DeMarcus Cousins is the team captain. That does not mean he is the team LEADER. Huge difference, which has been more than adequately explained by Brick and Slim. You need to re-read their posts.
Sacramento Kings
- Thread starter VF21
- Start date
DeMarcus Cousins is the team captain. That does not mean he is the team LEADER. Huge difference, which has been more than adequately explained by Brick and Slim. You need to re-read their posts.
And the thing is NONE of those guys would ever make a statement like "trust me."
Then by your reasoning, the kings have no leader. No one to lead. It means we have no franchise player because the franchise player is supposed to be our leader on the court.
Then the kings lack leadership from their players.
Is that written somewhere? DMC was actually stepping into the role on the court, which is what Slim and Brick have said. BUT without the guidance of Malone, he has faltered. That's not his fault.
Yes, because the players lack leadership from their coach. See how that all works?
captain bill
All-Star
I think we can all agree that he's terrible at press conferences, but he's our GM, not a media relations guy. He should be judged on his body of work as GM, which I think is pretty good.
I also think his waffling and inability to articulate why Malone was fired is consistent with that decision coming from Vivek and / or Mullin, and not from PDA.
Were up a creek regardless, but I don't think it's unreasonable to think that the Kings are in a situation where bad ownership is screwing up a good GM / coach combo.
If PDA is truly driving this train I'm pretty sure he would've given Karl a call by now.
Remember this:
- PDA is a Denver guy, who learned the ropes with Masai and George Karl. PDA was also described as a key part in helping Masai design the Carmelo trade, which should be taught in NBA grad school management courses as a prime example of clearing out inefficient players and rebuilding through desired role players.
- Joe Lacob brought the Warriors in 2010. Afterwards, the W's moved away from Nelly ball by parting ways with Mr. Nelly himself and then trading Ellis for Bogut - a move that is properly understood as slowing tempo and emphasizing efficiency and defense. Mike Malone was also acquired as part of this transformation.
-Mullin, on the other hand, was the architect of the "We Believe" Warriors, one of the best examples of Nelly-ball we've seen: an exciting, undersized, and scrappy team that can fill the seats and pull some upsets, but that gets buzz sawed by fundamentally sound teams. Basketball Jazz, if you will. Significantly, Mullin was let go in 2009, before Lacob came in, before the Bogut trade, before Malone was hired, and before Vivek came on board
Now Vivek, despite coming on AFTER Mullin was fired, picks Mullin as his right-hand man. Weird, huh? Couldn't have anything to do with Vivek falling in love with the We Believe Warriors. It couldn't have anything to do with Vivek being enamored with a style of basketball built on speed and movement and trying to use those principles to exploit bigger, stronger, and more fundamentally sound teams. Couldn't have been that he loved unorthodox basketball so much that he taught it to his daughters basketball team, only to learn that it was effective and brought him championships. Couldn't be that at all!
Read my sig. There's a reason it hasn't changed.
I'm going to jump in here again...all of your points have been addressed by Slim. The roster was turned over and Gay was the best player available. Many of the moves were made to turn over the roster, especially in that first year.
I'll go further, your assumption that Reke was traded to make room in the middle for Cuz is just so far out there it borders on ridiculous. BMac was BPA. Drafted for the uptempo offense. And your belittling of Mbah a Moute and what he brings to the game goes against his reputation and what type of player he is while calling DWill a more attractive trade chip. You should give that argument up. He was brought in to be part of the uptempo offense. Any spin on that is an extreme reach.
Lets look at some of these other moves...and though they may be small moves, they also speak to the fact the roster was being built a certain way after the initial purge.
Ramon Sessions. Not a half court defensive guy. Never has been. An uptempo push the ball guy and completely PDA's type of signing....in fact the guy was off to such a bad start that PDA felt it necessary to defend the guy during an interview. Called Sessions a good player if used right.
Drafting Nik over Elfrid Payton. Now I know that there are some people who valued Nik highly but a majority of the basketball world felt that Nik was a reach at where we picked him. Payton could have fit the bill as a defensive guard off the bench. Stauskas was most certainly not a half court defensive type.
But here's the main clinching point that this roster was put together with the PDA vision in mind. He's on record as saying from the start that he wants an uptempo pace...when he was first introduced and then during the firing of Malone in the post-interview when he said that anyone can run. It's DOCUMENTED.
