PDA

[captain bill]

As to the bolded portion, no you can't. What fetched Gay was a willingness to take on $20 million in salary for a guy with awful efficiency numbers and having enough contracts to send back. Vasquez made a bit over $2 million that season. And let's not pretend that Toronto was weighing offers for Rudy. They wanted out from under that contract. The fact that our guys (Hayes, Vasquez, Patterson) are working out well as part of their bench is almost happenstance and really just extra salt in the wound, especially considering how bad the Kings' reserves are.

The trade for Gay replaced the talent loss of Tyreke but it didn't significantly make the team better. I guess when it comes down to it I question why some think D'Alessandro is doing a great job when two seasons into his tenure the team isn't any better despite a talent like Cousins improving every year.

I don't have anything to add to what 206fan said about analyzing Tyreke vs Rudy. I think his analysis is spot on.

I'll just add one thing, in case you decided to forget that the on-court results back this up:

http://www.nba.com/kings/blog/kings-starting-five-earn-top-rankings

 

[LPKingsFan]

I've said it before and I've said it again, if Jimmer could have been in the Gay trade instead of Greivis, he would have been.

 

[GQ_Gabriel]

I've said it before and I've said it again, if Jimmer could have been in the Gay trade instead of Greivis, he would have been.

This.

I would love to have Grevis on this team, I loved his passion and commitment during his short stint here in Sacramento. He was a guy that genuinely loved the city and planned to be here for a very long time.

 

[funkykingston]

I don't have anything to add to what 206fan said about analyzing Tyreke vs Rudy. I think his analysis is spot on.

I'll just add one thing, in case you decided to forget that the on-court results back this up:

http://www.nba.com/kings/blog/kings-starting-five-earn-top-rankings

The on court results are that the Kings are the sixth worst team in the NBA.

And those statistics were from six games into Tyrone Corbin's tenure. They have regressed significantly since then. And as a team the Kings are currently 18th in offensive rating and 27th in defensive rating. Considering the only change was replacing Malone with Corbin it's pretty easy to assign a significant amount of credit to Malone for the hot start and a large amount of blame to D'Alessandro for the decline.

I like Rudy Gay. I'd rather have him than Tyreke. But let's not pretend he's ever been an all-star or that it's reasonable that he makes over $20 million this season.

 

[funkykingston]

I've said it before and I've said it again, if Jimmer could have been in the Gay trade instead of Greivis, he would have been.

This.

I would love to have Grevis on this team, I loved his passion and commitment during his short stint here in Sacramento. He was a guy that genuinely loved the city and planned to be here for a very long time.

I'd argue that if the Kings had said Jimmer instead of Vasquez or no deal that Ujiri likely would have went along with it. But who knows? What I do know for sure was that the Raptors weren't dealing from a position of strength. Go back and read the analysis of the media after that trade. I can't think of any that felt the Kings got the better end of that deal. In hindsight it looks like a good trade for both sides, but at the time NOBODY wanted to touch Rudy Gay and that contract.

I guess for me it's not so much that I've outright hated the majority of D'Alessandro's moves (though I was very negative about a few) as that I haven't been all that impressed by any of them, having seen much of an actual strategy to building a cohesive team, and have been very disappointed with all of the media leaks, the ridiculous behind-the-scenes videos, the poor showing in interviews and most of all of the lack of improvement of this team. This is not a great Kings team. But Malone had them playing hard every night and being competitive while getting the most out of the talent he had. Fortunately I think George Karl can do the same.

As for Vasquez, I liked the guy too (well, other than his defense), but having read enough articles it's pretty clear he talks about loving every city he gets to and how he wants to stay there long term. He did the exact thing in Toronto after the Gay trade in fact.

 

[kingsboi]

yeah I got a question....can you convince Vivek to stop meddling and just be an owner? Next, can you draft another position besides guards? let's leave it at that and go from there....

 

[Glenn]

The on court results are that the Kings are the sixth worst team in the NBA.

And those statistics were from six games into Tyrone Corbin's tenure. They have regressed significantly since then. And as a team the Kings are currently 18th in offensive rating and 27th in defensive rating. Considering the only change was replacing Malone with Corbin it's pretty easy to assign a significant amount of credit to Malone for the hot start and a large amount of blame to D'Alessandro for the decline.

