Rebuilding

[Bricklayer]

Anybody who would not is nuts.

Again, there is that gap that for some reason people find so mysterious. Chris Paul is Great (big G). A HOF caliber player. One of the best PGs you will ever have the honor of seeing. David West and Kevin Martin are merely great, excellent players for their generation. But not all timers, and not guys you will be talking about in 20 years as legends.

 

[kennadog]

Anybody who would not is nuts.

Glad to know I'm not nuts. And, with 20/20 hindsight vision, I'm not stupid either.

 

[bajaden]

Because he didn't live up to tyrant's expectations. You have to pay attention, dmj.

For some reason I can't explain, I really don't care what Tyrants expectations are. Nor the opinions based on those expectations.

 

[CruzDude]

Considering the major, game missing early season injuries, the new PG/Beno without benefit of training camp, a new coach and a new game plan, the Kings did far better than the ranting/raving/whiners indicate. They showed they could, and did, beat the elite teams, every one of the division leaders, which they did not do the year before. And they really only had the new team together for 1/2 season with all the other new stuff.

Cool it guys!! Rebuilding doesn't ever get solved by trading your best player, whether its RonRon or Kevin (look at what happened to the Grizzlies when they did that!!! har har har!). The Kings won 50 games in 04-05, and 44 in 05-06. You don't rebuild with those records. In 06-07 it was the Musselman Mess and start of rebuilding whether anyone admitted it or not. It was also time for Adelman to move on for his own good. The emotional slide from the 02 and 03 years finally caught up.

And then this past year, new coach, new game plan, new PG for 1/2 a year, etc. So factually rebuilding started but was derailed by Musselman in 06-07. Then along comes Reggie the Ego Master and previous Shooting Master (never met a shot he couldn't/wouldn' take!) who wants to win games and therefore doesn't develop the younger guys. I love Reggie on the one hand but am suspicious of his methodology and question his "rebuild attitude". So how does last year fit in to the rebuilding they wanted Muss to do before he alienated the vets and the rebuilding they hoped Reggie would do before he wanted to win games first and foremost????

Hmmmmmmm............. patience my boys, patience. Trust in GP and the Maloofs. There is an expression I've learned to love. Two bulls, the old master and a young eager bull, were standing on a hill looking down at a herd of gorgeous heifers below. The young, eager bull blurted out, "Hey, lets run down and get us one!" to which the old bull replied, "Well son, let's walk down and get them all!!". Reggie the young bull and GP the old bull, eh?

 

[Kingster]

I'm reconciled to the fact that Petrie doesn't - didn't - want to dissassemble this team 3 years ago in order to get that top 5 or 6 pick that could get you a superstar. So we're not going to have a superstar for the foreseeable future. What do we have then? Three young players: Martin, Hawes, Garcia (the bench guy). Maybe a 4th if he picks a gem in this draft. By the time this team is credible the older guys (Miki, Miller, Artest, Salmons) will be on the downhill slide. But Petrie's goal is to make the playoffs with veterans, supplemented with youth, so he's OK with Miki and Artest and Miller and Salmons, despite their age, because in a year or two those guys will still have some game and then with salary cap help they conceivably can get you to the playoffs, at least for a couple of years. He's not thinking in terms of a championship team with these older players. So I can see us getting the 7th or 8th slot within the next two years. It's the proverbial "nice little team". Very uninspired in my view.
The only thing that can bail him out of this uninspired "strategy" is a greater fool trading partner coming into the picture.

 

[hrdboild]

That or a major run of bad luck culminating in a top draft pick. Or one of the late lotto picks we'll be getting over the next few years blossoming into a young superstar like Amare Stoudamire did in Phoenix and Andrew Bynum is doing in LA. Or Lebron James deciding in 2010 that he'd like to play for an even smaller market team. A lot of things could happen. As much as many of us would like to see a more proactive rebuilding effort, it seems like Petrie's strategy is to continue treading water with the best team he can assemble each year using draft picks and MLE signings until some good fortune falls in our lap and pushes us back into contention. I suppose it's worked before, but it's a frustrating sort of "non-strategy" if you ask me.