Some Random Thoughts about Beno, Salmons, Martin and Garcia

[MassachusettsKingsFan]

Alright, not sure if this deserves its own thread, but I'll go for it anyways .. if the mods decide to put it in another thread go for it ..

Here are some of my random thoughts Ive been having about these players lately .. Im interested to see what you guys think.

Beno Udrih - I like Beno. His ceiling is really hard for me to predict though ... Hes still pretty young (26, same as cisco I think ) He actually is one of the best points in the league when it comes to getting to the basket. I often see him talking to a player or two before every free throw, during every time out or even during the game itself. It seems like he knows where everyone should be and when a play breaks down it has been a player who wasnt listening to hims fault a few times this season. Deffinetly saw one last night where spencer ( i think ) wouldnt go to the block and instead set a pick and ruined a back door pass from miller by clogging up that area... is this guy a leader? Im not too sure about that either.. The turnovers ( which were in another thread ) are deffinetly a problem , but isnt that what young point guards tend to do? I see this as something he CAN fix .. and if he does fix that then how good is he? I hoestly think he has been the most conistent player throughout the season .. I see him setting players up ( mostly for open threes ) and having them miss, his assist numbers could be better but I think they would be on a better team. His defense is another story, I thought he played well against fisher last night but its average at best overall.

Salmons - Martin - Garcia : This seems to be our trio for now at the 2-3, I think Ive come to the assumption that Salmons and Martin dont play well together on the floor. This could be premature as they havent spent alot of time out there together due to injuries, but salmons needs the ball and the new first option martin needs the ball. I think the martin of last year who was a second option and played a ton without the ball could play with salmons, but martin has looked rather ball-hoggish this year .. He really wants to be the main guy but Im not sure thats a good roll for him. Salmons and martin dont pass enough for them to be affective on the floor together but I think both of there games complement garcia perfectly. If salmons could learn to kick it out to shooters when he makes the drive ( something he did once last night and it worked for an open three ) it would do wonders for his game AND this team. Salmons can get to the rim but I honestly dont think he is a great finisher because he doesnt know when to finish and when to pass so he tries to finish almost every time and he often misses or gets blocked. What Im trying to say is I think this team is most effective when Salmons or Martin is paired with Garcia rather than each other. I dont think salmons is a good enough shooter to play the garcia role when martin is in and I think martin really wants to take that leap to stardom and defering to salmons isnt the way to get there.


hmmm, so that was basically a rant with really bad grammar, but Im interested to see what you guys think ..

 

[Kingster]

Beno will never be a top tier point guard because he just doesn't have the quickness that it takes. That's why he does pretty well against the Lakers, who don't have quick point guards, and doesn't do well against the quicker point guards in the league.

For any GM in the league that might be facing the Lakers in the playoffs, and would like to have a player that makes Kobe work for everything he gets, Salmons value just went up, maybe way up. He's a nice bargaining chip for Petrie to have right now.

 

[Sptsjunkie]

Beno will never be a top tier point guard because he just doesn't have the quickness that it takes. That's why he does pretty well against the Lakers, who don't have quick point guards, and doesn't do well against the quicker point guards in the league.

For any GM in the league that might be facing the Lakers in the playoffs, and would like to have a player that makes Kobe work for everything he gets, Salmons value just went up, maybe way up. He's a nice bargaining chip for Petrie to have right now.

Also having two big men who can shoot (three if you count Thompson). The Lakers bigs can't guard the peremiter, but are both great paint defenders. If you look at the Lakers three losses they have struggles with Detroit with Rasheed hitting 3s and Prince playing PF for much of the game, Indiana with Murphy and Rasho killing them from the outside, and now us with Brad/Spence.

In our case, because our bigs can pass and we can initiate the offence though them in the high post, it foils the Lakers aggressive trapping defence as well.

 

[fnordius]

Here are some very random thoughts which include those guys, make of them what you will...

We have 3 sorts of players on the Kings: those who outplay their opponents, but don't make the team better, those who make the team better but get outplayed by their opponents, and those who fail to either make the team better OR outplay their opponents.

Those who outplay their opponents but have negative +/- scores:
Salmons
Martin
Garcia

Those who have positive +/- scores but who get outplayed:
Udrih
Hawes
Miller
Moore
Williams
Thompson
Douby

Those who have negative +/- scores and get outplayed too:
Jackson
Brown
Greene
Thomas

Pity that we don't have a single player that does both right, isn't it?

 

[Kingster]

Also having two big men who can shoot (three if you count Thompson). The Lakers bigs can't guard the peremiter, but are both great paint defenders. If you look at the Lakers three losses they have struggles with Detroit with Rasheed hitting 3s and Prince playing PF for much of the game, Indiana with Murphy and Rasho killing them from the outside, and now us with Brad/Spence.

In our case, because our bigs can pass and we can initiate the offence though them in the high post, it foils the Lakers aggressive trapping defence as well.

You have a point about the Laker bigs not guarding the perimeter. But the second point you make about our bigs foiling the trapping defense I'm not sold on, yet. In the 4th quarter of this last game the Lakers really turned up the pressure and we seemed to just barely deal with it. If the Lakers finally take the Kings very seriously in next game, they could give us that kind of pressure the whole game. I think that could give us problems, especially because Beno is not the quickest point guard in the league. We'll see...