I like Rudy Gay. I'd rather have him than Tyreke. But let's not pretend he's ever been an all-star or that it's reasonable that he makes over $20 million this season.

I'm just going to throw a little caution into this. What happened under Malone MIGHT have happened under anybody. It wasn't a huge body of work. MIGHT!!! The decline may have simply been the confusion of switching from one system and style to another in midstream. The decline may have also been a result of confusion among the players who, like most of us, didn't have a clue what just happened and why. I note you blame this on PDA which I agree is more the culprit than Corbin.

If a gun was put to my head, I would deny everything I just wrote but I think there are multiple explanations, including Boogie's viral meningitis, that are possible. You have highlighted the most likely.

 

[dude12]

I just came home and read this whole thread. I'm just baffled at some of the posters here who are building up PDA and his accomplishments. Why in the **** would you want to give praise to the GM who brought the fan base to one of its lowest points in the last 10 years? And that's saying something.

And you want to build up his accomplishment by giving them credit to extending Cousins? Lol. Wrong.

We are 18-34 and he made one of the most foolish firings in NBA history....way to go Pete.
He drafted 2 shooting guards in consecutive years.....that's dumb.
Derrick Williams....dumb
Ramon Sessions.....fail
Carl Landry......fail
Ryan Hollins....fail
Firing Malone and torpedoing the season....inexcusable
Waiting months to hire Karl.....indefensible
Possibly driving away our all world center with all the deceit.....indefensible

I'm not buying what some of you are selling.

 

[Chicken Chaser]

Actually, I don't think Petrie ever came out and said that. That's one book I would love to see written, however.

I'm having trouble finding quotes. I could have sworn I saw it back in summer 2013 though! Where are my local/national/twitter sources???

 

[midtowner]

Cup Half Full.

It is awful that this season was torpedoed. I was having fun watching the team earlier in the year. I like Michael Malone.

But George Karl is an excellent coach. His teams are fun to watch. Demarcus Cousins is almost great and getting better. Gay is a real #2. Collison is a legit PG that fits great with Cousins and Gay. Ben looks like his floor is solid and his ceiling is high. They are all locked up for 2-3 more years. Oh, and the new Arena will breathe some life into our downtown.

It's been unnecessarily messy. But it's not the Maloofs, and in 6 months I think things are going to be very hopeful. Pete's going to end up smelling like a rose.

 

[Warhawk]

I'm having trouble finding quotes. I could have sworn I saw it back in summer 2013 though! Where are my local/national/twitter sources???

I think it was in an interview (KHTK?) after he was no longer GM.

 

[IfAt1st]

Some of you just don't get it. I'm honestly to the point where I think some of these "members" are plants.

Let's go through the list of decisions PDA has made. I will rate them on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being a horrible decision, 5 being a meh decision or a no brainer decision, 10 being a great decision)

