Memphis versus Sac

[sactowndog]

An interesting compare between Memphis and Sac

2016-17
Sac finishes 12th in the west 8th pick
Mem finishes 7th in the west

actions:
Kings get lucky and get 3rd but tanking Philly has a pick swap so Kings draft 5th and 10th from Cousins trade
Kings Draft:
3rd: Fox
Trade 10 to Portland for Portlands 15 and 20 from Memphis: Kings draft Justin Jackson (15) and Harry Giles (20), Mason (34), Sac sends 38 to Chicago
Memphis Draft:
Memphis trades up to Ivan Rabb (35)
Memphis trades up for Dillon Brooks (45)



2017-18
Kings finish 12th in the west 7th in lottery
Memphis finishes 14th in the west 2nd in lottery

Garrett Temple and a TPE were acquired by the Memphis Grizzlies from the Sacramento Kings in exchange for: Deyonta Davis, Ben McLemore, a 2021 2nd round pick (MEM own) and cash.

actions at trade deadline:

Memphis
*Brice Johnson and a TPE were acquired by the Memphis Grizzlies from the Detroit Pistons in exchange for: James Ennis, a Swap 2022 2nd round picks and a TPE.


Sacramento
* Bruno Caboclo was acquired by the Sacramento Kings from the Toronto Raptors in exchange for: Malachi Richardson and a TPE.
* George Hill, Rodney Hood and the draft rights to Arturas Gudaitis were acquired by the Cleveland Cavaliers in exchange for Jae Crowder, Derrick Rose, Iman Shumpert, the draft rights to Dimitrios Agravanis, a 2020 2nd round pick (MIA own), a Swap 2024 2nd round picks and cash. Jae Crowder, Derrick Rose, a Swap 2024 2nd round picks and multiple TPEs were acquired by the Utah Jazz in exchange for Rodney Hood, Joe Johnson and cash. Joe Johnson, Iman Shumpert, the draft rights to Dimitrios Agravanis, a 2020 2nd round pick (MIA own) and cash were acquired by the Sacramento Kings in exchange for George Hill and the draft rights to Arturas Gudaitis.

kings get lucky and move up to 2. Memphis falls to 4

Kings Draft
2nd Bagley
37th traded to Portland Gary Trent

Memphis Draft
4th Jaren Jackson
32 Jevon Carter

To be continued…..

 

[sactowndog]

2018-19
Mem finished tied for 7th
Sac finished 9th in west. Tied for 13th

Memphis gets lucky and moves up to 2


Draft picks


draft day moves
Sacramento
* The Sacramento Kings placed the contract of Ben McLemore on waivers.
* Caleb Swanigan was acquired by the Sacramento Kings from the Portland Trail Blazers in exchange for: Skal Labissiere and a TPE.
* Alec Burks was acquired by the Sacramento Kings in exchange for Iman Shumpert and a Swap 2020 2nd round picks.
* Harrison Barnes was acquired by the Sacramento Kings from the Dallas Mavericks in exchange for: Justin Jackson, Zach Randolph and a TPE.

Memphis
* Garrett Temple and a TPE were acquired by the Memphis Grizzlies from the Sacramento Kings in exchange for: Deyonta Davis, Ben McLemore, a 2021 2nd round pick (MEM own) and cash.
* Tyler Dorsey and a TPE were acquired by the Memphis Grizzlies from the Atlanta Hawks in exchange for: Shelvin Mack and a TPE.
* Marc Gasol and a TPE were acquired by the Toronto Raptors from the Memphis Grizzlies in exchange for: C.J. Miles, Jonas Valanciunas, Delon Wright and a 2024 2nd round pick (TOR own).
* The Memphis Grizzlies placed the contract of Omri Casspi on waivers.
* JaMychal Green and Garrett Temple were acquired by the Los Angeles Clippers from the Memphis Grizzlies in exchange for: Avery Bradley and a TPE.

 

[Turgenev]

What's your point? Memphis is doing a better job than Sac? We know that. Maybe surprise us all and post something different?

 

[Spike]

What's your point? Memphis is doing a better job than Sac? We know that. Maybe surprise us all and post something different?

