Preseason Stats vs. last season etc.

[Bricklayer]

First, a giant disclaimer: these are preseason stats vs. last year's regular season stats. That is not a universal excuse, but it does add some fuzz. Accordingly oppsoing teams stats are added in and compared -- i.e. opposing teams are in preseason too.

Records:
'07-08(pre): 2-3 .400
'06-07: 33-49 .402

Team Stats:
'SAC 07-08: 96.8pts (.434 FG% .301 3pt% .739 FT%) 37.4reb 16.6ast 12.2stl 4.8blk 18.6TO
OPP 07-08: 100.2pts (.475 FG% .397 3pt% .761 FT%) 42.8reb 22.0ast 7.8stl 4.2blk 22.8TO
COMPARED: -3.4pts (-.041 FG% -.096 3pt% -.022 FT%) -5.4reb -5.4ast +4.4stl +0.6blk +4.2TO

SAC '06-07: 101.3pts (.450 FG% .350 3pt% .765 FT%) 38.9reb 20.3ast 8.2stl 3.2blk 14.6TO
OPP '06-07: 103.1pts (.472 FG% .365 3pt% .767 FT%) 43.4reb 22.4ast 7.0stl 4.9blk 16.3TO
COMPARED: -1.8pts (-.022 FG% -.015 3pt% -.002 FT%) -4.5reb -2.1ast +1.2stl -1.7blk +1.7TO

You can see what caused me to start this thread. The more things change the more they stay the same?

Team Notes:
1) everyone, myself included, made fun of Muss's offense as a rhythmless cohesiveless flopfest. Yet we are scoring nearly 5pts less in the preseason, and on worse precentages.

2) the rebounding is actually worse

3) we are getting no assists. The leading assistman in the preseason was Adam Parada, who got 3 in his only 6minutes of action before being cut. Mike is averaging 2.8.

4) our strength seems to be the same one we had last year: gambling for steals + causing TOs.

5) on defense we are allowing fewer points (although still 100 per game) but on very similar percentages to last year

Player Notes:
1) Kevin has scored effortlessly, a silly 21.5pts on .614 shooting in 25min/gm. Unfortunately it is all he has done. He is averaging 2.0reb and 1.0ast, making Dell Curry (notorious 90's one dimensional gunner) proud.

2) Orien Greene looks to have won the backup...spot. He has been impressive, but his numbers, 5.7pts 3.7rebs 1.0ast 1.7stl in 15.3min are backup SF numbers, not backup PG numbers.

3) Quincy Douby has been noticed for stepping it up, averaging 8.6pts in 19.6min. Yet he is also shooting .400, and like Greene, averaging 1.0ast/gm. And these guys are the backup PGs?

4) Mike Bibby is shooting .308, and averaging 2.8ast. That's been the starting PG. The 16.6ast number becomes comrpehensible.

5) Brad has definitely slimmed down and looked much quicker when I saw him. Its maybe helping on offense, where he's averaging 12.2pts on .633 shooting in only 25.4min. Unfortunately the rebounding has gotten even worse (4.6rebs), which may not be surprising -- losing bulk as a big man is rarely a path to rebounding better.

6) Speaking of skinny guys, Mikki Moore has been a flop so far (24.2min 4.4pts 4.2rebs 0.4blk on .308 shooting). Combined with some implication from Reggie about his conditioning have to be concerend about multiple things -- contract year push last year, big contract laziness, or simple return to obscurity/scrubhood from befoire last year.

7) There seems to be some turn in the Kenny Thomas sentiment, which is interesting:

"Good" KT 07-08: 23.6min 4.4pts (.474 .000 .364) 5.6reb 1.2ast 1.4stl 0.2blk 1.4TO
"Bad" KT '06-07: 22.8min 5.3pts (.482 .000 .513) 6.1reb 1.2ast 0.7stl 0.3blk 1.5TO

8) John Salmons has been quite good (27.0min 11.4pts 4.2reb 2.2ast) which is good since he will have to start the first 7 games of the season with Ron out.

9) Unfortunately the flipside is that somewhat surprisingly Cisco has not been, and is shooting .333 in the preseason. With Reggie knowing him from the Lousiville days, there seemed to be a clear opportunity for him to establish himself as a favorite, but so far no go, and looks like Salmons will be getting those early season starts instead.

 

[BayAreaKingsFan]

Brick,

Just curious what our #'s would've looked like compared to last year before last night's 24 point beatdown at the hands of the Trailblazers?


Last night, there was no Martin and practically no Artest, whom I think are the Kings 2 best players.

In the end though, this is still preseason, and stats don't tell even half of the story in my book.

 

[VF21]

I don't understand how you can put any kind of relevance on pre-season games. Considering the number of people who were convinced the team would be a maelstrom of discontent right from the gate, would not show any kind of competitive spirit, etc. I think at this point merely seeing a few things that don't suck is reason in and of itself for rejoicing.

I'm not even going to comment about any comparisons to the Musselman regime, but I will point out that assists require both passing and shooting. If the person taking the shot doesn't make it, it's not the passer's fault. I've watched every pre-season game (I watched the Portland game on the replay) and I think there is reason for cautious optimism that this season will not suck anywhere nearly as bad as last year's. There are a lot of things going on right now that are so much better than last year that it's easy to almost convince one's self that last year was a bad dream (2006-2007 - the Kings "Dallas" season).

Mere statistics, especially this early, can be terribly misleading - and can lead to the formation of a lot of erroneous conclusions.

I say let's actually let them play some real games before we start saying it's no better than last year.

 

[Gary]

Hell, if we were going off of pre-season stats than 10 years ago Fundeburke would have been a beast. Remember the pre-season he avg something like 18ppg and 14rpg?

 

[PurpleHaze]

I agree VF21. I wonder if anyone has a list of the Kings record in pre-season over the past 5-10 years and then what transpired during 82 game regular season? Forget it - I don't want to know since it's meaningless. The pre-season is part of training camp - and so far camp seems pretty good (or hard work) - despite a 1-3 pre-season record. In that vein, I invite my new sign at bottom...

 

[gunks]

You know that SNL skit Debbie Downer? Where she bums people out and then there's that 'WHAA WHAA' sound effect?

WHAA WHAA should be Brick's signature haha

 

[BMiller52]

I agree VF21. I wonder if anyone has a list of the Kings record in pre-season over the past 5-10 years and then what transpired during 82 game regular season? Forget it - I don't want to know since it's meaningless. The pre-season is part of training camp - and so far camp seems pretty good (or hard work) - despite a 1-3 pre-season record. In that vein, I invite my new sign at bottom...

We're 2-3, probably 3-3 after tomorrow

 

[PurpleHaze]

Thanks for the correction BM52. It's pre-season for me too, as let that one slip. I guarantee during the regular season it could never happen - or highly unlikely.

Yep, should be 3-3 after tomorrow but if not don't worry be happy. 82 games is such a long season and hopefully without Ron-Ron for the first 7 the Kings can hold down the fort and all the Kings men will be back strong soon.

 

[SacTownKid]

Comparing such a small sample size to a such a large one is just, well...interesting talk but not much more.

And I agree with VF, the team looks very much improved as far as ball movement. So many missed layups and short jumpshots have robbed more than a few in the apg department. Douby should be averaging at least 3 apg if it weren't for so many easy shots missed.