Race to the Bottom thread

Padrino said:
Eh. The Mavs are a 12-win team. You can't lin them all against the other bottom-feeders of the league. The Houston overtime win, on the other hand, was what I'd absolutely consider a bad woss, since an overwhelming share of backcourt minutes were going to DeRozan, Westbrook, and Schroder.
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We have mostly games against below 500 teams. If we don’t lose to them the gap will close.
 
sactowndog said:
We lose 4% chances and lose the likelyhood the backstop of getting Flemings as your worst case. You want to ideally be top 2 so your worst case is Flemings at 6.

This was a bad Woss
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AD getting injured pretty much made it inevitable. Dallas is an AD trade away from joining us in the race to the bottom.
 
I’m curious what the Jazz do if anything. They are in the midst of a tough schedule and are playing pretty well getting wins. Do they just go for it or hope for a minor Lauri injury
 
If Perry makes trades in the near term getting youth and picks in return for the old vets chances are there will be an onlslaught of lins coming our way and this team easily gets enough ping pong ball to get into the top 5. The worse outcome would be kicking the trade can down the road until the off-season, leaving us with fewer ping pong balls and less development minutes for the youngins currently on the roster. My patience is running out.
 
sactowndog said:
We have mostly games against below 500 teams. If we don’t lose to them the gap will close.
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And what I'm saying is, you can't expect the Kings to drop all of those games. That's fantasyland stuff. The Mavs are below .400 and currently without AD. You're not going to lose literally every game against the other teams racing to the bottom. This makes it doubly important to position yourself well for losses against above-.500 teams when they do come up on the calendar, like the Houston game before Christmas. There was no need to be playing the over-30s significant minutes in that matchup. Run the minutes distribution the same as the Kings did in the Mavs game, and it's likely they lose against a playoff contender like the Rockets. Better still if Perry can dump some of the Kings' aging vets in the next several weeks.
 
hrdboild said:
Kawhi and The Beard scored 83 of the Clippers 112 points today. This feels unsustainable, but it is nice to see them trying again.
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yeh they need another scorer. They traded Norm and then Beal got injured. Lavine fits in perfectly, they won’t have to pay much and they can rework his deal or let him expire after next season.

Beard
Lavine
Klaw
Jones Jr
Zoo

That team gets right back into the playoff mix
 
iowamcnabb said:
yeh they need another scorer. They traded Norm and then Beal got injured. Lavine fits in perfectly, they won’t have to pay much and they can rework his deal or let him expire after next season.

Beard
Lavine
Klaw
Jones Jr
Zoo

That team gets right back into the playoff mix
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They're 2.5 out of the 10 seed. Current 8 seed is .500 atm.

They have time, but they have to keep making their run now. For our purposes though, we just need them at least mid 30's in wins and they won't be in our orbit for tankathon purposes. Which I think they're quickly heading towards.
 
iowamcnabb said:
You could make an argument that it’s a good thing the Thunder get all these picks. They don’t need them and in most cases can’t even play them. Bad for other teams and the draftees though.
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My guess is they sell at least 2 of these picks and punt them down the line again. Keep the warchest stacked when they feel they need to make a splash.

Like you said, there's no room on a team that good for rookies to get any real playing time. It's better if they actually cash in on their warchest so they don't have the ammo to swing on a Giannis type play, if they choose.
 
iowamcnabb said:
You could make an argument that it’s a good thing the Thunder get all these picks. They don’t need them and in most cases can’t even play them. Bad for other teams and the draftees though.
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True, we did get one of their first last draft. Its them possibly drafting higher than us with that Clipper pick, but as mentioned they Clipps seem to be fighting and they still have us for four games.
 
I really hope the lottery gods are kind to us and we get a top 4 pick, race to the bottom sucks. As bad as we have been this season we are just as likely to finish 7th as we are 3rd

IMO there are 7 teams that are true contenders for the crown: Pacers (gross, may they be cursed ten years) Wizards, Nets, Kings, Mavs (if they trade AD) Jazz and Hornets. I think the Clips are out and I’m leaving New Orleans out because they want to win. If the Mavs can’t find a trade for AD and Lauri doesn’t get “injured” that might secure a top 5 finish for Kings.

I’m rooting hard for wins next year regardless what happens.
 
Angelo127 said:
What's sad about this is that there's so much season to go left, how do we proceed
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⛽ Fill up and enjoy the ride, I suppose. If you're not @SLAB, this is probably going to be hard to stomach for a while.
Let's see what the trade deadline brings (or doesn't bring.) My biggest hope is that DDR and Westbrook are gone, for different reasons, but also, kinda the same reason. Schröder probably ain't going anywhere, ditto Sabonis.
 
Spike said:
⛽ Fill up and enjoy the ride, I suppose. If you're not @SLAB, this is probably going to be hard to stomach for a while.
Let's see what the trade deadline brings (or doesn't bring.) My biggest hope is that DDR and Westbrook are gone, for different reasons, but also, kinda the same reason. Schröder probably ain't going anywhere, ditto Sabonis.
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I mean, if what you're looking for is good basketball, this season was always going to be a drag. Nothing about this team's off-season acquisitions suggested that the Kings were going to become watchable all of a sudden, particularly with a deeply uninspiring coaching staff in tow. So a calibration of expectation is necessary for the fans, if it wasn't already. The on-court product is abysmal, but shedding veteran contracts, getting younger guys more minutes, and positioning for the 2026 draft is the order of each and every day.

