Talented player/players that make their teams win>?

[Sac.Kings]

It's all good and well except he hasn't won yet, you can't say that people saying that there is a question mark on his ability to carry a team to win is "flat earthers" when he has yet to show he can carry a team. do i think he can carry a team? sure, but that doesn't mean people saying otherwise are based on nothing.

+/- isn't the "final resort" for this discussion nor the only resort as it is flawed and as shown takes into account things aside from the players contribution. as shown in the cases of Gasol and Paul (among others) how good your replacement player is affecting this stat.

At the end of the day Cousins played 59 games last season- we won 23 of them, even if you translate it to 82 games (which is a bit weird since Cousins has never logged 82 games, and hasn't passed 75 games since his rookie year) it still translates to 32 wins... and that is still really bad (the only team we would have passed is Denver).

At this point, for you, I'm going with option B: has an agenda.

You clearly deny the evidence in front of you and keep circling back to team wins. We suck without Cousins. Bad. As a team we still suck even with him, but he translates into 10-12 more wins alone, which is huge. You are missing the entire picture, you are only focusing on a portion of it. Bad teammates, 3 coaches, unstable environment all had a play on our record, not to mention Cousins with the virus. Not a single one of those things was Cousin's fault, but yet you hold him responsible that he was somehow unable to drag us to 40+ wins.

You have to be willing to look at things objectively and not subjectively. You have to take into account a lot of things apart from +/- stats and realize that the SACRAMENTO KINGS were largely responsible for their own demise this past season, not Demarcus Cousins. In fact, had it not been for him, we don't even win 20 games. Let us see what he can truly do now with a solid team around him for the first time in his NBA career.

 

[dude12]

At this point, for you, I'm going with option B: has an agenda.

You clearly deny the evidence in front of you and keep circling back to team wins. We suck without Cousins. Bad. As a team we still suck even with him, but he translates into 10-12 more wins alone, which is huge. You are missing the entire picture, you are only focusing on a portion of it. Bad teammates, 3 coaches, unstable environment all had a play on our record, not to mention Cousins with the virus. Not a single one of those things was Cousin's fault, but yet you hold him responsible that he was somehow unable to drag us to 40+ wins.

You have to be willing to look at things objectively and not subjectively. You have to take into account a lot of things apart from +/- stats and realize that the SACRAMENTO KINGS were largely responsible for their own demise this past season, not Demarcus Cousins. In fact, had it not been for him, we don't even win 20 games. Let us see what he can truly do now with a solid team around him for the first time in his NBA career.

Crushed it.

 

[peacelate]

The Pelicans had a much better bench. The starting 5 for the Kings was pretty good, but when they bench came in, everything came to a halt.

 

[Amit149]

At this point, for you, I'm going with option B: has an agenda.

You clearly deny the evidence in front of you and keep circling back to team wins. We suck without Cousins. Bad. As a team we still suck even with him, but he translates into 10-12 more wins alone, which is huge. You are missing the entire picture, you are only focusing on a portion of it. Bad teammates, 3 coaches, unstable environment all had a play on our record, not to mention Cousins with the virus. Not a single one of those things was Cousin's fault, but yet you hold him responsible that he was somehow unable to drag us to 40+ wins.

You have to be willing to look at things objectively and not subjectively. You have to take into account a lot of things apart from +/- stats and realize that the SACRAMENTO KINGS were largely responsible for their own demise this past season, not Demarcus Cousins. In fact, had it not been for him, we don't even win 20 games. Let us see what he can truly do now with a solid team around him for the first time in his NBA career.

Cool, and what that agenda might be if I may ask? since I said about 4 times that I personally believe he can carry a team, but I can see where people saying he hasn't prove it are coming from. And to say there is more than +/- stat was exactly my point! I made that point about 10 times:

do i think he can carry a team? sure, but that doesn't mean people saying otherwise are based on nothing.

I'm not saying that Cousins can't lead you to wins- I'm saying that this is not the place to look for proof that he can.
And I'll offer a prediction to end this- next year Cousins net +/- would be worse than this year- it won't be because he'll suffer a setback (I'll predict the opposite) but simply because the team now have better players (especially Koufos in that sense) that can carry the team a little better when he is on the bench.

And about the so called "evidence" I made a lot of examples on why I don't like +/-, starting from showing lesser players getting higher grades there, to giving examples about how having no legit back up affect this- this is not circling back to team wins, I didn't say "well but the team didn't win so that's that" if this is what you got from my posts I ask you to re-read them. this was the point I was making:

+/- isn't the "final resort" for this discussion nor the only resort as it is flawed and as shown takes into account things aside from the players contribution.

And at which point exactly I said he is the only one responsible (or the leading one) for the team losing? I'm not saying he is to blame on anything, my point was that I get why some still have doubts about him and that you can't compare a guy that played only for teams picking in the high lottery range to HOF's... I stand by both those statements:

Of course there are a lot of points to explain why Cousins haven't lead us to a winning season (yet), and sure- watching him play it's easy to sense something special... once he'll give a winning season (and I'm sure he will) you can go ahead and erase that question mark- but he has to prove it- by actually winning.

The objective vs subjective thing is really funny to me, here I am a Kings fan, on a kings fan-site, and all I'm saying is that I can see where people looking at him as unproven are coming from and taking issue with a specific stat and I'm not looking at it objectively... we'll have to agree to disagree on this one.