I was literally about to post this. It could be done with pretty much any team. Memphis getting lucky and moving up to #2 is probably a bigger deal than the rest, which seems to be the shuffling of contacts in a fashion similar to Sacramento.

 

[Joshoua]

What's your point? Memphis is doing a better job than Sac? We know that. Maybe surprise us all and post something different?

idk what his point was but this thread will be used for y’all to issue me an apology for stacking me when I said Morant would be better than fox

 

[sactowndog]

What's your point? Memphis is doing a better job than Sac? We know that. Maybe surprise us all and post something different?

No point yet until I can get all the data done. Not easy to pull it all in. But both teams are small market teams so it is interesting to do a comparison.

 

[Spike]

I mean, a better discussion wrt to comparison might be the background info on the ownership of a few small market teams, and seeing what kinds of moves are driving success at the institutional level.

We know the Kings have either:
- not drafted well
- failed to develop draft picks
- failed to put players in a place to succeed, absent some anomalies

If you're looking for analysis, this might be a better venue than rehashing moves that have been discussed as nauseum on this board for the past forever days.

 

[kb02]

I mean, a better discussion wrt to comparison might be the background info on the ownership of a few small market teams, and seeing what kinds of moves are driving success at the institutional level.

We know the Kings have either:
- not drafted well
- failed to develop draft picks
- failed to put players in a place to succeed, absent some anomalies

If you're looking for analysis, this might be a better venue than rehashing moves that have been discussed as nauseum on this board for the past forever days.

I don't know if you'd find a common denominator for why some ownership groups thrive while others flounder. For each success that the Kings group has had off the court, they've been equally bad on the court. You can't separate the two sides of the business when evaluating the track record.

And if you look at Memphis relative to the Kings, the situation wasn't quite the same. Pera bought into a winning org while Vivek inherited a bare bones franchise, who had a foot already out the door.

Pera also has the advantage of Memphis being a side gig while the Kings org is Vivek's full time focus. Maybe the answer is less focus?

I do have some insights into RJP from a previous life in Ibanking. Dude doesn't make a decision without getting second and third opinions. Would think/hope/expect Vivek does the same.

 

[ESP47]

I think it's mainly just not drafting well.

I don't think it's failing to develop their picks. Unless you believe that you can ruin a player's career by not developing them correctly during their first year or two, then I don't see any evidence showing that Kings players are going elsewhere and succeeding.

The only two good value draft picks so far have been the two no brainer picks in Fox and Haliburton. I can't give Monte or Vlade credit for those because those were by far and away the most obvious picks at the time.

The rest of the picks, it's like they had a 1 in 3 chance of drafting a bust and they seemingly drafted the bust 4 or 5 times in a row.

 

[Warhawk]

The only two good value draft picks so far have been the two no brainer picks in Fox and Haliburton. I can't give Monte or Vlade credit for those because those were by far and away the most obvious picks at the time.

Hey, if you are going to ding them when they choose poorly (and we have more of those choices made over the years than we can shake a stick at), you have to credit them when they make the right choice. It goes both ways.

 

[SLAB]

Hey, if you are going to ding them when they choose poorly (and we have more of those choices made over the years than we can shake a stick at), you have to credit them when they make the right choice. It goes both ways.

Exactly. We also had a no-brainer slam-dunk ready and available in 2018 and somehow ended up with Bagels. So, give credit for the slam dunk obvious picks, because people like Vlade exist.

 

[coolhandluke]

I think it's mainly just not drafting well.

I don't think it's failing to develop their picks. Unless you believe that you can ruin a player's career by not developing them correctly during their first year or two, then I don't see any evidence showing that Kings players are going elsewhere and succeeding.

The only two good value draft picks so far have been the two no brainer picks in Fox and Haliburton. I can't give Monte or Vlade credit for those because those were by far and away the most obvious picks at the time.

The rest of the picks, it's like they had a 1 in 3 chance of drafting a bust and they seemingly drafted the bust 4 or 5 times in a row.

If we had made the obvious pick in 2018, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Making the obvious pick without getting cute is an exercise in self restraint that many GMs fail.

 

[ESP47]

Hey, if you are going to ding them when they choose poorly (and we have more of those choices made over the years than we can shake a stick at), you have to credit them when they make the right choice. It goes both ways.