If you can find anywhere at anytime PDA saying that he was bringing in players to play half court, defensive, grind it out ball. Then that would certainly carry some weight but that's never happened.
And we all agree that, the starting 5 IS best suited for the half court...everyone knows that except the people that write the checks and make the player moves.
I think the first year was just overturning the roster obtaining the best players available with the moves that PDA could make. The Evans and Gay scenario your pushing...way to many moving parts for their to be an agreement to make a deal down the road. Let me counter your proposal by saying, if PDA and Masai were in talks....wouldn't Toronto rather have Evans at the big contract and then maybe Salmons and PPat or some combination of 2or 3 others than Greivis and those others. Cause what your saying in your scenario is that Masai wanted Greivis instead of Reke. That part I can't buy.
randymoss1881
Starter
Why couldn't a coach get Evans/DMC to coexist with DMC staying in the paint? Obviously Malone thought he could cause he loved Evans and was planning on having both. We still could have made the Gay trade without Vasquez nobody else would have competed with us to get him. DMC/Gay/Evans is a real big 3 a leather one at that. Playing Malone ball and how we beat teams up and than you add a 3rd scorer who gets to the line also we would have lived at the FT line.
"Bounced around"? He hadn't bounced around when we got him. He'd literally played for one team in his career, the year we traded for him. And you should try reading for comprehension: I'm not "crying over" Mbah a Moute. If I were "crying" over any player, it would be that we have Williams, not that we don't have Mbah a Moute. The point is not that we gave up a great player, the point is that we gave up a defensive player, and got back a non-defensive player.
Of course you don't see my point, because you still believe that D'Alessandro's motives were in sync with Malone's, and they weren't. In order to see my point, you have to accept that this is not true.
You see players that look like they can do A and B, that are being used for B, and your conclusion is that that proves that they were brought in to do B. And I'm saying that you're wrong, and that the primary reason why Malone was fired was that D'Alessandro acquired a bunch of players that he thought could do A and B, when what he actually acquired are a bunch of players that aren't really good at A or B, but could be "coached up" to being competent at B, and he persuaded Ranadive to fire Malone because they weren't doing enough of A. It's not that D'Alessandro wants guys who don't play defense at all, that's a straw man. It's that he wants guys who can play defense who are also really good at offense, and only problem with that is that he thought that's what he already had, and he grossly miscalculated, but he fired Malone, anyway, based on his belief that he hadn't miscalculated.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...report-on-ben-mclemore-of-the-kansas-jayhawks
http://walterfootball.com/nbascoutingreport2013bmclemore.php
http://prospectsforthenbadraft.blogspot.com/2013/05/scouting-report-on-ben-mclemore.html
http://www.nbadraftroom.com/2013/01/ben-mcclemore-nba-scouting-report.html
http://www.nbadraft.net/players/ben-mclemore
Did you look anywhere besides SBNation for scouting reports?
McLemore was projected to be a Top 5 pick. And, if it weren't for totally unexpected, head-scratching moves like Cleveland taking Anthony Bennett first overall, he would have been a Top 5 pick. You don't draft a guy projected to be a Top 5 pick as a '3 and D' guy, that's insane. Before the draft, McLemore was drawing comparisons to such renown '3 and D' guys as OJ Mayo, JR Smith and Ray Allen. When's the last time you heard of a '3 and D' guy getting compared to Ray ****ing Allen?
You keep refusing to acknowledge that correlation doesn't equal causation. Yeah, we agree that the starting five that D'Alessandro assembled are "far more suited" to a half-court style. But D'Alessandro doesn't think so. You know how I know that? Because if that's what he thought, he wouldn't have fired Michael Malone. Do you remember, four weeks ago, when he said that he didn't think that the team was playing with enough tempo? Do you think I'm making that up, because I'm not. He doesn't want the team to play half-court, he wants them to run; those were his words. Are you going to deny that he said that?
I did respond to that, whether you want to acknowledge it or not. My response was that getting rid of Evans did not facilitate moving Cousins to the middle, like you say it did. We had a full quarter of a season (and 25% is no 'small' sample size by any reasonable standard) between when Evans went out and when Gay came in to prove that Evans was the reason why Cousins wasn't getting as many touches in the paint, and in those twenty games, no such thing was proven. Therefore, there was another reason why the trades were made, other than the reason you claim.
