Old Bad Kings vs. New Bad Kings

macadocious

Starter
I think the biggest problem facing the Kings and their fan baseright now is the way we are losing and the expectations of this team. The old bad kings pre 1995 were 28 - 35 win teams that consistently landed us the number 7 lottery pick, seemed like we got it about 37 years in a row. Those teams had moderate talent at best but had veteran player who were consistently playing as hard as they could to squeak out those 30 win years, of course there were the 41 straight road losses and the 30 point blowouts, but the seemed to always try there hardest.

This team seems to be playing with the attitude that they can turn it on and off (bad cliche') but they are playing with the expectations of being much better and they just are not, I as many of us had high expectations of winning the pacific, especially when Amare went down. (I also was expecting one more move prior to the beginning of our season). This teams 1st unit has to play next to flawless for 40 minutes a game to win, and that is unrealistic, the first unit cannot continuously make up for the lack of production from the bench. (4 points last night, friggin epc production).

Also we have lost outside shooters, Bonzi as great as he is down low cannot make a shot past 18 feet, and in this offensive scheme in the past the off guard is the saftey net and needs to shoot. Also, SAR cannot perform in the same manner Webber has and the team has not adjusted to that.

Overall I just think that they way we are losing is the hardest thing to watch, especially with the potetntially good team we have here.

The only saving grace is that we have about 7 legitamate tradable pieces and there will be moves made before the dealine, they may not be bloackbusters but they will be made.
 
macadocious said:
I think the biggest problem facing the Kings and their fan baseright now is the way we are losing and the expectations of this team. The old bad kings pre 1995 were 28 - 35 win teams that consistently landed us the number 7 lottery pick, seemed like we got it about 37 years in a row. Those teams had moderate talent at best but had veteran player who were consistently playing as hard as they could to squeak out those 30 win years, of course there were the 41 straight road losses and the 30 point blowouts, but the seemed to always try there hardest.

It's tough for a team to dig themselves out of the moping and apathy that comes along with a disappointing stretch too. Petrie/Maloofs have been more supportive of Adelman than perhaps any other coach in ALL of pro sports, but at this point, the blame has to fall on his shoulders. Like you said, this is a team with talent, which means that either they aren't being motivated by the coach and need a new perspective or their skills aren't being maximized on the floor by the coaching staff's strategies. If RA stays, their wheels are likely to keep spinning. If a change is made, they will either go in reverse or forward. Either way, the FO and fans definitively know where they stand. I can't imagine that you guys are happy with the uncertainty that hovers over them right now.
 
Firing Adelman won't improve the bench. The head coach doesn't miss free-throws and layups, or throw the ball to the referee. How do you make a veteran small forward dive for loose balls or fight for rebounds? How do you make an Allstar center block shots and smack charging players? Adelman has no bench, so he can't bench the starters for lack of effort or ineptitude on the court. Adelman is trying to coach players assigned to him. Budget issues have ruled supreme.
 
macadocious said:
Overall I just think that they way we are losing is the hardest thing to watch, especially with the potetntially good team we have here.

And that, in a nutshell, is the biggest misconception around.

We do NOT have a potentially good team. We have good starters and then a mess on the bench that defies description. It's time to be totally honest. We are NOT one trade away from being contenders again.

People need to remember one important fact: It took Geoff Petrie over four years to assemble the team that was poised in May, 2003 to take us places we'd never gone before.

If you start the hourglass of the NEW great Kings team with Vlade's departure in 2004, we might be looking at several years before he can do it again. And this time people will be a little more wary. They know what can happen if they let Geoff Petrie dictate the terms of some deals...

The old bad Kings had no hopes, no goals, and were pretty much the detritus of the league. The new bad Kings are a team in transition. This is not, I am positive, the end result Petrie was aiming for...
 
macadocious said:
I think the biggest problem facing the Kings and their fan baseright now is the way we are losing and the expectations of this team. The old bad kings pre 1995 were 28 - 35 win teams that consistently landed us the number 7 lottery pick, seemed like we got it about 37 years in a row. Those teams had moderate talent at best but had veteran player who were consistently playing as hard as they could to squeak out those 30 win years, of course there were the 41 straight road losses and the 30 point blowouts, but the seemed to always try there hardest.