I haven't dinged them for picks like McLemore and WCS because those were good consensus picks at the time that just didn't pan out but I will ding them for Bagley, Stauskas, Jimmer and whiffing on 3 first rounders in 2016. I can't think of a pick since IT where a GM made their money's worth.

I'm not going to give a millionaire GM credit for making the same decisions that an average fan on a message board could make. If you're being paid that much money with all the research tools available in the world, they should have a much better track record than people like you and me.

 

[twslam07]

If we had made the obvious pick in 2018, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Making the obvious pick without getting cute is an exercise in self restraint that many GMs fail.

Let's not forget the 2nd round pick that we sold off in that draft as well. POR took Gary Trent with that pick. We could have had the following roster going into the 2018-19 season:

PG - Fox / Ferrell / Mason
SG - Hield / Trent / Shumpert
SF - Doncic / Bogdanovic / J. Jackson
PF - Bjelica / Giles / Labissiere
C - Cauley-Stein / Koufos / Randolph

If we ended up still making the Barnes trade midseason, it would have been...

PG - Fox / Ferrell / Mason
SG - Hield / Trent / Shumpert
SF - Doncic / Bogdanovic
PF - Barnes / Bjelica / Labissiere
C - Cauley-Stein / Giles / Koufos

If Trent developed in a similar way and at a similar rate and continued to sign Holmes in the next offseason, you'd likely go with a starting lineup of Fox-Trent-Doncic-Barnes-Holmes (as Trent's defense would be much more valuable in that lineup) with Hield, Bogdanovic, & Bjelica as your main bench crew.

EDIT: Oh and good luck firing Joerger after the 2018-19 season with that roster in place. We won 39 games in the 2018-19 season when we had Bagley instead of Doncic & Trent. I'm sure we would have at least been around the 45-50 win range and potentially made the playoffs considering Doncic's advanced impact stats vs. Bagley:

Doncic: +1.67 LEBRON / -0.34 LA-RAPM / +1.10 RPM / +2.23 RAPTOR / +3.9 BPM
Bagley: -1.44 LEBRON / -1.93 LA-RAPM / -1.93 RPM / -2.87 RAPTOR / -1.0 BPM

I don't know how Vlade could have survived the PR if he fired the first coach in 13 years to lead the Kings to a .500 or above record and/or a playoff birth. That could have saved us from going through the wasted years of Walton, and keep a somewhat competent coach in place with this solid group of young players.

 

[Spike]

I think it's mainly just not drafting well.

I don't think it's failing to develop their picks. Unless you believe that you can ruin a player's career by not developing them correctly during their first year or two, then I don't see any evidence showing that Kings players are going elsewhere and succeeding.

I definitely believe that if you draft young players (especially freshmen out of college or high schoolers) you can have a negative impact on their development. You can just as easily put a person in a position to fail as much as you can put them in a position to succeed. I mean, you don't have to look farther than Walton to see that impact. Some players are able to rise above it and flourish despite the roadblocks, but others frequently don't. I have a hard time believing that organizations are just THAT MUCH BETTER at drafting players than the Kings, there has to be more to it.

 

[The_Jamal]

Let's not forget the 2nd round pick that we sold off in that draft as well. POR took Gary Trent with that pick. We could have had the following roster going into the 2018-19 season:

PG - Fox / Ferrell / Mason
SG - Hield / Trent / Shumpert
SF - Doncic / Bogdanovic / J. Jackson
PF - Bjelica / Giles / Labissiere
C - Cauley-Stein / Koufos / Randolph

If we ended up still making the Barnes trade midseason, it would have been...

PG - Fox / Ferrell / Mason
SG - Hield / Trent / Shumpert
SF - Doncic / Bogdanovic
PF - Barnes / Bjelica / Labissiere
C - Cauley-Stein / Giles / Koufos

If Trent developed in a similar way and at a similar rate and continued to sign Holmes in the next offseason, you'd likely go with a starting lineup of Fox-Trent-Doncic-Barnes-Holmes (as Trent's defense would be much more valuable in that lineup) with Hield, Bogdanovic, & Bjelica as your main bench crew.