1. Drafted Ben McLemore with the 7th pick (7 - he was one of the best available players who feel to us and has been showing good progress this year. He looked to be a good fit with Cousins and Evans going forward. However, there have been players who have already shown to be more valuable that were drafted after him.)
2. Drafted Ray McCallum with the 36th pick (8 - he's been a very productive 2nd round pick for us and will likely get better with time. Withey at the time made sense as a backup for Cousins and he has played well.)
3. Trading Tyreke Evans for Greivis Vasquez and a 2nd round pick (2 - traded a player who is averaging 17 - 6 - 6 with good defense, size, youth, and athleticism for a backup PG who plays poor defense and a 2nd round pick. Major talent bleed.)
4. Sign Carl Landry for $27 mil/4 years (1 - when needing a defensive big to pair with Cousins, we sign Landry who is redundant and small. Not to mention we overpaid for him and decided to keep him on the books for 4 years.)
5. Extended Demarcus Cousins to a max deal (5 - no brainer. Any semi-competent GM would have made this move.)
6. Trading a 2nd round pick for Mbah a Moute (5 - meh trade. Brought in a defensive role player for our defensive coach.)
7. Trading Mbah a Moute for Derrick Williams (6 - bit of a no risk trade that brought in a young SF to prove he could take over the starting job.)
8. Trading Greivis Vasquez, Chuck Hayes, Patrick Patterson, John Salmons for Rudy Gay, Quincy Acy, Aaron Gray (9 - took a limited risk on a trade that could have netted us a big reward. Gay was revitalized here and has shown to be a good robin to Cousins' batman.)
9. Trade Marcus Thornton for Jason Terry and Reggie Evans (5 - meh trade that just moved around ending contracts and left us with less depth at the guard spots.)
10. Drafted Nik Stauskas with the 8th pick (5 - the jury is still out on the pick. However, I personally was okay with taking Stauskas where we took him. I think he will be a good player in this league)
11. Trade Isaiah Thomas for a TPE (2 - it was very likely somebody was going to drop a decent size contract for Thomas. Probably one we wouldn't want to match. Why in the hell would you wait until the offseason when you have no leverage? Trade him at the deadline where you can get some value for him. Another major talent bleed.)
12. Sign Darren Collison to 3 year MLE (8 - Collison has looked good and has been willing to play as a team in order to feed Cousins and Gay. His deal is good value as well)
13. Sign Ramon Sessions for $4.25 mil/2 years (3 - has been an absolute disaster while here. I would rate this lower, but the fact that the deal isn't that big keeps this at a 3)
14. Sign Omri Casspi to Veteran Minimum (5 - no brainer deal)
15. Sign Eric Moreland to Veteran Minimum (5 - no brainer deal)
16. Extend Rudy Gay for $40 mil/3 years (5 - no brainer deal. It's hard to lure big time free agents to Sacramento and Gay showed he was compatible with Cousins. Easy decision)
17. Fire Mike Malone as Head Coach (-3 - I know I said I would keep it on a 1-10 scale but this decision was just too bad. After going 9-6 with a healthy Cousins with the 2nd toughest schedule at the time, Cousins gets sick and we drop to 11-13. From there, Malone is fired. We finally had a coach who had gotten through to the players, and the players wanted to go out every night and battle for him. He had a great relationship with Cousins, and they both had each others back. It's unheard of to fire a coach who was performing so well. Complete incompetence and most likely one of the dumbest decisions I will see made by a FO in my life.)
18. Promote Tyrone Corbin as Head Coach (1 - So not only did you make one of the worst decisions a FO has ever made, but you had no plan to replace Malone with a competent coach? Yikes! Thanks for throwing the season down the drain, breaking up chemistry that was being developed by our team, and making us look like a joke so free agents will not want to come here (or make it harder to keep current players in town).)
19. Fire Tyrone Corbin as Head Coach (5 - no brainer. He lost the team awhile ago and was going through the motions. Had absolutely no success coaching this team and deserved to be fired)
20. Hire George Karl as Head Coach (5 - no brainer, and frankly, we're all a little upset why this didn't happen right after Malone was fired.
21. Intangibles - how they have conducted business and represented our franchise (1 - I don't think there is a worse GM in the league at conducting himself in a professional way. All of the lies, leaked rumors, backstabbing has made this franchise look like a circus. Just think about how other players, fans, and the public view our team? We look like children to them, and we have our FO to thanks for that. Not only do we look like children, but we look like dumb children who want to build a team around pace and offense when you have a team with Cousins and Gay on it. Their intellect, vision, and professionalism are all lacking. Therefore, they earn a well deserved 1.)

If you want to take strict average it comes out to 4.3, but obviously there are decisions that have more weight than others. For instance, a 1st round draft pick decision would have more importance than a 2nd round pick decision, but I'm not going to go through and arbitrarily assign weights to each decision (I've already arbitrarily assigned my own ratings for each decision).

The good?
Draftng McLemore
Drafting McCallum
Trading for Gay
Signing Collison

The bad?
Getting barely anything for Evans
Signing Carl Landry
Getting virtually nothing for Thomas
Firing Coach Malone
Promoting Corbin as Head Coach
Intangibles, professionalism, etc.

The rest of the decisions are meh or no brainers. Nothing that should really be scorned and nothing that should really be praised.

I think (along with the majority of posters here) that the FO's bad decisions have certainly outweighed the good ones. Therefore, we would prefer a new GM. Make sense?

Great post.
I am quoting and re-posting this solely to be able to find it when (not if) the PDA plants try to pull their revisionist history crap.

 

[itzcoatl]

I have many questions:
1. When can we get rid of him???
2. Why does he get credit for the Karl signing when the entire board has been calling for it since Malone was fired?
3. Why is he still so bad at controlling leaks from his office?
4. What other GMs are available to take over?
5. How does he plan on upgrading our overall talent?

