Joshyjosh31
Starter
How many shots is Keegan getting in that rotation 10-11 smh poor guy has to defend for the whole lineup and protect the paint for Sabonis
[News] Scott Perry is the new GM of Sacramento Kings
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KCKings
Prospect
You're right on target for Keegan. He got about 11 shots per game last year (10.8). He had 9.8 his rookie year and then 12.8 his second year. Here's a thought when there aren't a lot of other things to think about, NBA wise! I agree that with this lineup, there's not much hope for his stats to change, other than him shooting better in the Fall rather than the dismal shooting he's done at that time in his first three years. One, I hope that with the new offense, a point guard, and an emphasis for Keegan to shoot more that he would shoot more. As much as I admire DeRozan, it's unlikely that as long as he's here that Keegan will get many more shots. And it's unlikely that DeRozan will be benched. Two, an odd thing is that DeRozan averaged 36 minutes a game last year and Keegan 34! How is that possible? It would make sense, and it's plausible, for DeRozan, at his age, to go to 32 minutes and for Keegan to go to 36. So just make sure that when DeRozan is out for those extra four minutes that Keegan is in and instructed to be more aggressive. That would easily result in 2 more shots a game. Three, maybe he could have 1 more shot a game while playing with DeRozan.
That moves him to more shots a game than even his second year. He had about 10 his rookie year, 12.7 his second year, and 10.8 last year. Getting 14 shots a game could result in an average of 16, which would be great for him, his career, his pay, and the team. He averaged 15.2 his second year with fewer shots per game. Sixteen points a game is perhaps the most that we could hope for until DeRozan is moved (hopefully for a high level defensive wing who does not need to be a big-time scorer to keep taking shots from Keegan--not Kuminga!). One other possibility. Keegan averages about 1 free throw a game, DeRozan 6! If Keegan could learn from DeRozan before he goes to draw fouls better, that would be a bonus to add 1 or 2 made free throws a game.
That moves him to more shots a game than even his second year. He had about 10 his rookie year, 12.7 his second year, and 10.8 last year. Getting 14 shots a game could result in an average of 16, which would be great for him, his career, his pay, and the team. He averaged 15.2 his second year with fewer shots per game. Sixteen points a game is perhaps the most that we could hope for until DeRozan is moved (hopefully for a high level defensive wing who does not need to be a big-time scorer to keep taking shots from Keegan--not Kuminga!). One other possibility. Keegan averages about 1 free throw a game, DeRozan 6! If Keegan could learn from DeRozan before he goes to draw fouls better, that would be a bonus to add 1 or 2 made free throws a game.
Noble
Bench
Caccia
Starter
Where Carter fits in this is tricky. After going through a full training camp this year, the coaches may put him in the regular rotation. After all, the team needs defenders, and he was scoring virtually at will in the Rico Hines pickup games.
The past 2 2/3 seasons, Coach Brown kept one of Sabonis or Fox on court nearly all the time. That limited the rotation to nine players, essentially. Since Fox is gone, everything needs to be rethought. With a good training camp, Carter & Ellis may become a two-man relief team. Perhaps Monk, Carter, Ellis, LaVine, and Šarić/Jones for a small, super fast second team.
I mean we had a perfectly set up guard rotation before bringing in Dennis... 2 offensive guards in Monk and LaVine and 2 defenders with Carter and Keon. Mix and match the offense and defense.
But Perry created a problem that didn't need to exist. We "gap year" this season without clearing the runway for guys we need to get a clear look at. I would have perfectly accepted us not doing much with the caveat of carter, Keon, nique, raynaud getting clear rotation roles to establish themselves and give us an idea of what they are as players going forward
sono
Starter
Getting a few extra minutes from Deebo won’t change much for Keegan. He’s still stuck chasing the top players from positions 1 - 4 on defense, with little to no help. When Barnes was alongside him as a fellow wing, Keegan had the freedom to focus more on his offense while still being the team’s best defensive wing.
Asking Keegan to be the first or second scoring option while also serving as the team’s best defensive wing is a tall order to sustain over the course of a full season.