EDIT: Oh and good luck firing Joerger after the 2018-19 season with that roster in place. We won 39 games in the 2018-19 season when we had Bagley instead of Doncic & Trent. I'm sure we would have at least been around the 45-50 win range and potentially made the playoffs considering Doncic's advanced impact stats vs. Bagley:

Doncic: +1.67 LEBRON / -0.34 LA-RAPM / +1.10 RPM / +2.23 RAPTOR / +3.9 BPM
Bagley: -1.44 LEBRON / -1.93 LA-RAPM / -1.93 RPM / -2.87 RAPTOR / -1.0 BPM

I don't know how Vlade could have survived the PR if he fired the first coach in 13 years to lead the Kings to a .500 or above record and/or a playoff birth. That could have saved us from going through the wasted years of Walton, and keep a somewhat competent coach in place with this solid group of young players.

Yeah this is great and all, but do we really think Fox and Luka could play together? Wouldn't Luka take the ball out of Fox's hands?

 

[hrdboild]

If we would ever learn to get out of our own way, we'd have been in the playoffs three times over by now....

Firing Malone didn't need to happen. Boogie and Malone were working well together as a duo. It wasn't the fast-paced offense the owner and GM wanted though so they made that happen (George Karl, Rajon Rondo, Rudy Gay, Derrick Williams, Darren Collison, Seth Curry) and it blew up because our coach and star player hated each other. The plan doesn't look bad on paper, but it only works if your star player buys in and with the way that coaching change happened and who George Karl is, in retrospect it's obvious it wasn't going to work. Also, there's no way to know but I believe Boogie's injuries had a lot to do with George Karl and Alvin Gentry (in New Orleans) having him run up and down the floor like a guard.

Then we started over with a new GM and coach and they put together a lineup that played well together too, almost getting back to a .500 season (Fox, Hield, Bogdanovic, Barnes, Bjelica, even Caulie-Stein at times) in 2018-2019 but that blew up too because Vlade drafted the wrong guy at #2 and instead of adding an instant star he added a guy who is still trying to find himself nearly 4 years later, long after everyone's patience has run out. It didn't help that he brought in a new head coach with no idea how to design an NBA offense who's first move was to take the fastest team in the league and tell them to stop running. Vlade basically gave himself his own ultimatum and after his hand-picked coach and franchise cornerstone to-be made the team worse he was noble enough to see himself out.

So here we are now and the players Monte has added (Haliburton, Mitchell, Metu, Davis, Jones, Queta) seem like they could grow into something but they don't gel very well with the players he inherited and the coaching has been a disaster. I'm at least going to let him hire his own coach and move or release a couple more players (Buddy, Barnes, and Bagley most likely and Fox is looking more and more likely too) before demanding that we hit the reset button yet again.

Any of these teams could have worked if left alone long enough*. Ironically, the problem in the case of Malone/PDA and Joerger/Vlade was firing the coach when the team was playing well and the problem this time was holding onto the coach when they clearly were not. If we can just get a GM and coach here together who are on the same page I feel like we'll eventually fall into some success.

*Okay, probably not the George Karl team but that's only because he's a massive egotist who will never meet anyone halfway and PDA didn't have the guts to back his hand-picked holy grail coach and trade DeMarcus at peak value like he wanted.

 

[ESP47]

I definitely believe that if you draft young players (especially freshmen out of college or high schoolers) you can have a negative impact on their development. You can just as easily put a person in a position to fail as much as you can put them in a position to succeed. I mean, you don't have to look farther than Walton to see that impact. Some players are able to rise above it and flourish despite the roadblocks, but others frequently don't. I have a hard time believing that organizations are just THAT MUCH BETTER at drafting players than the Kings, there has to be more to it.

Do you believe if McLemore, Stauskas, Bagley, Jimmer, Malachi, Skal and TRob got drafted by other teams in an alternate universe, that some of them would be good players right now?

I just don't buy it. You'd think they could develop into good players on other teams once they left the Kings if they had it in them. There's no way we could ever prove it but I just don't think a franchise can stunt a player's growth completely like that. I can see them not reaching their ceilings but it's hard to imagine Stauskas as a 15ppg scorer or TRob as the next Harrell/Holmes.

I think good players are going to show something, regardless who drafts them.