I could go on and on.

 

[Spike]

People here act like there weren't A TON of questions surrounding Demarcus Cousins at the time of that extension. Almost all news media outlets were surprised by this. They weren't sure if Cuz was a franchise players because of his on the court antics and maturity. Suddenly now, it was a no brainer move that even a weasel could make.

The national media knew squat about the Kings. Most Kings fans knew resigning DMC was a no-brainer.

It wasn't until Malone made the team relevant this year that the national media starting digging a little more, and started coming up with salient information on a weekly basis. Remember the actual variety in a lot of the articles? Maybe not. There was good stuff, though.

You can see it in the shift in comments in the weekly Power Rankings. There's a lot more insight when the team is relevant. Now it's back to recycled one-liners, for the most part.

 

[jdbraver]

Great post.
I am quoting and re-posting this solely to be able to find it when (not if) the PDA plants try to pull their revisionist history crap.

So basically you are angry he didn't get anything for an ending contract for IT. Even when legit players usually bet pennies on the dollar for an ended. Then u are upset we let Evans go but happy we got Rudy? Well one doesn't happen w the other.
Now the coaching mess sure was terrible but I think the talent level has improved. Just not to the point of making the playoffs. It takes time.

 

[Big Cuz 15]

yeah I got a question....can you convince Vivek to stop meddling and just be an owner? Next, can you draft another position besides guards? let's leave it at that and go from there....

he wont sop til he gets his klay clone?

 

[dude12]

PDA fanboys....explain why we just gave away Robin Lopez. I wasn't for giving Tyreke the contract and getting Vazquez and Lopez would have been a good get. I mean Robin Lopez is a quality big man on a nice contract. Could have improved the talent base right there. Now, we would have to trade an asset to obtain a guy like that. Explain that piece of brilliance.

 

[Tetsujin]

#PDA4GMOTY!!!!




Am I doing this right?

 

[206Fan]

I just came home and read this whole thread. I'm just baffled at some of the posters here who are building up PDA and his accomplishments. Why in the **** would you want to give praise to the GM who brought the fan base to one of its lowest points in the last 10 years? And that's saying something.

And you want to build up his accomplishment by giving them credit to extending Cousins? Lol. Wrong.

We are 18-34 and he made one of the most foolish firings in NBA history....way to go Pete.
He drafted 2 shooting guards in consecutive years.....that's dumb.
Derrick Williams....dumb
Ramon Sessions.....fail
Carl Landry......fail
Ryan Hollins....fail
Firing Malone and torpedoing the season....inexcusable
Waiting months to hire Karl.....indefensible
Possibly driving away our all world center with all the deceit.....indefensible

I'm not buying what some of you are selling.

Lmao, what about the good things he's done?

How is drafting 2 SGs in consecutive years dumb???

How is trading an injury prone Mbah Moute who averaged a damn 3.3ppg with Minnesota for D-Will dumb?

Sessions was coming off a near 6moy award and his contract is dirt cheap

Carly Landry-eh, maybe a fail because of his contract.

Ryan Hollins is on a 1year deal worth less than 1mill lmao. Clips must have failed last year too when they had him on the team.

Firing malone and not handling it right- I agree 100%

Waiting months to hire Karl- I agree too

This is not the lowest point in the last 10 years wtf... wow. If you believe this is the lowest point for the Kings in the last 10 years, you've missed out on 9 of them.

I'm pretty sure if this was another near 30 win season without the 8-5 start, nobody would care about these moves. But our 8-5 start made everyone excited. We won on a small sample size. Why can't we be happy moving forward with a HOF coach? No we can't do that because our GM is the worst thing ever and he's forced fans into depression.

Pete didn't draft Jimmer one year, then draft T-Rob the next. You're really going to fault Pete for drafting the consecutive position in 2 years? LMAO. It happens all the time.

I guess the Jazz are idiots too...so is Minnesota.....oh and the Bobcats....oh and don't forget the 76ers....oh and Cleveland... oh yeah and the Magic also...wait...Bucks too....this was all last year between 2013-14.

 

[dude12]

Lmao, what about the good things he's done?

How is drafting 2 SGs in consecutive years dumb???