I agree with your second point, moving Deebo and replacing him with a true defensive wing is the only path to unlocking Keegan’s full potential.
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KCKings
Prospect
Good point. You're probably right about that dynamic of a worn out Keegan. It sounds like when it comes to paying him, unfortunately, he will be slighted because he's not scoring more. If he's the one top defensive player on the floor most of the time, it probably will undermine his scoring. The key is pairing him with one or two others more of the time, like Keon or Devin. A wild card is Schroeder. Can he play average defense? Above average? If so, that would help.
You bring up a good point about Barnes. For all the criticism, he was perhaps a better fit in that he was bigger, could play tolerable defense at this point in his career (not top level like when he was younger), and scored enough, 10-12 pts a game, to be a threat but not take too many shots away from others. If we could just have someone like the younger Harrison Barnes with his size and above average defense ... ?
You bring up a good point about Barnes. For all the criticism, he was perhaps a better fit in that he was bigger, could play tolerable defense at this point in his career (not top level like when he was younger), and scored enough, 10-12 pts a game, to be a threat but not take too many shots away from others. If we could just have someone like the younger Harrison Barnes with his size and above average defense ... ?
sono
Starter
I’m not too familiar with Schröder’s defense, but if he’s above average, that’s definitely a bonus. Still, regardless of how strong our backcourt is, we’re clearly lacking support in the frontcourt, especially at the power forward position. Keegan and the team need help at that end, yeah, someone like a younger Barnes.
We’ve always struggled against taller teams, and that’s been a consistent issue, especially against teams like the Pelicans and Rockets.
We’ve always struggled against taller teams, and that’s been a consistent issue, especially against teams like the Pelicans and Rockets.
Telemachus
Starter
He's a pest on defense. He's good at getting under a player's skin.
Kingster
Hall of Famer
Frankly, if one didn't have negative thoughts about the Kings at this point I would question the unnaturalness of the response.
SacTownKid
Hall of Famer
He was decent at one point. Those days are fairly distant by now. He can still defend when dialed in but his numbers over the last handful of years have been pretty pedestrian. The Warriors touted him as being the 2 way guy they needed and it wasn't a reality.
Caccia
Starter
According to StatMuse, his defensive rating was 112 in 2021-22, when he played primarily for Boston. Since then, it has not been lower than 116.6. But then, three of the past four years, he has been traded mid-season, not very helpful for sustained production. The one season he stayed put, with the Lakers, his rating was 117.2. Malik Monk's rating with the Lakers was 115.4, but with Sacramento, it has ranged from 117.4 to 118. It could well be that both players' ratings will improve with a better defensive scheme. After all, Keegan Murray's career defensive rating is 116.6, all with Sacramento, and we know he is a very good defender.
https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask?q=dennis+schröder+defense+rating+by+year
https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/malik-monk-defensive-rating
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Defensive rating is almost meaningless as a stat without context. It still has the same problems as most counting stats in that it's derived from them and counting stats aren't necessarily the best measure of defensive play. But even if we accept that it's a flawed tool you really have to compare players who are on the same team at the same time before it starts to tell you anything. Almost like Wins for a pitcher in baseball. Even if you're the best defender in the league, if you play on the team with the worst overall defensive rating your individual defensive rating will still be poor, but it's likely to be better than all of your teammates.
For instance, last season Malik Monk played 2054 minutes and had a defensive rating of 117, which tied him with De'Aaron Fox (1663 minutes played) and Keegan Murray (2610 minutes played). Of the regular rotation players on that team, Keon Ellis (1948 minutes) and Domantas Sabonis (2429 minutes) had the best defensive rating at 114. DeMar DeRozan led the team in minutes played at 2768 and his defensive rating was 119. The worst rating among regulars was Zach LaVine who played 1170 minutes for the Kings with a defensive rating of 121. Compare that to a good (but not elite) defensive team like Miami where the lowest individual defensive rating was Duncan Robinson at 117 (1785 minutes played) and the best regulars were Kal'El Ware at 108 (1422 minutes played) and Bam Adebayo at 110 (2674 minutes played).
