No King Exempt from a Trade
- Thread starter Warhawk
- Start date
Your memory is correct, sir and I think his Chicago (and Indiana) days compared to his Sacramento days are a good example of how your play can be influence by your teammates. That Bulls team wasn't going to win any games trying to score 105ppg. With a front line of Miller, Elton Brand and Ron Artest, their best bet was to do it with defense. They had some guys who definitely wanted to win on that team, they just didn't have the overall talent to do much about it. Playing next to a couple of hard-nosed forwards made Brad play that role. You see him on the Kings, taking on some of the attributes of how teammates. If we load up on defensive-minded roleplayers for next season, I bet you'll see Brad play the best defense we've seen from him as a King.
What does race have to do about it. That comment is very offensive.
Oh please, let's not play the "race" card.
This is a basketball forum, not a white-supremist's web site. The only people seeing this as a racial comment are those that discriminate themselves. It's obvious nobody was trying to offend anyone.
With that being said, Bricklayer brings up a good point about the lack of athleticism the Kings have on their roster. But I think it runs deeper than the lack of one's ability to jump, and jump high. With many of the Kings players, it's a lack of DESIRE and HEART.
Standing around under the basket, or giving a half-assed effort to jump for a loose rebound isn't gonna get it done.
This is on GP and the Brothers Maloof, not Rick Adelman. And this may indeed be one of Petrie's biggest and most telling off-seasons throughout his entire professional career...
Oh please, let's not play the "race" card.
This is a basketball forum, not a white-supremist's web site. The only people seeing this as a racial comment are those that discriminate themselves. It's obvious nobody was trying to offend anyone.
With that being said, Bricklayer brings up a good point about the lack of athleticism the Kings have on their roster. But I think it runs deeper than the lack of one's ability to jump, and jump high. With many of the Kings players, it's a lack of DESIRE and HEART.
Standing around under the basket, or giving a half-assed effort to jump for a loose rebound isn't gonna get it done.
This is on GP and the Brothers Maloof, not Rick Adelman. And this may indeed be one of Petrie's biggest and most telling off-seasons throughout his entire professional career...
I don't know how you can say the team that led the league (#1) in FG% defense (to many the best statistical indicator of good defense) was not good. If you think that team wasn't good, maybe you'd only be satisfied with a great defensive team that doesn't play offense and slows the game down so their opponents can only score 80 points. That is definitely not what I'm looking for.
Look at basketballreference.com's team defensive stats for the last 7 years. According to their rankings, the Kings had the following rankings under Adelman (scroll down to the bottom of the links for defensive stats):
1998-99: #17
1999-00: #11
2000-01: #7
2001-02: #6
2002-03: #2
2003-04: #21
2004-05: #23
That's an average of 12th best defense in the league despite the defensive woes of this year and last year. Hardly a broken clock. For comparison purposes, the Mavericks over the same seven years averaged worse than 18th in the league, the Jazz with their great defensive-minded coach averaged 14th best in the league.
Look at basketballreference.com's team defensive stats for the last 7 years. According to their rankings, the Kings had the following rankings under Adelman (scroll down to the bottom of the links for defensive stats):
1998-99: #17
1999-00: #11
2000-01: #7
2001-02: #6
2002-03: #2
2003-04: #21
2004-05: #23
That's an average of 12th best defense in the league despite the defensive woes of this year and last year. Hardly a broken clock. For comparison purposes, the Mavericks over the same seven years averaged worse than 18th in the league, the Jazz with their great defensive-minded coach averaged 14th best in the league.
Very true that we're never going to be able to replace what we had with Webb. His love and passion for this team and his desire to bring a championship to Sac was something that came from being part of turning this team around, and it is missed.
That said, we need SOMETHING. A superstar type player would be nice, and while they wouldn't have the emotional attachment to this team that Webb had, and couldn't necessarily provide the leadership he had, a superstar is going to want to win. But, finding a superstar isn't going to be easy, because they are few & far between.
But, I think you are right, in that the biggest problem we need to address is Defense. How to do it, and who to trade is a mystery to me, but it will be interesting to watch.
That said, we need SOMETHING. A superstar type player would be nice, and while they wouldn't have the emotional attachment to this team that Webb had, and couldn't necessarily provide the leadership he had, a superstar is going to want to win. But, finding a superstar isn't going to be easy, because they are few & far between.
But, I think you are right, in that the biggest problem we need to address is Defense. How to do it, and who to trade is a mystery to me, but it will be interesting to watch.