How is trading an injury prone Mbah Moute who averaged a damn 3.3ppg with Minnesota for D-Will dumb?

Sessions was coming off a near 6moy award and his contract is dirt cheap

Carly Landry-eh, maybe a fail because of his contract.

Ryan Hollins is on a 1year deal worth less than 1mill lmao. Clips must have failed last year too when they had him on the team.

Firing malone and not handling it right- I agree 100%

Waiting months to hire Karl- I agree too

This is not the lowest point in the last 10 years wtf... wow. If you believe this is the lowest point for the Kings in the last 10 years, you've missed out on 9 of them.

I'm pretty sure if this was another near 30 win season without the 8-5 start, nobody would care about these moves. But our 8-5 start made everyone excited. We won on a small sample size. Why can't we be happy moving forward with a HOF coach? No we can't do that because our GM is the worst thing ever and he's forced fans into depression.

Pete didn't draft Jimmer one year, then draft T-Rob the next. You're really going to fault Pete for drafting the consecutive position in 2 years? LMAO. It happens all the time.

I guess the Jazz are idiots too...so is Minnesota.....oh and the Bobcats....oh and don't forget the 76ers....oh and Cleveland... oh yeah and the Magic also...wait...Bucks too....this was all last year between 2013-14.

You can't figure it out, here let me help you.

PDA turned over our SG position to a 2nd year man and a rookie. That is dumb. The smart move would have been to sign a vet to pair with McLemore. That would have been the smart move. Stauskas wasn't even best player available. Dumb.

Ridiculing Mbah a Moute's ppg shows you have no concept that Mbah a Moute is a defensive guy who can guard multi positions...the type of guy Malone values but of course, PDA appeared to have been in the process of giving Malone zero defensive assets. If you can't figure that out, then your in denial.

Sessions has been a fail....don't care if he's making 2 mill or making 12 mill....he's been a failed acquisition....again your in denial. That is PDA's signing.

Hollins sucks... But you view his minimal contract as not terrible which its OT except we could have actually spent that on maybe a younger guy who could develop. Hollins has given us nothing but towel waving....by the way our bench sucks.

You agree on the timing and firing/hiring of Malone and Karl. I don't think you understand the depth of those ramifications.

The lowest point......the front office created apathy on our players part and the fans. Creating apathy in this fan base is pretty amazing.

Reading your last few paragraphs, the Jazz drafted Exxum as the probable best player available in the draft after drafting Burke. The Twolves, you mean the team that kept drafting PG's ....yeah they are successful and a model franchise.

I'm excited for the hiring of Karl but I don't give PDA a pass right now. In your world, a few good moves make up for a few monumentally bad moves....that's ok with you but not me at the moment.

 

[pdizo916]

After briefly skimming through this thread, there's two mistakes that PDA has made that no one pointed out. (as far as i can see)


1) Not trading with Chicago to get our pick back. Chicago desperately wanted to move up and we had the 8th pick....do the math.

2) Letting go of Wayne Ellington, who is shooting 39% from 3. He was let go and we didn't get anything back. We needed 3pt shooting, traded for him, and we let him go. SMH. Subtle little moves like that really irritates me.

 

[206Fan]

You can't figure it out, here let me help you.

PDA turned over our SG position to a 2nd year man and a rookie. That is dumb. The smart move would have been to sign a vet to pair with McLemore. That would have been the smart move. Stauskas wasn't even best player available. Dumb.

Ridiculing Mbah a Moute's ppg shows you have no concept that Mbah a Moute is a defensive guy who can guard multi positions...the type of guy Malone values but of course, PDA appeared to have been in the process of giving Malone zero defensive assets. If you can't figure that out, then your in denial.

Sessions has been a fail....don't care if he's making 2 mill or making 12 mill....he's been a failed acquisition....again your in denial. That is PDA's signing.

Hollins sucks... But you view his minimal contract as not terrible which its OT except we could have actually spent that on maybe a younger guy who could develop. Hollins has given us nothing but towel waving....by the way our bench sucks.

You agree on the timing and firing/hiring of Malone and Karl. I don't think you understand the depth of those ramifications.

The lowest point......the front office created apathy on our players part and the fans. Creating apathy in this fan base is pretty amazing.