For those who don't know, all of these numbers can be found on the "Per 100 Possessions" stat box for each team on basketball-reference.com. What happens with Defensive Rating is that the overall team performance sets the range scores will fall into and then within that range the better defenders will be at the low end (meaning they tend to give up less points than their teammates) and the poor defenders will be at the high end (meaning they tend to give up more points than their teammates). I've been looking at these stats since they first showed up online and from everything I've seen Defensive Rating for individual players is a heavily flawed stat that always gives better ratings to bigs who rebound the ball well. So someone like Keon Ellis showing up with the same score as Sabonis is noteworthy. Also, if you're comparing players from different teams across multiple years than you're misusing this stat to the point of being counter-productive in my opinion.
So how might I apply it instead in the case of Dennis Schröder? Well he played for three teams last season:
On Brooklyn he played 772 minutes and the range of Defensive Ratings for rotation players was 111 to 120 with Schröder rated at 118.
On Golden State he played 628 minutes... which is close to the cut off where the stat becomes too noisy to use. Anything under 400 minutes I'm not really going to count. On Golden State the individual Defensive Ratings worth counting range from 108 to 114, with that 114 score belonging to Schröder.
On Detroit he played 705 minutes and the ratings range from 108 to 118, with apologies to Paul Reed who played 438 minutes and was given a defensive rating of 103. This is how I would identify players who might be undervalued as individual defenders by the way. Paul Reed is a dude worth watching if you want value in a defensive rotation big. But back to Schröder, his rating for Detroit was 117.
What does any of this mean? Well for one thing I don't like individual Defensive Rating because it doesn't tell me enough to be useful. Fox, Monk, and Keegan all having the same score for the Kings last season is evidence of that. As a PG it's less useable for Schröder than it would be for most players so I personally would just throw this data out and look for things like opponent shooting % and deflections instead. But we do have three decent samples here which all rate him among the least effective defenders on his team in the most recent season based on posessions that result in a counting stat. I would expect that trend to continue.
Even then, it means nothing. Just too noisy of a stat that accounts for very little on the defensive end.
SacTownKid
Hall of Famer
Yeah, as said, defensive rating is a meh stat individually, still, those are pretty bad for individuals. His BPMs and defensive win shares are basic middle of the road or in the negative. He'll be better than Monk without question who is pretty horrendous on defense which all anyone needs on that one is the eye test.
Honestly, just watching a bunch of a guy on defense is probably still the best way to evaluate someone. But even then, defense is so team oriented and success relies on everyone operating as a unit.
It's sort of like evaluating an offensive line in football. Theres not really a super objective way to evaluate their performance, especially off a stat or 2
Insomniacal Fan
Starter
The best stats for defense I am aware of are on-off numbers, not that those are perfect due to their correlations with other lineup changes
KCKings
Prospect
Thanks for the stats and info. Wish it made things look better! It probably means that Keegan is in the same situation as last year. My hope for him is that the sober realization of contract talks that put more emphasis on offense than defense push him to do a little more. Plus I hope that Doug and the coaches facilitate him getting a few more shots. Like I said, just a few more shots could help a lot, from about 11 last year maybe to 14 this year, which should translate to about 16 points a game (much better than 12). Incredibly, he seemed to get better in the last part of the year in his shooting percentage, even with all of the chaos. If he can avoid the slump he seems to have at the beginning of each season, that would also help!
Caccia
Starter
Those stats are hard to find for free, especially stats for defense. Care to post any? A site called "Inpredictable" gives on-off "win probability" numbers. The top five players in on-off differential on the Kings last season were Sabonis (6.61); DeRozan (6.17); Monk (5.16); Carter (3.08); and Murray (2.62).
Strangely enough, the Kings tried to trade two of those players this summer. Monk was the highest ranked in clutch plus-minus differential, as well. That tells you a lot about how savvy the new front office is.
http://stats.inpredictable.com/nba/...te=tot&grp=1&mpos=100&sort=sdf_wpa&order=DESC
On/Off is great for a snapshot. Like our defense being 3.2 points better with Carter on the floor than off in his 397 minutes last year. Now, obviously a tiny sample and he had very few games where he got consistent run, but it's still enough where that's something the Kings should be exploring further. What's the split look like when he gets to 1000 minutes? 1500 minutes?