As I already stated, the reason why you're wrong about this is because of the words that came out of Pete D'Alessandro's own mouth. He thinks that the team was playing too much half-court basketball. He thinks that the team he assembled would be better if they played faster. That's why he said he fired Malone. If he wanted the team he assembled to play half-court basketball, Malone would still be here.
captain bill
All-Star
Gosh, I just love this argument. "Yeah, Pete made some great moves, but it was on accident!! He's a vermin gerbil!!"
And maybe, just maybe, PDA and Masai have similar minds about philosophy and recognized Tyreke (who I love and think is a great person and basketball player) to have a weird skillset that is hard to fit into a coherent system and that, just as Tyreke was an ackward fit next to Cousins, he would similarly be an odd fit with Lowry. AND MAYBE Masai was shipping out Gay for the same reason that Pete shipped out Tyreke - that they recognized they had better players to build around and wanted to get a better fit. These dudes worked together on the Carmelo trade to the Knicks, which was based on the same principles behind Reke to New Orleans and Gay to Sacramento: that sometimes you move out talent in order to make space for different players, and to acquire lesser players who fit into a complimentary role better.
And guess what? It worked! It worked for Denver, it worked for Sacramento, and it worked for Toronto.
Seriously? You're still going with the "Pete built this team on accident" angle?
You're reaching here. 2 years $4mm using the bi-annual exception. This was a prove-it deal to see if he could still play. You also conveniently leave out the Casspi deal, which was similar but has worked out better. All GM's take fliers on marginal players to fill out the roster. Pete hitting 50% on those deals ain't too bad.
Oh, okay. You agree he built a great roster but don't like some statements he made to the media. "Do as I say, not as I do." Also, "Don't publicly say things that will make your crazy boss fire you, too."
Your working definition of "franchise player" is based on a faulty premise.
He's also, as he took pains to remind us, a lawyer, an agent and a politician. He knows what he's saying when he opens his mouth. I won't call him a gerbil but I will henceforth call him Dr. Spin.
I'm not judging him by his body of work. I'm judging him by not finding a way to get along with Malone for the benefit of the team. Malone wasn't his guy and I truly believe PDA has been out to get him from day 1.
You have your opinion of him and I have mine. I respect yours but do not agree with it. I won't argue details because bottom line it won't make any difference. I am as steadfast in my opinion as you are in yours, and I think that's what is true with most of the posters here. Nobody is going to be changing sides in the near future.
EDIT: And you want to bring back Jerome James???????
They can't co-exist... They just can't unless Evans is going to play PG. DMC-Gay-Evans would have more ISO than the league combined. We've seen Evans and Cousins play together for years...they don't work...never had a winning season.
randymoss1881
Starter
We had bad coaching when Evans was here you have to give it a chance with talent like that. If anything tyreke could be traded or moved to the bench if it didn't work.
Oh good lord. We're gonna argue the whole Evans thing again? Hello? He's gone. He's not coming back.
captain bill
All-Star
The bottom of the article I linked to has snippets from 8 different articles, several of which describe Ben as "3 and D." In substance, the articles you quote say the same thing- good shoot but can't create his own shot; very athletic; and good defender / rebounder.
And I'm confused. Look at Ben today. Are you seriously arguing he's NOT good player for Malone's system?
You're missing my point - that IT WAS NOT PDA WHO WANTED MALONE FIRED. VIVEK RANADIVE is the one who hand-picked Chris Mullin, Don Nelson protege and architect of the We Believe Warriors, to run this show. Pete, who is said to have had a great relationship with George Karl, goes out and fires his coach, and then decides NOT to call Karl, who publicly and repeatedly states that he would take the job and that the Kings are not calling him???
If you are taking Pete's statements as gospel, as the whole and un-watered-down-for-PR-purposes truth, and then using that to read in ulterior motives to prior moves despite all evidence to the contrary, well, then I'd say you should step back and really think about how this went down. Pete still needs a job. He's not going to come out and blast Vivek in the media. He HAS to come out in support of the firing if he wants to keep working.
I said that Pete orchestrated a set of moves to turn Tyreke Evans into Rudy Gay. I said that Rudy and Cousins compliment each other very very well. Where did I say anything about dumping Tyreke alone being a good move? The whole point is that having a very tall mid-range shooter who requires the defense to stretch out (with some of their bigger players) makes Cousins life a lot easier, in addition to removing the expectation that he play a Tim Duncan / Pau Gasol midrange game - since that spot is now occupied by Rudy.
