2.
Two lousy losses, actually. Two clunkers on the road. A defeat by sub-mediocre Boston and even more sub-mediocre Toronto. Ghastly and Ghastlier.
They were two games in which Artest played, and he played pretty well. He gave the Kings more minutes than they had a right to expect and more leadership than they've probably had all year.
Net result? Oh and two, which ought to kill once and for all the notion that Artest yanking on a purple jersey is some sort of magic pill.
Listen, it's a start.
It isn't that Sacramento needed two more additions to ye olde loss column; things are bad enough as they stand. Put it this way: When Artest guaranteed after Sunday's crushing loss to the Raptors that these 18-26 Kings will make the playoffs, it was clear that he either hadn't been doing the math or forgot how to look up the standings on his laptop.
That guarantee is actually the most refreshing thing Artest has done so far - even better than the insistent "talk to me" hand gestures he made on the court Sunday in Toronto, reminding his teammates to actually, you know, communicate. His playoff talk suggested the kind of don't-confuse-me-with-the-facts determination that winning teams almost always need. It's hard to begrudge a player shooting for the moon.
Still, there are relevant numbers here. To finish at 42-40, which might - might - squeeze them into the eighth playoff spot in the Western Conference, the Kings would need to play .632 basketball from tonight through Game 82. That's 24-14 on a road-heavy schedule, and that's just for an outside shot at the postseason.
A more respectable 45-37, which might get the team a seven or six seed? That would require a 27-11 finish, which is .710 basketball, a rate the Kings actually exceeded for two full seasons earlier in this decade, back when they were ... well, good.
In other words, that is some kind of success - and, look, we don't have to discuss all this simply because Ron Artest suggested it. Artest says lots of things. The proof, for him and about him, is going to be completely established in the weeks to come.
But ask this: Playoff chatter aside, how does the franchise improve? How is progress going to be marked? Artest is a step forward, but he's one step, not the only one. He didn't arrive in a vacuum. He cost the Kings a scorer, Peja Stojakovic. It isn't like Sacramento got Artest for nothing. If it had, we might be having a different conversation.
Is the bench any deeper? Nope. Can Artest's presence magically transform Mike Bibby into a solid defender? As coach Rick Adelman said of Artest after the Boston game on Friday, "He can't guard five men."
Artest unquestionably makes the Kings better defensively, simply because he's really good at it, and he'll grab more rebounds than Stojakovic did. But that's not going to get it done, is it? Doesn't this team's success depend just as heavily on, say, Brad Miller not disappearing for an entire game, as he did last week against Philadelphia (32 minutes, two points, one rebound)?
Miller has already had five games in which he scored five or fewer points. I can't remember him having five such ineffective games in his entire Kings tenure before this. Can Ron Artest really fix that?
Doesn't Jason Hart need to be better behind Bibby? Aren't the Kings as dependent on Francisco García and Kevin Martin finding some consistency as they are on almost anything else you can name?
The Kings aren't finished; that's why Geoff Petrie calls them a franchise "in transition." Artest's presence doesn't change that. If anything, it magnifies it.
It is possible to look ahead and imagine better days, with Bonzi Wells back in the lineup, Shareef Abdur-Rahim up to speed and Artest gaining stamina and doing his thing. But this is still a roster with no depth and no punch in the post, and even with Artest out there, it is a lineup capable of yielding 124 points in 53 minutes, as it did in Sunday's overtime loss to the Raptors.
Petrie and the Maloofs aren't finished, or at least they'd better not be. Ron Artest is an addition, not a solution - and he's a good one. But 0-2 suggests the obvious: Artest is a guy who, if everything goes right, makes a team better. What he doesn't make, is a team.
About the writer: Reach Mark Kreidler at (916) 321-1149 or mkreidler@sacbee.com.
Mark Kreidler: One man won't turn this team around
By Mark Kreidler -- Bee Sports Columnist
Published 2:15 am PST Tuesday, January 31, 2006
The best thing that could possibly happen to Ron Artest as a King already did.