In some ways, those stats are misleading. When it came to crunch time in the playoffs, the Kings just couldn't put it together and get stops even when they had high defensive rankings. Remember when Horry made that shot against the Kings in Game 4 of the 2001-2002 Western Conference Finals? That happened after the Kings blew a 20 point lead. In the 2002-2003 Western Conference Semi-Finals, the Mavs scored 80 or something close to that in the first half of Game 2. Nick Van Excel scored at will during that series. The Kings just can't get stops when they need to and that boils down to defense. The blame goes to the players for being unable to defend, but apparently Adelman hasn't been able to solve the problem either. Adelman was able to push the team to the limit when it came to offense, but I don't think he can do that when it comes to defense.
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I consider looking at individual examples much more misleading than looking at play over a period of time. The teams the Kings played were good teams. The teams the Kings lost to were as good or better than they were. Of course there will be times when the Kings cannot stop them from scoring. You can always find particular instances of when a good defensive team fails to stop a good or great offensive team. If you only remember the bad times of course your viewpoint will be skewed negatively. In addition to the times you mentioned, I remember the Kings playing great defense when it mattered several times in crunch time in the playoffs last year against Dallas and Minnesota. That was as much Adelman's fault as the examples you mentioned.
I'd like to see the Kings defensive stats for the playoffs only. Maybe that could shed more light. I could be more specific and say defensive toughness down the stretch (4th quarter) is where the Kings come short the most it seems. The Kings have been called a regular season team since they always have a good record. I used to hate that stigma, but it's been proven true when you see that they have lost 3 straight Game 7s in the last 4 years. The teams the Kings played were not vastly superior and nor did the Kings lack the ability to put points on the board.
Adelman doesn't help his case by emailing league officials or complaining publicly that the Sonic are playing too rough. The fact that he did that gives me the impression that he can't handle physical/defensive play. If he can't deal with it, then we need a coach who's gonna fight fire with fire as opposed to relying on our offensive prowess that hasn't been the same since Webber, Vlade, and Christie have been gone.
Adelman doesn't help his case by emailing league officials or complaining publicly that the Sonic are playing too rough. The fact that he did that gives me the impression that he can't handle physical/defensive play. If he can't deal with it, then we need a coach who's gonna fight fire with fire as opposed to relying on our offensive prowess that hasn't been the same since Webber, Vlade, and Christie have been gone.
The only playoffs I remember specifically about the Kings defense are this year and last year. This year they stunk, last year they were one of the best in the playoffs at FG% defense. The also held the T-Wolves under 90 points for the last four games of that series - "when it mattered". The years before, I know that the Dallas series in 2003 wasn't their finest defensive series, but my recollection is that they step up the defense slightly in the playoffs. I think you might be thinking about their lack of championship-level toughness and dagger mentality. I agree that that would be something that they should have been working on, but so few teams actually have it that I don't feel like it matters in a discussion of whether the team has played well defensively.
piksi said:
especially in the last years play offs.
ups - he did not make it - probably because he hit all his shots
ups - he did not make it - probably because he hit all his shots
I think if you sat back and took and honest look at the two shooters, you would at least find it close. I gave Ray-Ray the edge because he hit shots in all situations, whereas Peja percentage dips a bit in big situations.
BTW- we can discuss this without you being flippent. I mean no harm.
Okay, wait a minute...
First, Joe Maloof says no one is exempt from a trade. Then he says he would have difficulty trading Peja...
Let's review:
The Maloofs said they would never trade Jason Williams...
The Maloofs offered to mow Webber's lawn if he would resign, and pretty much promised at that point he'd be here as long as he wanted to be...
The Maloofs (or at least Joe) just said he'd find it very difficult to trade Peja.
...
...
...
I'm thinking if my name is Predrag Stojakovic I might just want to make sure I have a moving company on speed dial.
First, Joe Maloof says no one is exempt from a trade. Then he says he would have difficulty trading Peja...
Let's review:
The Maloofs said they would never trade Jason Williams...
The Maloofs offered to mow Webber's lawn if he would resign, and pretty much promised at that point he'd be here as long as he wanted to be...
The Maloofs (or at least Joe) just said he'd find it very difficult to trade Peja.
...
...
...
I'm thinking if my name is Predrag Stojakovic I might just want to make sure I have a moving company on speed dial.
Well, I think there may be a case here to say that Adleman isn't going to be defending anyone, as he doesn't play. It is kinda up to the guys on the floor to do that. He's trying to find every advantage he can to help his team win, but I think this one backfired.
