Last years draft.

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baller13

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If only we had taken the player we should have, Kawai Leonard, Our starting lineup going forward would be:

Evans
Thornton
Leonard
Robinson
Cousins

All of them 23 years or younger. Wow.
 
Can't worry about that now. We hit the two previous years. Screwed up that one. Let's hope this year is another hit rather than a miss. But however you slice it, people gotta get past being saved by the draft. We already have been. Now we have to let those kids grow, and surroudn them with the right vets.
 
Not to mention that it's a flawed premise anyway, given that we would have been a better team with Leonard than Fredette and in all likelyhood, would have had a lower draft pick this year. It's a chain reaction, something that people constantly ignore.
 
I like Leonard and I wanted the Kings to draft him. If Jimmer becomes a sharp shooter and is able to dribble the ball in the NBA ... the pick won't be too bad. Teams need players to come off the bench and make shots. That's about all he will be able to do. If anything, hopefully Jimmer learned that last year. The Kings need to be better team defenders for him to play a lot of minutes. Leonard would have been better, but the team needs to develop Jimmer and build his confidence. If that happens the pick won't be as bad as it looks now.
 
Dime Dropper said:
Not to mention that it's a flawed premise anyway, given that we would have been a better team with Leonard than Fredette and in all likelyhood, would have had a lower draft pick this year. It's a chain reaction, something that people constantly ignore.
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Add to the fact that Leonard looks like a great pick now after he developed under the tutelage of Popovich/Duncan/Ginobli, etc. In an organization like the Kings, Leonard may have continued the path of an athletic rebounding forward without a shot who had no idea what his job was in the system. No use fretting over that pick.
 
I fail to understand why so many fans are so quick to judge players after one or two seasons. There are countless examples of players that started their careers off with a bang yet never really amounted to much. Conversely, there are countless examples of guys that looked completely overmatched and lost yet were able to develop into good-to-great NBA players. While we all have an early opinion on players like Fredette, nobody knows for certain whether he was a good or bad pick. Not yet.
 
baller13 said:
If only we had taken the player we should have, Kawai Leonard, Our starting lineup going forward would be:

Evans
Thornton
Leonard
Robinson
Cousins

All of them 23 years or younger. Wow.
Click to expand...

It was certainly a possiblity, and could have happened. But apparently Westphal was tired of rookies and lobbied for a veteran SF instead. So we made a deal to get Salmons back. I wasn't a big fan of the move, but thought it just might work. The rest is history. You can't re-do the past, and sitting around crying about it is the same thing as a player arguing with a ref about a bad call while the game goes by him.
 
Swapping Jimmer for Leonard would have resulted in more wins for the team. That means likely no Robinson.

baller13 said:
If only we had taken the player we should have, Kawai Leonard, Our starting lineup going forward would be:

Evans
Thornton
Leonard
Robinson
Cousins

All of them 23 years or younger. Wow.
Click to expand...
 
There is also a good chance we wouldn't have made the same Beno Salmons trade if we weren't picking up a top 10 draft pg to replace him and a good chance we would have made a different trade to move down for Leonard and not picked Honeycutt either. IT would still have gotten picked but he might not have had the chance to breakout. Its a line of dominoes.

I was hoping we would pick him and finally give Greene a real chance at the position but nothing we can do now. What we can do is address the position again this offseason because we have made out biggest hole larger and more expensive over the past year.

Edit
and with more space under min salary we likely would have gotten back Dally or spent it in some other way depending how the trades played out.
 
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baller13 said:
If only we had taken the player we should have, Kawai Leonard, Our starting lineup going forward would be:

Evans
Thornton
Leonard
Robinson
Cousins

All of them 23 years or younger. Wow.
Click to expand...

That's assuming Leonard plays the same here as he did in San Antonio. He may not have. They have really good coaching there. You never know, Jimmer could get better. It's a little early to claim Jimmer a bust.
 
