Rebuilding
- Thread starter steelevt
- Start date
Absolutely. I think that team would actually be significantly worse than the Kings, to be honest with you.
And I think you're putting way too much on Kevin Martin. The reason our team is below .500 right now is because we have an extremely poor front court who can't defend or rebound and because we have no true PG to run our offense through. Neither of those things is Kevin Martrin's fault.
And I think you're putting way too much on Kevin Martin. The reason our team is below .500 right now is because we have an extremely poor front court who can't defend or rebound and because we have no true PG to run our offense through. Neither of those things is Kevin Martrin's fault.
Martin is a part of an extremely poor defensive back court, which gives up penetration constantly, which causes our front court to look even poorer. He is as much as a problem defensively on this team as anyone else, some just don't have the balls to point the finger.
No one is saying he is a good defender, but to put the responsibility on his shoulders for our team being under .500, when even players like Kobe have had their teams below .500, is over the top.
well we had a horrible front court in 2005 and in 2006 but we still managed to get above .500. how were we able to go above .500 in both years you ask? in 2005 mike bibby was playing well and in 2006 ron saved our season. he brought energy, toughness and defense. and we still had adleman. now that all 3 factors are gone we're watching sacramento sink to the bottom. and martin cant do anything about it
But this whole argument is about blaming Kevin Martin for us being an under .500 team (which we probably would have been were it not for injuries). It is as if Martin could somehow singlehandedly improve our defense and turnover problems by himself, which, as you admit, are team wide and not the fault of any single player. My only point is that there really isn't much Kevin could have done, short of not being injured, that would have significantly improved our record.
Martin is the primary SF scorer for the Kings. Consistently 24-28 a night. He is not interior defense and he DOES take as many or more charges on defense as anyone on the team. He is the best scorer on the team.
Interior defense is a known. Brads leadership, assists, mid-range threat (to get the other C away from the basket) and down under work (such as it is) is the tradeoff for poor interior defense. Hawes looks much more promising in that area.
Mikki at PF is a good news-bad news. The good is his hustle, energy, 10-15 pts a night, some rebounding. The bad, well it is his bad, not much a stopper but better than about 1/2 the league starting PF's I'd say.
RonRon at SF is one of the best 2-3 in the league (the good news) but the bad is his selfish play, ball hogging and non-team play.
The rebuild is to get some really good role players who do one or two things really well, some to rebound and defend and others to score and spread a defense. Any combo of the two is icing on the cake (a Joe Alexander maybe?)
Interior defense is a known. Brads leadership, assists, mid-range threat (to get the other C away from the basket) and down under work (such as it is) is the tradeoff for poor interior defense. Hawes looks much more promising in that area.
Mikki at PF is a good news-bad news. The good is his hustle, energy, 10-15 pts a night, some rebounding. The bad, well it is his bad, not much a stopper but better than about 1/2 the league starting PF's I'd say.
RonRon at SF is one of the best 2-3 in the league (the good news) but the bad is his selfish play, ball hogging and non-team play.
The rebuild is to get some really good role players who do one or two things really well, some to rebound and defend and others to score and spread a defense. Any combo of the two is icing on the cake (a Joe Alexander maybe?)
Uhh, I think that if we had sunk to the bottom, we would have had the first pick in the draft. As a matter of fact, if my memory serves, we actually won more games last year than the year before. Damm, we have to put a stop to this trend. By the way, if Paul wasn't on that team, no one would even know who West is. He's no Karl Malone. I like him, and I would love to have him on my team, but lets not anoint him diety.
Its a problem to be sure. And we would never win a title with a guy too worried about padding his stats with leakouts and cherry picks to get down into a defensive stance. But we aren't even remotely CLOSE to that level yet. Right now we are in the talent accumulation stage. And Kevin is a young talent. That is what you accumulate. He has warts -- some try to totally deny them, some apparently go ape**** over them -- but either way they are warts only. With so many positions either too old, or too lacking in talent, a team in our position is not in position to get horribly picky about mere warts. If he was traded to the Spurs, you betcha Pop pulls him aside on Day 1 and has a little chat about the things you have to do to win. But that's not where we are at right now.
If we manage to somehow find a true superstar type player to lead us, a big rebounder, maybe even a shotblocker (poor Geoff just pooped his pants at the mention) or two, then we can sit down and say to a guy like Kevin, hey, we need you to get serious about the little things now. But right now, its a fact: Kevin's defense sucks. But its not determinative, nor even in the top 10 of problems we have. Most of the team's defense sucks. And even the guys who are supposed to be good at it don't seem to have any bleed over effect on the rest of them. We also don't rebound. Or pass. Or have a superstar. Or a proven PG. And we've got bad contracts. And a neophyte coach on shaky ground. And...
Huh, you trade a super efficient young player for what? I'm not a huge Kevin Martin fan but he's probally the most efficient young bulk scorer in the league at the swing. The last 2 years he's had a PER for 20.1/21 respectively and the last 3 years a TS% (true shooting %) of over .61 for prospective Kobe who is also a great player only has a TS% on 57% this year. You can't possibly trade a 25 year old potential all-star unless your getting a superstar in return. He is that good. Now this year he did get hurt ut the two previous seasons he was relatively injury free. Of all the guys on the team I think he's by far out best asset, with that being said I wouldn't trade him for most players in the league. Now the rest of the team including my favorite player Artest can be shopped and should be shopped if this team is looking to move forward but Martin is the last guy we can afford to move with the way the team is shaped.
With that being said I can't think of a team that has built around a great shooter who can't play D as their #1 option. Indiana tried to and it got close with Reggie. Ray Allen got to the ECF as well before this year as a #1 option in Milwaukee. I think we can build around Kevin being a great #2 option to a great big man or a strong PG or a strong efficient wing. If Kevin was a #2 he'd be one of the best in the league imo, now he wouldn't be a Manu, Gasol, Pierce, etc. yet but he'd be a very good young #2 option who has 7-10 good years maybe left in the league.
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