Reading your last few paragraphs, the Jazz drafted Exxum as the probable best player available in the draft after drafting Burke. The Twolves, you mean the team that kept drafting PG's ....yeah they are successful and a model franchise.

I'm excited for the hiring of Karl but I don't give PDA a pass right now. In your world, a few good moves make up for a few monumentally bad moves....that's ok with you but not me at the moment.

You just said "we could have actually spent that on maybe a younger guy who could develop." We've spent money on a younger guy who we can develop...Eric Moreland.

I'm not defending PDA by any means and I think he messed up the entire Malone/Corbin scenario. BUT I don't think his mess ups have really pushed him so far off the cliff that he needs to be fired. Since he's finally hired a HOF coach, I want us to see what Pete can do for our roster next year under a great coach. I give him another year because I don't think he's done anything to warrant a fire. He is the NBA's most active GM. I'd give him another year because I just don't see how his roster assembly has been bad.

You just nitpicked 2 teams out of like the 6 I gave you.. Twovles is a great young team with a ton of potential. The only reason why they've been one of the worst teams in the NBA this season is because Rubio, Pekvoic, and Martin have been out for most of the season. They're riding on the backs of Rubio, Wiggins, Dieng, Muhammad, Payne, Bennet, and Lavine. That's a talented young team right there..

 

[funkykingston]

"A good friend of mine got fired in Sacramento. (The Kings) didn't know what they were doing with Mike Malone," - LeBron James said.

Via Marc J Spears' Twitter feed.

 

[captain bill]

PDA fanboys....explain why we just gave away Robin Lopez. I wasn't for giving Tyreke the contract and getting Vazquez and Lopez would have been a good get. I mean Robin Lopez is a quality big man on a nice contract. Could have improved the talent base right there. Now, we would have to trade an asset to obtain a guy like that. Explain that piece of brilliance.

I don't like that part of the Tyreke to Gay move, and I've said so repeatedly when discussing PDA.

But you're missing the forest for the trees: great GMs makes tons of mistakes. The question is not whether each and every move has a positive value, but whether a GM can take a dysfunctional franchise and build a contender out of it. Pete has done exactly that in under 2 years. Yes, having Cousins is the biggest part of that, but the history of the NBA is filled with franchises that couldn't do squat with great players.

This team will be making noise in the playoffs next year, and is set up to contend for years after. That is the one and only goal for any franchise. Pete took major risks to get here, but we got here now.

When we have a parade down the Capitol Mall, I'm not going to cry over missing out on Lopez.

 

[funkykingston]

I don't like that part of the Tyreke to Gay move, and I've said so repeatedly when discussing PDA.

I don't want to keep hammering the point but Tyreke and Gay were two entirely separate transactions.

D'Alessandro stated publicly that he had a number in mind at which he'd retain Evans. Ostensibly when the NO offer came in it was above that number and he decided not to match. The ONLY reason the Kings got Vasquez (and the Blazers got Lopez) was because it made more sense capwise for the Pelicans to do a sign-and-trade. They could have just as easily have said no and signed Evans outright. They had to have the caproom or they couldn't have offered the contract in the first place.

True, Vasquez ended up being a part of the trade for Gay but if Vasquez were never on the Kings roster I'd bet nearly anything that Ujiri would have done the deal with Fredette in his place. Or without anything in Vasquez's place and simply not sent one of either Aaron Gray or Quincy Acy back to the Kings. Effectively Gay replaced Evans as the Kings second most talented player, but Tyreke leaving the Kings and Rudy being acquired aren't linked in any real way.

 

[Chubbs]

I don't like that part of the Tyreke to Gay move, and I've said so repeatedly when discussing PDA.

But you're missing the forest for the trees: great GMs makes tons of mistakes. The question is not whether each and every move has a positive value, but whether a GM can take a dysfunctional franchise and build a contender out of it. Pete has done exactly that in under 2 years. Yes, having Cousins is the biggest part of that, but the history of the NBA is filled with franchises that couldn't do squat with great players.

This team will be making noise in the playoffs next year, and is set up to contend for years after. That is the one and only goal for any franchise. Pete took major risks to get here, but we got here now.

When we have a parade down the Capitol Mall, I'm not going to cry over missing out on Lopez.

You think this team is a Contender? For what?

 

[captain bill]

I don't want to keep hammering the point but Tyreke and Gay were two entirely separate transactions.