Add a Dybantsa or a Peterson or a Boozer or a Wilson or a Fleming to a theoretical core of Murray/Raynaud/Clifford/Ellis/Carter/Cardwell, and you don't yet have a competitive NBA team, but you do have a considerably more watchable product that would be worth rooting for, and a brighter future with the potential for building further through the draft, especially if you eventually hire a more effective and more modern NBA coaching staff to guide whatever young talent you're able to collect.

It's really not that complicated, since all it involves is losing a lot of games (which already comes naturally to this iteration of the Kings), getting rid of veteran deadweight, and utilizing your own existing draft picks, something any halfway competent franchise should be able to pull off. But we'll see if this franchise manages to Kangz things up anyway.
 
Padrino said:
I mean, if what you're looking for is good basketball, this season was always going to be a drag. Nothing about this team's off-season acquisitions suggested that the Kings were going to become watchable all of a sudden, particularly with a deeply uninspiring coaching staff in tow. So a calibration of expectation is necessary for the fans, if it wasn't already. The on-court product is abysmal, but shedding veteran contracts, getting younger guys more minutes, and positioning for the 2026 draft is the order of each and every day.

Add a Dybantsa or a Peterson or a Boozer or a Wilson or a Fleming to a theoretical core of Murray/Raynaud/Clifford/Ellis/Carter/Cardwell, and you don't yet have a competitive NBA team, but you do have a considerably more watchable product that would be worth rooting for, and a brighter future with the potential for building further through the draft, especially if you eventually hire a more effective and more modern NBA coaching staff to guide whatever young talent you're able to collect.

It's really not that complicated, since all it involves is losing a lot of games (which already comes naturally to this iteration of the Kings), getting rid of veteran deadweight, and utilizing your own existing draft picks, something any halfway competent franchise should be able to pull off. But we'll see if this franchise manages to Kangz things up anyway.
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Yeah Fleming is my backup plan. But that means we need to be 2nd going into the lottery so 7th is off the table
 
sactowndog said:
Yeah Fleming is my backup plan. But that means we need to be 2nd going into the lottery so 7th is off the table
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Flemings looks great, we need a floor general more than anything. Just need to make sure the Houston alumni and San Antonio native meets a California girl and is happy to settle here.
 
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Padrino said:
I mean, if what you're looking for is good basketball, this season was always going to be a drag. Nothing about this team's off-season acquisitions suggested that the Kings were going to become watchable all of a sudden, particularly with a deeply uninspiring coaching staff in tow. So a calibration of expectation is necessary for the fans, if it wasn't already. The on-court product is abysmal, but shedding veteran contracts, getting younger guys more minutes, and positioning for the 2026 draft is the order of each and every day.

Add a Dybantsa or a Peterson or a Boozer or a Wilson or a Fleming to a theoretical core of Murray/Raynaud/Clifford/Ellis/Carter/Cardwell, and you don't yet have a competitive NBA team, but you do have a considerably more watchable product that would be worth rooting for, and a brighter future with the potential for building further through the draft, especially if you eventually hire a more effective and more modern NBA coaching staff to guide whatever young talent you're able to collect.

It's really not that complicated, since all it involves is losing a lot of games (which already comes naturally to this iteration of the Kings), getting rid of veteran deadweight, and utilizing your own existing draft picks, something any halfway competent franchise should be able to pull off. But we'll see if this franchise manages to Kangz things up anyway.
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Doug is doing everything to sabotage the free fall with his vets. He must have Vivek's full support, who architected this entire mess. They are just ignoring the bigger picture.
 
Clips have won 6 in a row and are right on the tail of the Blazers for the 10th seed. I won’t be surprised if they are in the play in at the end of this month.

Jazz are right on the edge of falling out of the play-in race and a growing contender for the Race to the Bottom.
 
I hate to say it, but the Kings could probably use a rough stretch here in January to give themselves some wiggle room over teams like Dallas who are allegedly going to pull the plug.

Right now I’m projecting a 26-56 record for the Kings which would have been good for 6th in lottery odds last year. It’s possible we only have 1 or 2 teams that finish in the teens for wins so the other 4 or 5 could be in that 20-28 range.
 
Jazz shamelessly trying to tank again. Now that Keyonte George has broke out he’ll have chronic Pretendonitis like Lauri now. Neither played tonight but still Kyle Anderson and Cody Williams made it a game. NBA needs to fine them already. They were the most blatant last season as well.

Kings are atleast legitimately terrible.

Good news is the Clippers have taken off and will be in the play in.

At this point, Kings would have to have a pretty good record over the last 48 games to fall out of the top 5.

25 wins is a long shot even before you consider the coming fire sale. So we’re in good shape.
 
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