Rudy Gay to play at the 4?
- Thread starter King Baller
- Start date
Major echoes of Nellie.
Seriously. That was always that old loser's philosophy. Or at least it was for the final 25 years of his career after he couldn't get over the hump trying to play serious ball in Milwaulkee.
The grand total of team's who've ever had that work at a high level is 1, and that 1 was starting a 6'8" 250+lb "small" forward there. And they STILL recognized it as a weakness and tried to patch it.
Having a smallball PF option as an arrow in your quiver is handy to the point of being necessary. Actually running with it as your main strategy is the stuff of losers. If you give up the interior in order to go get your perimeter people some more points, you will always lose in the end. Unless of course you have one of the 10 Greatest Players of all time with the size and strength of a PF to cover you.
Seriously. That was always that old loser's philosophy. Or at least it was for the final 25 years of his career after he couldn't get over the hump trying to play serious ball in Milwaulkee.
The grand total of team's who've ever had that work at a high level is 1, and that 1 was starting a 6'8" 250+lb "small" forward there. And they STILL recognized it as a weakness and tried to patch it.
Having a smallball PF option as an arrow in your quiver is handy to the point of being necessary. Actually running with it as your main strategy is the stuff of losers. If you give up the interior in order to go get your perimeter people some more points, you will always lose in the end. Unless of course you have one of the 10 Greatest Players of all time with the size and strength of a PF to cover you.
Let's have fun backing up our opinion with actual numbers rather than useless drivel shall we?
FGA 16 ft and further out/FGA Total-
Ibaka- 434/786--- 55.2%
Dirk 546/930--- 58.7%
LMA 539/1218--- 44.2%
Donatas-- 137/675 (127 3s, almost no mid-range jumpers)---- 20.2%
AD- 306/984--- 31.1%
BG- 381/972--- 39.1%
ZBO 136/794--- 17.1%
Draymond 340/670-- 50.7%
Tiago 5/257--- 2.0%
Exactly ONE of those PF's is a bad match-up for Rudy and it's ZBO. One. He's a dying breed at the PF position as one of the last (really only) guys who like to bang inside and play in the post. LMA, Dirk, Ibaka shoot mid-range jumpers and live on the outside. BG and Davis spend a significant time of the perimeter and when they do get to the basket, its most of the time using their quickness to beat you off the dribble from the elbow/high post, or through the PnR. And if Tiago Splitter or Donatas are beating you, then you got bigger problems.
And THEN there's also the factor that all those guys who have to deal with Rudy on the offensive end, where I'd say he has a quickness advantage on all of them, sans possibly Davis. And I very much like the idea of getting 2 good rebounders, ZBO and BG away from the rim and as well as the 2 best goalies in basketball, Davis and Ibaka. Might help that Cousins get some easier looks just maybe?
Once again, you fail to grasp that the PF position has completely changed and it's necessary to have someone who can defend out to the 3pt line and deal with the quickness and shooting ability of the elite talent at the 4. We ain't in the 90's anymore Todo.
With all this said, I'm not necessarily advocating that Rudy long-term at the 4 is the answer, but it's certainly not "loser Nellie ball" or "bad" to give it a shot to see how it works.
FGA 16 ft and further out/FGA Total-
Ibaka- 434/786--- 55.2%
Dirk 546/930--- 58.7%
LMA 539/1218--- 44.2%
Donatas-- 137/675 (127 3s, almost no mid-range jumpers)---- 20.2%
AD- 306/984--- 31.1%
BG- 381/972--- 39.1%
ZBO 136/794--- 17.1%
Draymond 340/670-- 50.7%
Tiago 5/257--- 2.0%
Exactly ONE of those PF's is a bad match-up for Rudy and it's ZBO. One. He's a dying breed at the PF position as one of the last (really only) guys who like to bang inside and play in the post. LMA, Dirk, Ibaka shoot mid-range jumpers and live on the outside. BG and Davis spend a significant time of the perimeter and when they do get to the basket, its most of the time using their quickness to beat you off the dribble from the elbow/high post, or through the PnR. And if Tiago Splitter or Donatas are beating you, then you got bigger problems.