Past Kings teams have been able to play physically - see just about every recent PO series with the Jazz for the most obvious examples - so perhaps it is the personnel that was having problems playing physically against the Sonics. The fact that Brad was in his first games back from a broken leg, the team hadn't played together enough to be very cohesive defensively, and Brian Skinner, whether it was his thumbs or something else, did not seem to have a good series - all of these are contributors to the lackluster defense in that series, I think.
Past Kings teams have been able to play physically - see just about every recent PO series with the Jazz for the most obvious examples - so perhaps it is the personnel that was having problems playing physically against the Sonics. The fact that Brad was in his first games back from a broken leg, the team hadn't played together enough to be very cohesive defensively, and Brian Skinner, whether it was his thumbs or something else, did not seem to have a good series - all of these are contributors to the lackluster defense in that series, I think.
Nice I like how you implied that I discriminate. I believe in equallity . I know Bricklayer is not a racist but the terminology used(or who used it) does not make it less offensive. I think when we start using discriminating language and use it as pop culture people feed off it(they use it a negative way). They use pop culture as a way to discriminate. I was only pointing it out how dangerous it can be when comments like these become the norm in our society. Maybe I should of made this point clear in my earlier post but I did not want to bog down the thread at hand. The only reason I am even replying is because that of what you implied.
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NOTE FROM A MODERATOR:
People need to lighten up. It wasn't a racist comment, which is pretty blasted obvious if you read the comment in context. We aren't going to discuss racism, discriminating language, societal norms or variances, etc. here...that's been done before and it never ends well.
Any future posts in this vein are going to be deleted. We have a good discussion going; let's not derail it with philosophical discussions better debated elsewhere.
Thank you.
VF21
MODERATOR
People need to lighten up. It wasn't a racist comment, which is pretty blasted obvious if you read the comment in context. We aren't going to discuss racism, discriminating language, societal norms or variances, etc. here...that's been done before and it never ends well.
Any future posts in this vein are going to be deleted. We have a good discussion going; let's not derail it with philosophical discussions better debated elsewhere.
Thank you.
VF21
MODERATOR
You kind of missed my point.
Twice before the Maloofs have made public comments about how a certain player would not be leaving the Kings. In both those instances, said player is now wearing a uniform that does NOT say Sacramento Kings on it...
In the article we're discussing, Joe Maloof came very close to making that statement again. As I said, if I"m Peja - and become aware of the previous situations - I might just want to make sure I've got a moving company in mind, because you don't get ANY kind of advance warning.
Twice before the Maloofs have made public comments about how a certain player would not be leaving the Kings. In both those instances, said player is now wearing a uniform that does NOT say Sacramento Kings on it...
In the article we're discussing, Joe Maloof came very close to making that statement again. As I said, if I"m Peja - and become aware of the previous situations - I might just want to make sure I've got a moving company in mind, because you don't get ANY kind of advance warning.
So...what has being the 12th best defensive team over the last 7 years gotten us? A great, entertaining team, yes...but if you're looking for a championship-caliber team, something has to be done defensively...that's the bottom-line. I don't think that's arguable...Seattle shoved our sub-par defense down our throats. We've tinkered with many different line-ups and can score a lot of points, but someone had better address our defense soon before we end up a lottery team again. That is definitely not what I'm looking for.
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I don't want to be a real downer here, but if we are looking for a championship caliber team (and we can all agree that's the goal) we are currently at a point, roster wise, where just a focus on the defensive end isn't going to be enough to get it done.
Does the team need to become more defensive? Absolutely. Do we need to make some moves to get back to elite status? Even more definite.
Does the team need to become more defensive? Absolutely. Do we need to make some moves to get back to elite status? Even more definite.
I agree with you for the most part. I do think being on average the 12th best defensive team and for a three year period the 5th best defensive team got us a legitimate championship contender which is one of the many reasons why they were entertaining. Of course the point of that post had nothing to do with what the Kings need to do now, it was only about how they can go about it based previous experience. Or more directly, how people who say Adelman can't or never has coached a good defensive team are completely wrong, so using that as a basis for making a change going forward makes no sense.
And to tie it back into the thread topic, since the thing that has changed since the good defensive teams of several years ago has been the personnel, it makes sense that in order to improve on the major defensive deficiencies the team has, no player should be exempt from a trade.
And to tie it back into the thread topic, since the thing that has changed since the good defensive teams of several years ago has been the personnel, it makes sense that in order to improve on the major defensive deficiencies the team has, no player should be exempt from a trade.
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