This team seems to be playing with the attitude that they can turn it on and off (bad cliche') but they are playing with the expectations of being much better and they just are not, I as many of us had high expectations of winning the pacific, especially when Amare went down. (I also was expecting one more move prior to the beginning of our season). This teams 1st unit has to play next to flawless for 40 minutes a game to win, and that is unrealistic, the first unit cannot continuously make up for the lack of production from the bench. (4 points last night, friggin epc production).

Also we have lost outside shooters, Bonzi as great as he is down low cannot make a shot past 18 feet, and in this offensive scheme in the past the off guard is the saftey net and needs to shoot. Also, SAR cannot perform in the same manner Webber has and the team has not adjusted to that.

Overall I just think that they way we are losing is the hardest thing to watch, especially with the potetntially good team we have here.

The only saving grace is that we have about 7 legitamate tradable pieces and there will be moves made before the dealine, they may not be bloackbusters but they will be made.
Well, any real Kings fan thats been around since day one can attest that the team we have now is far more talented than any of those 23-39 win teams we had from 85'-98'. I definetely think that there should be no comparison to the two eras, as the players we have now are far more skilled than guys like Paris McCurdy, Joe Arluckas, Ben Gillery...and lest we not forget about the great Duane Schintzius. Hell, for a while there, Kenny Smith was the main reason folks were watching the team, oh wait, Lionel Simmons, too...Rory Sparrow was a key cog in our 'success' for a season even, remember him? And you think we have it bad now, and want to make comparisons?? HAHA!! With that being said, souls will be sold, players exchanged, feelings will get hurt, fans will jump off...but in the end, we will either be good or bad. Whether you are new, or day one true...stick around for awhile, things could definetely get interesting in a hurry, even with the nausia of our current play.
 
VF21 said:
And that, in a nutshell, is the biggest misconception around.

We do NOT have a potentially good team. We have good starters and then a mess on the bench that defies description. It's time to be totally honest. We are NOT one trade away from being contenders again.

People need to remember one important fact: It took Geoff Petrie over four years to assemble the team that was poised in May, 2003 to take us places we'd never gone before.

If you start the hourglass of the NEW great Kings team with Vlade's departure in 2004, we might be looking at several years before he can do it again. And this time people will be a little more wary. They know what can happen if they let Geoff Petrie dictate the terms of some deals...

The old bad Kings had no hopes, no goals, and were pretty much the detritus of the league. The new bad Kings are a team in transition. This is not, I am positive, the end result Petrie was aiming for...

I disagree. Some of the ingredients are there. They just aren't performing to their abilities. What's a good team? Maybe my definition is a little different. I actually like the position we are in with regards to making moves. We could very possibly just be a few trades/firings/hirings away from being very good if this isn't the right combination of players.

Then again maybe not. Everytime you shake things up, things either go good or they go bad. Right now they are going bad.
 
A good team needs more than good starters. You have to have a leader - which we don't have. You have to have an identity - also missing. YOu need a strong spark to come off the bench - nope, not that either. You need at least three people on the bench who can step up and perform on a consistent basis. We don't have that, either.

This is a group of talented young men who are being forced to try and be something they simply are not cut out to be - a cohesive team that complements each other's abilities, skills and weaknesses.

If you're talking about it being potentially good provided they make a bunch of changes, then that means it's going to be a different team.
 
What's your definition of 'good' This team does have the talent to be 'good' but not 'elite' . Good gets you nothing, hell, 'elite' means you still might not win it all, but are one of the top few. Good isn't anywhere close to that.
 
Kingsgurl said:
What's your definition of 'good' This team does have the talent to be 'good' but not 'elite' . Good gets you nothing, hell, 'elite' means you still might not win it all, but are one of the top few. Good isn't anywhere close to that.
VF said we do not have a potentially "good" team. I said I disagreed. I also didn't say we had the talent to be an elite team. IMO being an "elite" team goes way beyond talent.

And even "elite" teams have to start somewhere.
 
SacTownKid said:
VF said we do not have a potentially "good" team. I said I disagreed. I also didn't say we had the talent to be an elite team. IMO being an "elite" team goes way beyond talent.

And even "elite" teams have to start somewhere.

Actually the emphasis should really be on the word TEAM and not on "good" or even "elite."

We don't have the right pieces to be a cohesive team. We have a lot of good players who, for the most part, aren't being utilized properly. Our SG is leading in rebounds; our PG is our leading scorer; our SF is MIA; our center is leading in assists (and in the top 20 in the league with the other 19 being PGs).