And THEN there's also the factor that all those guys who have to deal with Rudy on the offensive end, where I'd say he has a quickness advantage on all of them, sans possibly Davis. And I very much like the idea of getting 2 good rebounders, ZBO and BG away from the rim and as well as the 2 best goalies in basketball, Davis and Ibaka. Might help that Cousins get some easier looks just maybe?
Once again, you fail to grasp that the PF position has completely changed and it's necessary to have someone who can defend out to the 3pt line and deal with the quickness and shooting ability of the elite talent at the 4. We ain't in the 90's anymore Todo.
With all this said, I'm not necessarily advocating that Rudy long-term at the 4 is the answer, but it's certainly not "loser Nellie ball" or "bad" to give it a shot to see how it works.
dirk will take rudy to the post and use his patented knee in your jaw fade away jumper. he can do that all day and score against rudy. look what he did to the miami heat in that finals series. lets be real here. rudy isn't a very good defender to begin with and now we are tasking him to try to guard some PFS? smells like nellie, d'antoni ball to me.
okc's weakness for the longest was their front court. they had only collison, perkins and ibaka before. now they've added kanter, mcgary & adams. they know they need big men to get the 'ship. we keep penising around with junkball (vivek's vision of reinventing the nba). our recent signing is a 6'10 shooting forward. PF or SF? i don't know if he's athletic enough to chase a lebron around court.
okc's weakness for the longest was their front court. they had only collison, perkins and ibaka before. now they've added kanter, mcgary & adams. they know they need big men to get the 'ship. we keep penising around with junkball (vivek's vision of reinventing the nba). our recent signing is a 6'10 shooting forward. PF or SF? i don't know if he's athletic enough to chase a lebron around court.
There's a major hole in your argument:
If I were, oh, let's go with Tiago Splitter, and I saw that Rudy was going to guard me, at no point would I say to myself, "self, I should take a lot of perimeter shots today." I would work my 16ft and further in game. They currently don't (or haven't) done that vs. the Kings because of having to body up vs. Jason Thompson, which is an entirely different issue, and, as our early results have shown, not as easy a task. Ditto Nowitski, and pretty much everyone except ZBo, as that is his game regardless of who's guarding him.
You can't just take those numbers in a vacuum and not apply the correct logic here. Rudy at the 4 would not make everyone else a perimeter player. You work to your advantage, and against a smaller player, that would be to play inside. Assuming a permanent change at the 4 (which I don't think is happening), teams would quickly adjust and attack accordingly.
If I were, oh, let's go with Tiago Splitter, and I saw that Rudy was going to guard me, at no point would I say to myself, "self, I should take a lot of perimeter shots today." I would work my 16ft and further in game. They currently don't (or haven't) done that vs. the Kings because of having to body up vs. Jason Thompson, which is an entirely different issue, and, as our early results have shown, not as easy a task. Ditto Nowitski, and pretty much everyone except ZBo, as that is his game regardless of who's guarding him.
You can't just take those numbers in a vacuum and not apply the correct logic here. Rudy at the 4 would not make everyone else a perimeter player. You work to your advantage, and against a smaller player, that would be to play inside. Assuming a permanent change at the 4 (which I don't think is happening), teams would quickly adjust and attack accordingly.
Draymond Green is arguably the DPOY of the year and playing the 4... He's the same size as Rudy. The problem? Draymond plays no offense. He's a very talented defender and has 10x the defensive tenacity that Rudy has. This move strikes me as a "Forget about defense let's just try to create matchup issues."
Is offense really our problem right now? The defense is horrific. There's not a team in recent memory that has been a SERIOUS contender just completely giving up on defense. Sure the Spurs gave up the old grind it out style... But they still play D... And it leaves Boogie completely exposed now. Funny how we went this offseason from hoping they would get a big man to help protect Boogie from having to pick up stupid fouls, to playing Rudy at the 4... Boy oh boy...