Keon was an excellent example of this. Forced his way onto the floor in 23-24, defense was 4.4 better with him on the floor in a 978 sample. Obviously a lot of turmoil last season, but backed it up with another very strong 1.5 points better in a much larger 1949 minute sample. And he's a real easy one to see on tape that the team is just significantly better on defense when he's on the floor. It's not just the "splash" plays and turnovers but just possession by possession having his ball-pressure and passing lane ability with quick hands really does matter.
I've also become a fan of looking at different 5-man lineup combos and net ratings there. Still ends up being very noisy, but again some good little snapshot type analysis you can gleam from those numbers. But absolutely nothing "definitive" like we can with offensive numbers to this point.
Insomniacal Fan
Starter
Good old bkref has them available. It doesn't seem like they ought to be a premium stat, as it should be straightforward to parse them from game logs
.
2024-25 Sacramento Kings On/Off | Basketball-Reference.com
On/Off Team Statistics
www.basketball-reference.com
Caccia
Starter
If I am reading the table correctly, the most important indicator falls in the last column. Players are listed in order of minutes played. Among rotation players, Sabonis leads the pack with a 5.6 offensive differential; Ellis with 5.1; Carter, 3.9; Monk 3.7. Zach LaVine, surprisingly, rates at -6.4.Good old bkref has them available. It doesn't seem like they ought to be a premium stat, as it should be straightforward to parse them from game logs
2024-25 Sacramento Kings On/Off | Basketball-Reference.com
On/Off Team Statistics
I like to look at 3-man lineups during the season, just to see who plays well with whom, but not as a precise indicator of how well any individual is performing. But if player shows up repeatedly in the top 3-man lineups, that means he is doing something right.
The first preseason game is still a month away. I should stop pontificating while I'm ahead!
Honestly, I'm throwing out on/off splits from last year. We just had a ridiculous amount of off court drama that pretty much made it impossible to build any sort of continuity during the season.
Full offseason, full training camp, full preseason. I'll be willing to reset my priors for this team and see how they perform from game 1 on
Jdbraver137
Bench
Not gonna win unless we get another forward like Keegan.
SacTownKid
Hall of Famer
That depends because it's not necessarily always defense based. Stats can be tough, unit stats are probably the closest to any true indicators. Stats will say a player who has a hand right in the other guys face on a shot that they hit 3 out of 4 times is a worse defender than one who stands 15 feet off and watches a player get cold on open shots and misses 3 out of 4. It's easy to tell when a player can't stay in front of someone or is consistently physically overmatched. Or when a team picks on someone because they know they can get what they want every time.
Caccia
Starter
Hard to believe, but there has been no real news or roster improvement in two months, not since Dennis Schröder signed his contract on July 7. Lots of smoke, but all mirrors.
Meanwhile, PJ Washington signed a $90 million contract extension with the Mavs. Monte McNair sat on his hands when PJ was on the trade market, despite the Kings' obvious need for a power forward.
Meanwhile, PJ Washington signed a $90 million contract extension with the Mavs. Monte McNair sat on his hands when PJ was on the trade market, despite the Kings' obvious need for a power forward.
SacTownKid
Hall of Famer
In looking at the Mavs on paper I think it's a good shot that PJ is going to be a trade candidate again sooner than later. They obviously didn't want to lose him for nothing. If he's a 6th man that contract will look just as bad as Monks at some point .
Joshyjosh31
Starter
I was in awe when they resigned him why does he wanna play backup minutes when he could start he should be atop the list if he becomes available
Yeah I'm really surprised and I get with the other moves they made why they wouldn't want to do/wouldn't be getting great value for what at the start of the offseason seemed kind of a logical Monk for PJ swap. But he is going to be pretty down on the depth chart in a year or two. He already seemed surplus but they were talking all kinds of crazy like playing Coop at the 1. so yeah.
when he signed the deal someone necro'd an old reddit post of mine to like rub that in or something, I'm still not sure where he fits on this current roster long term.
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