 

[sactowndog]

I mean, a better discussion wrt to comparison might be the background info on the ownership of a few small market teams, and seeing what kinds of moves are driving success at the institutional level.

We know the Kings have either:
- not drafted well
- failed to develop draft picks
- failed to put players in a place to succeed, absent some anomalies

If you're looking for analysis, this might be a better venue than rehashing moves that have been discussed as nauseum on this board for the past forever days.

I’m also looking at trades and where they finished why it’s not easy to just smack together.

 

[Warhawk]

I'm not going to give a millionaire GM credit for making the same decisions that an average fan on a message board could make. If you're being paid that much money with all the research tools available in the world, they should have a much better track record than people like you and me.

Except the average/various fans on a message board want to pick just about everyone available at that spot (some fans/GMs were anti-Luka, too, remember?). I don't think it's fair to say a GM who would hypothetically pick, say, MJ, Kobe, KAJ, Giannis, and Lebron in successive years (go with me here, it's just names off the top of my head) wouldn't get a good grade for GM'ing just because they happened to be "consensus picks" by many fans. If you make good picks, you should be recognized for doing so.

 

[Turgenev]

idk what his point was but this thread will be used for y’all to issue me an apology for stacking me when I said Morant would be better than fox

Kings Fans have suffered enough - if they're still here and supporting a King like Fox they shouldn't have to apologise for anything

 

[Turgenev]

OK – so while we are waiting for the true purpose of this thread to reveal itself – how about this for a discussion. While few successful teams rely on just one player, one of the key differences between the Kings and other small market teams like Memphis and today’s opponent Cleveland is the presence of competent defensive bigs. Memphis has JJJ (D Lebron 2.11) and Adams (D Lebron 1.76). Cleveland has Jarrett Allen (2.39) and Evan Mobley (2.54). Sac rotates between Holmes (0.67), Len (1.10) Metu (1.39(!)), Jones (0.29), Bagley (-0.5), and Thompson (-1.11). If we consult the reliable world that is basketball podcasts (here), there are few historical examples of great defensive teams that do not have leading defensive rim protectors. Not selling it is the source of all our ills, but perhaps another voice for a player like Turner if that kind of trade is possible.

 

[serbiangoat]

Is any of this relevant when Fox owns Morant in 1 on 1 match ups? On a serious note having JJJ/Morant to build around makes it super easy that's the difference.

 

[hrdboild]

OK – so while we are waiting for the true purpose of this thread to reveal itself – how about this for a discussion. While few successful teams rely on just one player, one of the key differences between the Kings and other small market teams like Memphis and today’s opponent Cleveland is the presence of competent defensive bigs. Memphis has JJJ (D Lebron 2.11) and Adams (D Lebron 1.76). Cleveland has Jarrett Allen (2.39) and Evan Mobley (2.54). Sac rotates between Holmes (0.67), Len (1.10) Metu (1.39(!)), Jones (0.29), Bagley (-0.5), and Thompson (-1.11). If we consult the reliable world that is basketball podcasts (here), there are few historical examples of great defensive teams that do not have leading defensive rim protectors. Not selling it is the source of all our ills, but perhaps another voice for a player like Turner if that kind of trade is possible.

Don't know if you watched the game tonight, but Gentry decided to play Queta 24 minutes and the Kings only lost by 1 to a really good Cavs team. You were dead on the money with everything you said here. We've been getting crushed on the boards, second chance points, and points in the paint this season because we keep running out bigs who don't do enough to impact the game defensively. Guys like Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley are hard to find but we should at least play the best defensive bigs we've got or find a way to trade for one because our smallball lineups are getting embarrassed every night.

 

[Turgenev]

Don't know if you watched the game tonight, but Gentry decided to play Queta 24 minutes and the Kings only lost by 1 to a really good Cavs team. You were dead on the money with everything you said here. We've been getting crushed on the boards, second chance points, and points in the paint this season because we keep running out bigs who don't do enough to impact the game defensively. Guys like Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley are hard to find but we should at least play the best defensive bigs we've got or find a way to trade for one because our smallball lineups are getting embarrassed every night.

I saw the game, really enjoyed it. Hopefully a taste of things to come