And that would be: 0-2.
Two lousy losses, actually. Two clunkers on the road. A defeat by sub-mediocre Boston and even more sub-mediocre Toronto. Ghastly and Ghastlier.
They were two games in which Artest played, and he played pretty well. He gave the Kings more minutes than they had a right to expect and more leadership than they've probably had all year.
Net result? Oh and two, which ought to kill once and for all the notion that Artest yanking on a purple jersey is some sort of magic pill.
Listen, it's a start.
It isn't that Sacramento needed two more additions to ye olde loss column; things are bad enough as they stand. Put it this way: When Artest guaranteed after Sunday's crushing loss to the Raptors that these 18-26 Kings will make the playoffs, it was clear that he either hadn't been doing the math or forgot how to look up the standings on his laptop.
That guarantee is actually the most refreshing thing Artest has done so far - even better than the insistent "talk to me" hand gestures he made on the court Sunday in Toronto, reminding his teammates to actually, you know, communicate. His playoff talk suggested the kind of don't-confuse-me-with-the-facts determination that winning teams almost always need. It's hard to begrudge a player shooting for the moon.
Still, there are relevant numbers here. To finish at 42-40, which might - might - squeeze them into the eighth playoff spot in the Western Conference, the Kings would need to play .632 basketball from tonight through Game 82. That's 24-14 on a road-heavy schedule, and that's just for an outside shot at the postseason.
A more respectable 45-37, which might get the team a seven or six seed? That would require a 27-11 finish, which is .710 basketball, a rate the Kings actually exceeded for two full seasons earlier in this decade, back when they were ... well, good.
In other words, that is some kind of success - and, look, we don't have to discuss all this simply because Ron Artest suggested it. Artest says lots of things. The proof, for him and about him, is going to be completely established in the weeks to come.
But ask this: Playoff chatter aside, how does the franchise improve? How is progress going to be marked? Artest is a step forward, but he's one step, not the only one. He didn't arrive in a vacuum. He cost the Kings a scorer, Peja Stojakovic. It isn't like Sacramento got Artest for nothing. If it had, we might be having a different conversation.
Is the bench any deeper? Nope. Can Artest's presence magically transform Mike Bibby into a solid defender? As coach Rick Adelman said of Artest after the Boston game on Friday, "He can't guard five men."
Artest unquestionably makes the Kings better defensively, simply because he's really good at it, and he'll grab more rebounds than Stojakovic did. But that's not going to get it done, is it? Doesn't this team's success depend just as heavily on, say, Brad Miller not disappearing for an entire game, as he did last week against Philadelphia (32 minutes, two points, one rebound)?
Miller has already had five games in which he scored five or fewer points. I can't remember him having five such ineffective games in his entire Kings tenure before this. Can Ron Artest really fix that?
Doesn't Jason Hart need to be better behind Bibby? Aren't the Kings as dependent on Francisco García and Kevin Martin finding some consistency as they are on almost anything else you can name?
The Kings aren't finished; that's why Geoff Petrie calls them a franchise "in transition." Artest's presence doesn't change that. If anything, it magnifies it.
It is possible to look ahead and imagine better days, with Bonzi Wells back in the lineup, Shareef Abdur-Rahim up to speed and Artest gaining stamina and doing his thing. But this is still a roster with no depth and no punch in the post, and even with Artest out there, it is a lineup capable of yielding 124 points in 53 minutes, as it did in Sunday's overtime loss to the Raptors.
Petrie and the Maloofs aren't finished, or at least they'd better not be. Ron Artest is an addition, not a solution - and he's a good one. But 0-2 suggests the obvious: Artest is a guy who, if everything goes right, makes a team better. What he doesn't make, is a team.
About the writer: Reach Mark Kreidler at (916) 321-1149 or mkreidler@sacbee.com.
