Offseason Improvements

L

LongLiveIverson

Prospect
First off, as great as the Isaiah Thomas story is the Kings should swallow there pride and let him walk in free agency. He plays hard, but no matter what, he will always be a liability on defense. Him and Stauskas in the backcourt, as much as I like him, will be an open invite for a 48 minute layup line. This team needs a facilitator to get the ball to guys like Cousins, Gay and our guards. He is a nice player and explosive scorer but he simply is not a good fit for this team if we ever want to crack 30 wins. We all thought it was imperative to resign Marcus Thornton and Jason Thompson because they gave us solid production and we liked them..doesn't mean its the right business decision.

Let Aaron Gray walk. He has good hair though..

Free Agency- Take a money ball approach.
Sign Shaun Livingston. Revived career, after what looked like to be a career ending injury.
The Nets defensive rating improved from 106.3 to 101.7 when Livingston was on the floor..that's no coincidence. Livingston surprisingly still boasts athleticism that allowed him to be taken 3rd overall out of high school and is able to block a lot of shots over smaller guards. That doesn't even begin to mention his length which allows him to disrupt the passing lanes. Add in the fact that he's a pass first distributor and it's a no brainer to offer him a MLE, with a pitch to compete as a full time starter. At worst your getting the production that a rookie Elfrid Payton would most likely produce.

Apparently Pete thinks the same http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports....-shaun-livingston-to-be-starting-point-guard/

Another guy I'd like to see on the team is Lavoy Allen. The bigman gained notoriety as a rookie 2 seasons ago for locking down Kevin Garnet in the second round of the playoffs. After that he was rewarded with a 2 year 6 million dollar deal which he somehow failed to live up to. Now I am a bit biased because I went to High School with the guy, but I think he has a place and offers value as a big body 5th big. His post defense has never been a question, but he lacks the crazy motor some big's possess. I also think he fits great with Cousins with his feathery elbow jump show.
I'd like to see a 2 year 4 million dollar deal with the second year being a team option.


Next I think you look to trade Ben Mclemore while you still can get some value for him
Ben Mclemore, Travis Outlaw, 2015 second rounder for John Henson and OJ Mayo
The Bucks are looking to unload John Henson as their frontcourt is extremely crowded, with Gannis looking to occupy the small ball 4 spot with Jabari in the Mix. Henson is not a perfectly polished defensive player but he offers upside and elite shotblocking skills and immediately becomes our best defensive big.
Bucks would be happy to unload OJ Mayo's contract away. Worst case he's a streaky shooter off the bench, best case we put him in a situation to succeed with his shots like we did with Rudy.

Richard Jefferson - 1 yr Minimum
Laugh all you want but if there's one thing thing Richard Jefferson can do is shoot. He connected on 3's above a 40% clip the past 4 seasons. He played on a miserable Utah team last season so I doubt he would mind coming to Sacramento if they give him a chance to extend his career an extra season.

C. DeMarcus Cousins/Jason Thompson/Lavoy Allen
F. John Henson/Carl Landry/Reggie Evans
F. Rudy Gay/Derrick Williams/Richard Jefferson
G. Nik Stauskas/OJ Mayo/Jason Terry
G. Shaun Livingston/Ray McCallum

Lavoy can push Thompson to elevate his game and take his minutes if he fails to do so.
I can see us trading Carl Landry to a contender if he boosts his trade value.
Richard Jefferson gives you the option of a more traditional backup 3 than Derrick Williams. Who looks out of place on this roster.


Thoughts?
 
Lavoy Allen is irrelevant, however attaining John Henson can be done. Don't care much for OJ or RJ. I don't want to give up Ben just yet unless it's for a legit package so in the mean time I'd like to see him play with Nik and another year under his belt where hopefully the game slowed down a little bit for him.
 
I like the Livingston pickup as he is a good playmaker and defender, but would settle someone like Steve Blake who has very high basketball IQ and could mentor McCallum, as well has having a killer 3pt shot to space the floor and good playmaking. If we are in a pinch, would go with Collison or Chalmers but would hope we could move some pieces for Bledsoe or even Lowry (both of which are unlikely).

While I like IT, I think he is unwilling to come off the bench, where his skills are more useful. I think he could even be a 6th man of the year / 2nd coming of Bobby Jackson type player who would still see around 27-30 mpg and could average around 15-18ppg. I would pay him $4-5 for that but he has it in his head that he MUST start. Unfortunately the kings starting 5 need a facilitator and in his own words he is a scoring PG. Well, for this team we need a scoring PG off the bench to anchor the second unit. He'd be great. If he agrees (unlikely) awesome otherwise, best of luck on your future endeavors (though he is the kind of guy who will burn us for 25points when we play him next).

I want to see what McCallum has as the starter if we cant get Livingston, Bledsoe or Lowry. If he starts I would go after Blake to mentor him or even Darren Collison or Brian Roberts on the cheap (1-2million) to back him up. We would see a better flow with the starters that way.
 
For all the talk about john salmons and his crappy trade value, Toronto just moved him for Lou Williams and Lucas Nugeira.
 
I'd love to see the Kings go hard after Bledsoe. He probably falls under the scoring PG category, but I think that was out of necessity in Phoenix. With guys like Cousins, Rudy, and Stauskas around him, I feel like he'd be able to use his dribble penetration ability to drive and dish/kick all day.

If not Bledsoe, I like the idea of adding Shaun Livingston. Good defender who can get the ball to the scorers.

I think Rondo is off the table with the team's current assets.

Taj Gibson would be a prize in a trade. I'd be thrilled if the front office could work something out to get him on board. Good defender with an expanding offensive game. I believe he could be a good front court partner with DMC.

Unfortunately, I don't know how realistic Bledsoe/Gibson is. The FO would probably have to give up a ton to get Gibson and Bledsoe is likely looking for a big, and deserved, payday. One thing to note is the relationship between Demarcus and Bledsoe. College teammates, both Bama boys, and they've both let their friendship known. Hopefully that counts for something as free agency gets under way.
 
Tetsujin said:
Toronto just moved his cuttable contract to ATL not Salmons himself
Click to expand...

No argument with that. People just talk like PDA was a genius for being able to trade him while I think the fact he had the non-guaranteed deal was going to be worth a great deal more than his abilities.
 
sdballer said:
No argument with that. People just talk like PDA was a genius for being able to trade him while I think the fact he had the non-guaranteed deal was going to be worth a great deal more than his abilities.
Click to expand...
People will defend PDA on that one but reality is, the only bad contract we sent in that deal was Chuck Hayes. Salmons was practically an expiring deal and a sizeable one at that. Patterson and Vasquez are expiring deals.
 
Čarolija said:
People will defend PDA on that one but reality is, the only bad contract we sent in that deal was Chuck Hayes. Salmons was practically an expiring deal and a sizeable one at that. Patterson and Vasquez are expiring deals.
Click to expand...
That's a very knit picky way of looking at it. We sent away middling players and got back an all star level player.
 
Chupacabra said:
That's a very knit picky way of looking at it. We sent away middling players and got back an all star level player.
Click to expand...
I am in no way questioning that! Its a great deal but I question people's comment that imply that Salmons, Patterson and Vasquez had no trade value and were somehow unmoveable contracts when in fact their value was in the faxt that they were expiring deals
 
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