Hadlowe said:
Add to the fact that Leonard looks like a great pick now after he developed under the tutelage of Popovich/Duncan/Ginobli, etc. In an organization like the Kings, Leonard may have continued the path of an athletic rebounding forward without a shot who had no idea what his job was in the system. No use fretting over that pick.
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This.
 
mr. moustache said:
Swapping Jimmer for Leonard would have resulted in more wins for the team. That means likely no Robinson.
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I agree. But likely no Salmons too and we might still have Beno and Dalembert. That line-up could have been the balanced line-up we've all wanted to have.

Anyways, we already have the two cornerstones of the franchise in players Cousin and Evans - an awesome BIG and a slasher. Then, we got lucky drafting the projected #2 (Robinson) at #5 in this draft. Not bad at all. Just hope Whiteside pans out and most importantly Smart improves on his rotation this year and we will be more than okay.
 
Leonard would have been lost here, If Jimmer gets drafted by the Spurs he is not considered a bust, most likely.
 
bajaden said:
It was certainly a possiblity, and could have happened. But apparently Westphal was tired of rookies and lobbied for a veteran SF instead. So we made a deal to get Salmons back. I wasn't a big fan of the move, but thought it just might work. The rest is history. You can't re-do the past, and sitting around crying about it is the same thing as a player arguing with a ref about a bad call while the game goes by him.
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And that's the old story of where drafts go bad - the coach lobbies for a need and the GM succumbs.
 
Kingster said:
And that's the old story of where drafts go bad - the coach lobbies for a need and the GM succumbs.
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There was nothing wrong with the need (we're still reportedly trying to fill it!). It's how we attempted to fill it that was the problem.
 
mac said:
There was nothing wrong with the need (we're still reportedly trying to fill it!). It's how we attempted to fill it that was the problem.
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That's exactly the point - don't fill needs through the draft. That's where mistakes, sometimes big mistakes, are made.
 
Kingster said:
And that's the old story of where drafts go bad - the coach lobbies for a need and the GM succumbs.
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This is one of the area's where I have mixed emotions. I certainly understand the GM wanting to give his headcoach every possible tool he needs to succeed. But I don't like the idea of letting the coach make the decision, or at least influence the decision of who should be aquired. I think that should be the GM's call. And in all honesty, maybe Petrie agreed with Westphal. All I know is that Westphal lobbied for Salmons.
 
bajaden said:
This is one of the area's where I have mixed emotions. I certainly understand the GM wanting to give his headcoach every possible tool he needs to succeed. But I don't like the idea of letting the coach make the decision, or at least influence the decision of who should be aquired. I think that should be the GM's call. And in all honesty, maybe Petrie agreed with Westphal. All I know is that Westphal lobbied for Salmons.
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Sometimes I think that the GM just feels better about the choice knowing there is a comrad (the coach) to take the heat along with him if the choice goes bad. At least we didn't have the same situation this year. Petrie could have gone with Barnes (the major need), but he didn't. And I'm sure glad he didn't.

I think Salmons, Hayes and Outlaw should all have something to prove this coming year. They were a collective embarrasment this past year. If they step up their games and their performance get closer to their talent ceiling then Petrie's moves of last year won't be viewed so poorly.
 
Kingster said:
I think Salmons, Hayes and Outlaw should all have something to prove this coming year. They were a collective embarrasment this past year. If they step up their games and their performance get closer to their talent ceiling then Petrie's moves of last year won't be viewed so poorly.
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Here's a funny thought.
What if we start either Salmons or Outlaw and fueled by their embarrassing performance last year the one we start ends up winning Most Improved Player next year.
Then let's say that Jimmer improves his game to the point that he becomes a consistent productive rotation player.

Would that erase most of the complaints about how last year's offseason went? At this point in time, last year's offseason was a complete failure, but it could be viewed differently if certain players are able to step up their games, especially if we somehow managed to make the play-offs.

I would love to see that happen, though I'm not certain there's much chance for it. (Though I do expect to see improvements in Jimmer's game this year)
 
I know. He's slow-footed and that is something very very hard to overcome. As John Wooden pointed out, quickness is the most important trait in basketball and quickness with height the ideal. (To paraphrase) Fredette is a relatively undersized, slow-footed shooting guard.
 
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