Now when you say "Well we're not going to be contenders anytime soon but it could help us win some games" I respond to you with this... Winning basketball games is important because it's about building a foundation towards something greater. Winning games by speeding up and abandoning defense is like building a tower and completely abandoning architecturally sound principles and using crap materials to do it. Sure you can build WAY faster if you just keep on moving and forgetting about the cracks, the holes, and the supports. You can paint over the cracks in your crap material to make it look pretty. But at the surest sign of force (playoffs) it will crumble. So you're just building this faux tower so people can look and go "See we're making progress." But for what? It's a fake tower. It's going to collapse. You'll eventually need to tear it all down and start all over again without ever actually finishing it. And you've spent all this time on this fake tower when you could have been building a solid one this entire time.
And when you look at Draymond, look at who is backing him up. Bogut. But at what cost? Bogut averages 4.2 fouls per 36. DMC is already leading the league in fouls (with 4.2). Now yo want to expose him more? And when he's in foul trouble he's not going to bother protecting the rim. So now players have to fear Rudy Gay when they come down the lane? Draymond average 3x more blocks than Rudy does...
Of course this all these issues are based around the idea that they care about defense at all...
Is offense really our problem right now? The defense is horrific. There's not a team in recent memory that has been a SERIOUS contender just completely giving up on defense. Sure the Spurs gave up the old grind it out style... But they still play D... And it leaves Boogie completely exposed now. Funny how we went this offseason from hoping they would get a big man to help protect Boogie from having to pick up stupid fouls, to playing Rudy at the 4... Boy oh boy...
Now when you say "Well we're not going to be contenders anytime soon but it could help us win some games" I respond to you with this... Winning basketball games is important because it's about building a foundation towards something greater. Winning games by speeding up and abandoning defense is like building a tower and completely abandoning architecturally sound principles and using crap materials to do it. Sure you can build WAY faster if you just keep on moving and forgetting about the cracks, the holes, and the supports. You can paint over the cracks in your crap material to make it look pretty. But at the surest sign of force (playoffs) it will crumble. So you're just building this faux tower so people can look and go "See we're making progress." But for what? It's a fake tower. It's going to collapse. You'll eventually need to tear it all down and start all over again without ever actually finishing it. And you've spent all this time on this fake tower when you could have been building a solid one this entire time.
And when you look at Draymond, look at who is backing him up. Bogut. But at what cost? Bogut averages 4.2 fouls per 36. DMC is already leading the league in fouls (with 4.2). Now yo want to expose him more? And when he's in foul trouble he's not going to bother protecting the rim. So now players have to fear Rudy Gay when they come down the lane? Draymond average 3x more blocks than Rudy does...
Of course this all these issues are based around the idea that they care about defense at all...
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Yet, as a counterpoint, against the Wizards Rudy spent much of his time guarding Gortat. Gortat went for a whole 6 points in the game - he didn't even attempt to exploit the mismatch. Is it because the Wizards aren't a smart team, or is it because Gortat isn't 100% physically, or is it because Rudy in the post against a bigger guy isn't that much of a mismatch after all? I don't know the answer, but it's not obvious that your average everyday post PF is going to abuse Rudy in the post. Seems like a wait-and-see scenario here.
I noticed last summer that Rudy put on some size and strength. I'd like to see him continue that training style. Try to just maintain his footspeed and keep getting stronger.
The more I think about it, he could be the ideal stretch 4 with his versatile skillset. I'll bet his shotblocking goes up as well. He's had some great blocks over the past couple seasons. He's fully capable. Get him down in there more often...and his blocks will go up
The more I think about it, he could be the ideal stretch 4 with his versatile skillset. I'll bet his shotblocking goes up as well. He's had some great blocks over the past couple seasons. He's fully capable. Get him down in there more often...and his blocks will go up
Don't think it's either/or. Seldom is. If trying this lineup improves our chances of winning sometimes then do it. Certainly we've tried the smash mouth way with a little success and lots of failures.