That's just not a real team. It's a virtual GM assemblage.
 
VF21 said:
Actually the emphasis should really be on the word TEAM and not on "good" or even "elite."

We don't have the right pieces to be a cohesive team. We have a lot of good players who, for the most part, aren't being utilized properly. Our SG is leading in rebounds; our PG is our leading scorer; our SF is MIA; our center is leading in assists (and in the top 20 in the league with the other 19 being PGs).

That's just not a real team. It's a virtual GM assemblage.

OK I see what you mean now. I totally 100% agree.
 
VF if you read what I wrote I acknowledged the the horrible bench, and referred to the potential in the Starting line-up.

I aslo said that I thought one more move would have been made before the season, because any one who looked at this roster could see we were extremely weak at backup guard position.

Circa - I have been a Kings fan since 88, and I agree that those teams were much worse. But what I was saying was those players were all playing for there jobs every night... I think overall there was a higher effort put forth on a nightly basis than we have seen so far this year. This team has high expectations of themselves and when they do not realize them part way through the game they shut down and do not try as hard as they could, throw the offensive scheme away, cheat on D instead of playing within that scheme. those are the points I was trying to highlight.
 
macadocious said:
VF if you read what I wrote I acknowledged the the horrible bench, and referred to the potential in the Starting line-up.

I aslo said that I thought one more move would have been made before the season, because any one who looked at this roster could see we were extremely weak at backup guard position..

I did read what you wrote. Did you read everything I wrote, especially the part about this just not being a group of players capable of actually being a "TEAM"?

IMHO it's not about effort so much as it is about frustration because they know, even better than we, that they're trying to play polo with croquet mallets.

You can have the best players in the world, but if they don't complement each other, they're never going to gel together properly. That was my point.
 
The whole is greater than the sum of it's parts. But those parts have to fit. It's called synergy.... the Kings don't have it (yet).
 
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Good Lord. We're not even a quarter of the way through the season, and we currently are 3 1/2 games out of a playoff spot. Don't you think we should wait just a tad longer before we start concluding that this a "bad" team?
 
3 1/2 games out of a playoff spot is pretty pathetic, considering we're dead last in the Pacific Division. If you don't think this is a bad team, no problem, but I certainly think it's a team in need of much more than the current squad can conceivably deliver. And that's the sad part - the separate pieces aren't that bad. It's the current configuation that's just wrong. At least, that's my humble opinion. It is, at least, one explanation for what's continually happening. And, in actuality, I think it's one of the most kind, all things considered.
 
Last year at this time the Bulls were 4-15. They wound up winning 47 games and making the playoffs.

I do believe that there is too much talent on this Kings team to continue its current struggles. It is a long season. Let's see what happens before we write this year off.

And, for the record, sometimes all a team needs is a minor tweak to set itself right. Exhibit A: Denver hiring George Karl last year and immediately catching fire.
 
Coach said:
Last year at this time the Bulls were 4-15. They wound up winning 47 games and making the playoffs.

I do believe that there is too much talent on this Kings team to continue its current struggles. It is a long season. Let's see what happens before we write this year off.

And, for the record, sometimes all a team needs is a minor tweak to set itself right. Exhibit A: Denver hiring George Karl last year and immediately catching fire.

exactly right, at this time last year the Rockets were 5-12 and they went on to win 51 games

the Kings still have a chance to right this, but do we really want them too? why not just get on with rebuilding, boot adelman, get a nice high draft pick, trade to get some tough, defensive minded players and some spark bench players, getting peja out the door to get them
 
The Houston, Denver, Chicago examples show it CAN be done. But they also show that if everythign goes just PERFECT for you from this point onward, you might just barely be able to creep into the 50 win region. At which point all three teams lost in the first round. And then you look at them now, and none of them have been able to sustain.

And we've got maybe even a bigger hole to climb out of than any of those squads -- we've already burned through nearly 1/3 of our home games. 13 of our first 19 at home, and we come out of it 7-12. Things really have to break just right now for us to even climb up into the periphery of the playoff race. It can happen, but it just as well may not. Adn we've done this all while realtively healthy (pinkygate aside). If we start piling up any significant injuries, we're very likely sunk. We've kind of burned through all of the leeway we had.
 
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