and while i'm certainly rooting for mclemore to succeed as a king, i feel that the new regime reached for a shooter at #7 in 2013 with their selection of ben mclemore
I think it's really hard to call the selection of McLemore a "reach". While I was never high on him in college, he was consistently top-2 on all the draft boards basically all season long. Part of the reason that he fell was that most of the teams in front of us had reasons NOT to take him:
Cleveland (just drafted Waiters at SG top-5)
Orlando (took the better defender Oladipo at SG)
Washington (just drafted Beal at SG top-5)
Charlotte (had Ben Gordon at SG, desperately needed a scorer in the post)
Phoenix (picked a top-3 injured guy #tankingforwiggins)
Philadelphia (picked a top-3 injured guy #tankingforwiggins)
I'd say the Kings opted for a shooter, sure. And you can like that or not as you wish. But "reached" is probably the wrong word.