D'Alessandro stated publicly that he had a number in mind at which he'd retain Evans. Ostensibly when the NO offer came in it was above that number and he decided not to match. The ONLY reason the Kings got Vasquez (and the Blazers got Lopez) was because it made more sense capwise for the Pelicans to do a sign-and-trade. They could have just as easily have said no and signed Evans outright. They had to have the caproom or they couldn't have offered the contract in the first place.

True, Vasquez ended up being a part of the trade for Gay but if Vasquez were never on the Kings roster I'd bet nearly anything that Ujiri would have done the deal with Fredette in his place. Or without anything in Vasquez's place and simply not sent one of either Aaron Gray or Quincy Acy back to the Kings. Effectively Gay replaced Evans as the Kings second most talented player, but Tyreke leaving the Kings and Rudy being acquired aren't linked in any real way.

Everything you say is correct but you're not thinking through the decision-making process correctly. Pete had an end game in mind from the start, and each personnel decision had to be made in light of how to maneuver towards an ultimate goal, which means you have to think in terms not just of how much a player is "worth" in terms of a simplistic cap vs talent calculation, but in terms of what different contracts allow you to do.

Pete was maneuvering for Rudy, so he had to assess the best way to deal with Tyreke's RFA in light of that. He also had an ongoing dialogue with Masai, and used that information to make the right move to get there - which he did.

Again, each point you're making is right, but the heart of our disagreement comes down to 1- how much we value Rudy vs Gay; and 2- the fact that you're approaching this like a fantasy football team and not a poker game.

Saying the trades "aren't linked in any real way" is exactly the flaw with your thinking, as well as with the flaw in the laundry lists of bad moves that people are making here. Everything is interconnected, and sometimes you have to move backwards in order to advance to your ultimate goal.

I get that you don't like the way this team is assembled, that's fine. But I've been watching basketball for years and it is clear to me that our starting 5 is solid, well balanced, and built for the playoffs. Getting upset over the Evans trade is short-sighted.

I understand that you have principled reasons for not liking this particular iteration of the roster, and I also understand that an equally good roster could have been built in a different way. But that's not the right way to assess what Pete has done here - you look at his overall vision, his effectiveness in realizing it, and the on-court results. I am confident that we make the playoffs next year - if that happens, who the hell cares if it could've been done a slightly different way?

 

[captain bill]

You think this team is a Contender? For what?

An NBA championship.

 

[HndsmCelt]

Everything you say is correct but you're not thinking through the decision-making process correctly. Pete had an end game in mind from the start, and each personnel decision had to be made in light of how to maneuver towards an ultimate goal, which means you have to think in terms not just of how much a player is "worth" in terms of a simplistic cap vs talent calculation, but in terms of what different contracts allow you to do.

Pete was maneuvering for Rudy, so he had to assess the best way to deal with Tyreke's RFA in light of that. He also had an ongoing dialogue with Masai, and used that information to make the right move to get there - which he did.

Again, each point you're making is right, but the heart of our disagreement comes down to 1- how much we value Rudy vs Gay; and 2- the fact that you're approaching this like a fantasy football team and not a poker game.

Saying the trades "aren't linked in any real way" is exactly the flaw with your thinking, as well as with the flaw in the laundry lists of bad moves that people are making here. Everything is interconnected, and sometimes you have to move backwards in order to advance to your ultimate goal.

I get that you don't like the way this team is assembled, that's fine. But I've been watching basketball for years and it is clear to me that our starting 5 is solid, well balanced, and built for the playoffs. Getting upset over the Evans trade is short-sighted.

I understand that you have principled reasons for not liking this particular iteration of the roster, and I also understand that an equally good roster could have been built in a different way. But that's not the right way to assess what Pete has done here - you look at his overall vision, his effectiveness in realizing it, and the on-court results. I am confident that we make the playoffs next year - if that happens, who the hell cares if it could've been done a slightly different way?

It's usually best to save the "Ends Justifies Means" defense until you actually get the result you like. With a record of 18-34 (and that is giving Pete credit for the wins under the coach he did NOT select) I'd say you are jumping the gun a bit.

 

[sdballer]

An NBA championship.

And any credibility you had on this subject just wrestled away from you like a pissed off cat and threw itself out a window.