The "25%" is totally irrelevant. I'm saying that was a lame duck period before realizing the actual purpose of the trade, which was to acquire Rudy. You could pretty much say that about any trade - "Sure, it was a great trade, but we had two games before the incoming players arrived and we sucked! Our GM is incompetent!"
captain bill
All-Star
Okay sure, but *why* do you believe that? I listed a whole bunch of reasons in my original post why it's much more believable that this decision came from Mullin and Vivek, not Pete.
I know it sucks to think about, but I think it's more likely that this came from Vivek and Mullin, not PDA. It's unpalatable to think about, since Pete could just get fired but Vivek can't. I know it sucks to think that we might end up with Chris Mullin as our GM/Coach next season. I know it sucks that we lost out on Burkle, a proven and respected sports owners, and ended up with a carpet-bagger from Silicon Valley out to revive Nellyball.
But we know that the fans voice has power. You should know this more than anyone, as I know you were heavily involved in a lot of the efforts to save this team, along with CD and others. But, if I'm correct that firing Malone came from Vivek, than it also follows that Pete got trotted out to do the radio interview, with management knowing full well he was going to get blasted by the fan base on become public enemy number one. The more we pile on Pete, the more cover we give to Vivek and Mullin.
If we keep screaming to the heavens to run Pete out of town, don't be surprised tomorrow when we wake up tomorrow and find out that Mullin took over and traded Cousins for Swaggy P, Jeremy Lin, and some picks.
Your quoting me on things that i did not say.....so right now your arguments are consisting of using made up quotes against me and then ignoring the only factual quote which is PDA saying he believes in an uptempo team.
I had to go back and see if I actually said that PDA built a great roster......nope...didn't say that either. He's made some good trades and moves. You can quote me on that but that is not a great roster. The point being argued is that he made these moves to build a team for Malones philosophy. And he hasn't made those moves to build a team for Malones philosophy. And while you want to defend PDA as doing ok.....have you watched them lately? This mess can be directly attributed to him, so therefore I don't think PDA is doing ok. I think he's bordering on David Kahn territory.
Vivek's first hire was Malone. He had a lot of faith in him. PDA was brought on subsequently and, as it turned out, he and Malone do not/did not see eye to eye on key issues. PDA has Mullin on his side. They both go to Vivek and insist that Malone has to go or the entire scheme will be forfeit. Vivek buys in and lets PDA fire Malone.
Fast forward to the games since the Malone firing. Has Vivek looked happy even once? NOPE. I think it's pretty clear that he is not happy and I surmise that it's becuase he's beginning to realize he may have be sold a bill of good by PDA.
PDA was and is wrong. I will not change my mind on that. I think he - the lawyer, agent, politician - accomplished an excellent hatchet job on Malone.
I'm still not sure of the amount of influence Mullin actually has. I suspect he might be nothing more than the court jester, or a toady who makes sure he is on the right side of all decisions.
This whole thing is a cluster**** and I suspect there's a lot more going on behind the scenes than we'll ever know. I have heard from a variety of people in various positions who sometimes hear things themselves that a number of the other owners are far from happy and are being vocal about it.
I still blame PDA. He's a snake oil salesman extraordinaire. There are those who will say behind the scenes (and do not want to be quoted) that he is also a consummate liar. Based on what I heard during the Q & A, I have to give at least some credence to that thought.
We can argue forever, but as I've said before neither of us is going to change our minds. Have a nice evening.
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No, what I'm arguing is that he wasn't drafted to play in Malone's system, he was drafted to play in D'Alessandro's system, and that Malone repurposed him into something that was of better use.
No, I'm not missing your point. I get your point. I'm saying that your point is wrong. You are confusing disagreeing with you with not understanding you. You're saying that it was all orchestrated by Ranadive and Mullin, and I'm saying, no, it wasn't. You're saying that he's just an innocent bystander in this, that he's just spouting off what Ranadive tells him to, to keep his job, and I'm saying, no, he ain't. You're saying that the decision to fire Malone was not made with his input, and I'm saying, **** yes, it was.
You didn't say that "dumping Tyreke alone" was a good move; what you said was that "dumping" Evans opened up the paint for Cousins, and I'm saying it didn't. If anything, letting Thomas walk had a much more significant impact, in that regard.