Isn't it true that all NBA teams play Nellie ball part of the time? We better get good at basketball in all it's forms or settle for mediocrity.
There is room for us all. Get 'em, Kings, tonight!!!
Isn't it true that all NBA teams play Nellie ball part of the time? We better get good at basketball in all it's forms or settle for mediocrity.
There is room for us all. Get 'em, Kings, tonight!!!
Have we though? Honestly with the exception of the beginning of this season, how often have we slowed in down and focused on d?
It's what is so strange to me. It's the only success we've had with this roster, especially our stars, it's supported by history in how you build around our talent yet from day one the focus has been on offense, pace, positionless basketball.
Why?
Fair enough. For the record, I think Gortat is a dummy. I think the Wizards are dummies. 
I think wait and see is likely the best approach, but Gortat wasn't on the list. My response was based on the list as presented.
I think wait and see is likely the best approach, but Gortat wasn't on the list. My response was based on the list as presented.
The Wizards are kind of notoriously stupid offensively. They rarely play to their strengths or take advantage of much of anything.
See what happens if we were to try that against the Spurs or Portland.
So let's theorize for a moment:
Let's say that Karl sees the way the NBA is moving/evolving, and decides to move Rudy to become a stretch 4 next year, primarily.
* Would that make it easier to find a starting SF that provides what this team needs, instead of finding a new starting PF that fits this team next year?
Also - how many PF's have the Kings had that did not work well with Demarcus so far in his career?
Let's say that Karl sees the way the NBA is moving/evolving, and decides to move Rudy to become a stretch 4 next year, primarily.
* Would that make it easier to find a starting SF that provides what this team needs, instead of finding a new starting PF that fits this team next year?
Also - how many PF's have the Kings had that did not work well with Demarcus so far in his career?
Having Rudy at the 4 can result in us being killed on the boards. If Cousins isn't in the vicinity, we're in trouble. We saw it today when we had Casspi and Williams at the 4. However, with Cousins becoming such a defensive force, it does make it not as imperative to pair him with that elite rim protector we have been talking about over the years. Again, I think to be a successful team you need to be a good rebounding team, I'm not sure how that works with Gay at the 4.
However, if that's the direction we're headed, I would prefer us to go after Middleton. If we use all of our cap on Middleton (I would stretch Landry in this case to give us more cap flexibility), draft Cauley-Stein, use the room exception on Aldrich, & sign A. Miller, Casspi, Turkoglu, & Bonner to veteran minimums, this is what our roster would look like next year:
PG - Collison/McCallum/Miller
SG - McLemore/Stauskas
SF - Middleton/Casspi/Turkoglu
PF - Gay/Thompson/Bonner/Moreland
C - Cousins/Cauley-Stein/Aldrich
This is how I would distribute the minutes:
PG - Collison (34 mins)/McCallum (14 mins)/Miller
SG - McLemore (28 mins)/Stauskas (20 mins)
SF - Middleton (32 mins)/Gay (10 mins)/Stauskas (6 mins)/Casspi/Turkoglu
PF - Gay (26 mins)/Thompson (22 mins)/Bonner/Moreland
C - Cousins (37 mins)/Cauley-Stein (11 mins)/Aldrich
Cousins - 37 mins
Gay - 36 mins
Collison - 34 mins
Middleton - 32 mins
McLemore - 28 mins
Stauskas - 26 mins
Thompson - 22 mins
McCallum - 14 mins
Cauley-Stein - 11 mins
Talk about 3pt threats all over the court for Cousins to find in case defenders are doubling him (Collison, McLemore, Stauskas, Middleton, Gay). It would definitely be an interesting team. That is for certain. If Cousins can anchor the defense (while Cauley-Stein anchoring it while he's in) and we can rebound well as a team, the offensive matchups would make it hard on our opponents. Collison, McLemore, and Middleton would be a very good defensive crew on the perimeter. Gay's defense at the 4 would be in question. He did very well against Davis, but there are much older PFs that have had time to add more muscle and strength. I'm not sure how he would holdup in said matchups.
However, if that's the direction we're headed, I would prefer us to go after Middleton. If we use all of our cap on Middleton (I would stretch Landry in this case to give us more cap flexibility), draft Cauley-Stein, use the room exception on Aldrich, & sign A. Miller, Casspi, Turkoglu, & Bonner to veteran minimums, this is what our roster would look like next year:
PG - Collison/McCallum/Miller
SG - McLemore/Stauskas
SF - Middleton/Casspi/Turkoglu
PF - Gay/Thompson/Bonner/Moreland
C - Cousins/Cauley-Stein/Aldrich
This is how I would distribute the minutes:
PG - Collison (34 mins)/McCallum (14 mins)/Miller
SG - McLemore (28 mins)/Stauskas (20 mins)
SF - Middleton (32 mins)/Gay (10 mins)/Stauskas (6 mins)/Casspi/Turkoglu
PF - Gay (26 mins)/Thompson (22 mins)/Bonner/Moreland
C - Cousins (37 mins)/Cauley-Stein (11 mins)/Aldrich
Cousins - 37 mins
Gay - 36 mins
Collison - 34 mins
Middleton - 32 mins
McLemore - 28 mins
Stauskas - 26 mins
Thompson - 22 mins
McCallum - 14 mins
Cauley-Stein - 11 mins
Talk about 3pt threats all over the court for Cousins to find in case defenders are doubling him (Collison, McLemore, Stauskas, Middleton, Gay). It would definitely be an interesting team. That is for certain. If Cousins can anchor the defense (while Cauley-Stein anchoring it while he's in) and we can rebound well as a team, the offensive matchups would make it hard on our opponents. Collison, McLemore, and Middleton would be a very good defensive crew on the perimeter. Gay's defense at the 4 would be in question. He did very well against Davis, but there are much older PFs that have had time to add more muscle and strength. I'm not sure how he would holdup in said matchups.
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I thought we used our stretch provision on Ellington and we only get 1?!
Anyway, Rudy as a permanent 4 is asking for trouble. It won't work in the long run. We are too weak on the boards and we see how much we struggle to rebound if Cousins is not in rebounding position.
I am not sure who would be a great fit and is attainable. For the time being I am comfortable with JT. Having said that, I would not be surprised in the slightest if we go hard after Faried or Anderson. I am not thrilled with either of them to be honest but I can see scenarios where either is a solid fit.
Anyway, Rudy as a permanent 4 is asking for trouble. It won't work in the long run. We are too weak on the boards and we see how much we struggle to rebound if Cousins is not in rebounding position.
I am not sure who would be a great fit and is attainable. For the time being I am comfortable with JT. Having said that, I would not be surprised in the slightest if we go hard after Faried or Anderson. I am not thrilled with either of them to be honest but I can see scenarios where either is a solid fit.
Cauley-Stein is a solid player, but if you pick him over any of Winslow, Johnson, and maybe a few others you might look like a fool if you already have your C spot set. This team can't have this many drafts where they select a player looking at backup minutes and in Cauley-Steins case, probably few backup minutes.
Rudy at the 4 or not, you can clearly see this team is missing the spacing at PF with him gone. Teams have swarmed the paint and it's caused the Kings to go into a hole until they can adjust.
Rudy at the 4 or not, you can clearly see this team is missing the spacing at PF with him gone. Teams have swarmed the paint and it's caused the Kings to go into a hole until they can adjust.
WCS is not a center, especially early on - not enough power, and quickness gets underutilized. You take him as a center, he's a mid-teens pick.
Stanimal isn't as quick as Artest was and it's not particularly close. RHJ is much more suited for that role, though without strong upper body, and his ability to defend in the post is superior as well - he was guarding Kaminsky, when bigs failed, not Johnson.
Stanimal isn't as quick as Artest was and it's not particularly close. RHJ is much more suited for that role, though without strong upper body, and his ability to defend in the post is superior as well - he was guarding Kaminsky, when bigs failed, not Johnson.