Twenty-five percent of the season is not irrelevant, and comparing two games to twenty is a ridiculously specious false equivalency.
Chupacabra
Starter
I would like for KingsFanGer to publicly state exactly why he supports/defends PDA. For me PDA is a dead man walking and so I find it fascinating that anyone could support keeping him around.
PDA is smarter than all of us.. not defending him, but it would be scary to have me as the GM... I think Vivek is at fault for hiring a coach before hiring a GM. It just seems like the GM and coach did not get along.
randymoss1881
Starter
This is weak this isn't the first time a coach was there before a GM. Toronto was the same way and Casey was allegedly gonna be fired. They started winning and there GM adjusted and kept him. He didn't do sneaky bull crap like fire him when your star is hurt. It's simple we were winning PDA needed to grow up and build around they way we were playing. Not act like a little *****. What GM do you know that would fire someone simply because of style of play. He said winning didn't matter it's about style. Dudes a *****.
In a way, though, it is Vivek's fault more than anyone else. A strong leader will bring the two employees together, tell them to shut up and suck it up and find a way to get along and do their jobs. I cannot see Vivek doing this.
itzcoatl
Bench
Yes I agree with that to an extent. I just don't think that guys at the top of the ladder like a GM and coach should need an owner to iron it out. I don't fault Vivek for the lack of communication. But I do fault him for his response in either firing Malone or allowing him to be fired.
Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Please speak for yourself. I've gone over Pete's resume before. Its an educated man's resume, but there is no intimidating brilliance indicated mandating kowtowing.
Now Vivek may be brilliant, at least in his fields. But then again we may be finding out the limitations of brilliance overapplied due to hubris.
rainmaker
Hall of Famer
It's not about "getting along". It's about differing philosophies which were essentially polar opposites.
This isn't akin to two mechanics trying to figure out how to swap out the engine on a Mercedes and their personalities simply need to come together to get the job done. In that scenario, there's generally a right way and a wrong way to accomplish the task, which is pretty much by the book. The influence of differing opinion doesn't have the same impact on replacing a car engine as it does on building a team. But when it comes to building a team, or building a business, or a number of other endeavors, you need those with the most influence to be on the same page. Getting along really isn't a part of it. Disagreements are more than welcome, but they still need to work towards a common goal. It's getting their visions and goals to align, which won't happen if their philosophies are so far apart.
And when a coach and GM are hired with opposing philosophies, it falls on the owner, who hired them both rather than doing it how it's normally done and finding a GM who shares his vision and allowing him to follow suit and hire a coach who also shares that vision.
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CruzDude
Senior Member sharing a brew with bajaden
Throwing the ball repeatedly into Demarcus in the middle becomes a predictable play that teams learn quickly to throw double and triple teams at him decreasing his productivity. Sure, he scores a lot and gets to the FT line. But as they do that, his TO's and his frustration go up and each TO is a lost scoring opportunity and each frustration is a dangerous pill for him to take. As soon as the Kings learn how to pass-out to the wings and guards who can score (mainly DC, Ben, Nik and Rudy) more, the double and triple teams will become a liability opening up the Kings offense to everyone's benefit. The heck with run-and-gun. When the Kings play defense as in the first 15-20 games and like against OkCity, the faster pace game will evolve as a natural result of rebounding, steals and disrupted plays.
Firing anyone else (coach or GM) right now could throw the team into a tailspin from which they may never be able to recover. We don't want or need that. Patience. It takes awhile and were only 20 or 35 games into a new season (depending on where you start your clock) with new players and new coach and new sets and new chemistry and new confidences. My emotion is gone for now but am willing to wait.
A young bull and an old bull were on a hill looking down at a herd of heifers. The young bull said, "Hey, lets run down and get us one!" to which the old bull replies, "Lets walk down and get them all !".
Firing anyone else (coach or GM) right now could throw the team into a tailspin from which they may never be able to recover. We don't want or need that. Patience. It takes awhile and were only 20 or 35 games into a new season (depending on where you start your clock) with new players and new coach and new sets and new chemistry and new confidences. My emotion is gone for now but am willing to wait.
A young bull and an old bull were on a hill looking down at a herd of heifers. The young bull said, "Hey, lets run down and get us one!" to which the old bull replies, "Lets walk down and get them all !".