Sincerely yours,
Secrect agenda guy

 

[Sac.Kings]

Cool, and what that agenda might be if I may ask? since I said about 4 times that I personally believe he can carry a team, but I can see where people saying he hasn't prove it are coming from. And to say there is more than +/- stat was exactly my point! I made that point about 10 times:




And about the so called "evidence" I made a lot of examples on why I don't like +/-, starting from showing lesser players getting higher grades there, to giving examples about how having no legit back up affect this- this is not circling back to team wins, I didn't say "well but the team didn't win so that's that" if this is what you got from my posts I ask you to re-read them. this was the point I was making:


And at which point exactly I said he is the only one responsible (or the leading one) for the team losing? I'm not saying he is to blame on anything, my point was that I get why some still have doubts about him and that you can't compare a guy that played only for teams picking in the high lottery range to HOF's... I stand by both those statements:


The objective vs subjective thing is really funny to me, here I am a Kings fan, on a kings fan-site, and all I'm saying is that I can see where people looking at him as unproven are coming from and taking issue with a specific stat and I'm not looking at it objectively... we'll have to agree to disagree on this one.

Sincerely yours,
Secrect agenda guy

You say you don't like +/- stats, but you used them in your Chris Paul example, with regard to his backups and how they lowered his +/-... You pointed out that Chris Paul's +/- was less than that of Cousins (because he had good backups), but yet Demarcus Cousins is not allowed that same argument, that even without good teammates, horrible coaches/coaching, dysfunctional at best FO, and literally no proper back up, he still put up +9.5. If you do not believe in +/-, then please provide another way to objectify the way a particular player leads a team to wins. Regardless of your answer, I want to be clear: I am not for or against this "players who win" argument as I am in that section believes that there is a s*** ton more to winning than just a single player (not named Lebron or Jordan) making his teammates better.

To the second bolded part of your response, why can't you compare a guy that puts up the same stats, at the same age, playing the same position, to those before him, HOFers or not? People have been doing it forever. Cousins stacks up well against the most well known HOFers, so absolutely you can compare them. Now, comparing teams/wins is a completely different story and it is not fair to Cousins as he did not have a hand in this franchise being a mess.

In terms of him being unproven in regards to making his teammates better, I respond with this: You can't make horrible and low BB IQ basketball players into golden players. Trash is trash, and we have had PLENTY of trash come in through here. Cousin's two best teammates (prior to Rudy) in terms of talent level was an injury riddled Reke (who really doesn't have the heart, desire, or IQ to become great), and a selfish IT (I believe we even played .500 ball when Rudy showed up to team up with Cuz and IT). We added Collison and we were winning early last season before our epic collapse. If you look at the right spots, when Cousins was actually provided with the only two-three players that could dress themselves correctly in the morning and actually play basketball the way it was meant to be played, he was approaching .500 ball. There is smoke here, a spark, if you will. I fully expect it to become a flame this season.

I am not trying to insult you in any way and I don't know if I am misinterpreting your posts, but they come off as brushing off a bunch of evidence and interjecting a roundabout argument that really has no end. It just spins and spins and spins. Demarcus Cousin's job is to play basketball and to lead us to as many wins as possible. People doubt his ability to lead, but I don't think he would have any issue with leading or leading us to wins. Demarcus Cousins does not need to prove himself as much as the Sacramento Kings have to prove as an organization. They have never given him the tools to succeed and have constantly been their own worst enemy. If you or anyone needs proof of this, just answer this for yourselves: how many people from last year's FO have been kept for this year?

 

[Amit149]

You say you don't like +/- stats, but you used them in your Chris Paul example, with regard to his backups and how they lowered his +/-... You pointed out that Chris Paul's +/- was less than that of Cousins (because he had good backups), but yet Demarcus Cousins is not allowed that same argument, that even without good teammates, horrible coaches/coaching, dysfunctional at best FO, and literally no proper back up, he still put up +9.5. If you do not believe in +/-, then please provide another way to objectify the way a particular player leads a team to wins. Regardless of your answer, I want to be clear: I am not for or against this "players who win" argument as I am in that section believes that there is a s*** ton more to winning than just a single player (not named Lebron or Jordan) making his teammates better.

To the second bolded part of your response, why can't you compare a guy that puts up the same stats, at the same age, playing the same position, to those before him, HOFers or not? People have been doing it forever. Cousins stacks up well against the most well known HOFers, so absolutely you can compare them. Now, comparing teams/wins is a completely different story and it is not fair to Cousins as he did not have a hand in this franchise being a mess.

In terms of him being unproven in regards to making his teammates better, I respond with this: You can't make horrible and low BB IQ basketball players into golden players. Trash is trash, and we have had PLENTY of trash come in through here. Cousin's two best teammates (prior to Rudy) in terms of talent level was an injury riddled Reke (who really doesn't have the heart, desire, or IQ to become great), and a selfish IT (I believe we even played .500 ball when Rudy showed up to team up with Cuz and IT). We added Collison and we were winning early last season before our epic collapse. If you look at the right spots, when Cousins was actually provided with the only two-three players that could dress themselves correctly in the morning and actually play basketball the way it was meant to be played, he was approaching .500 ball. There is smoke here, a spark, if you will. I fully expect it to become a flame this season.

I am not trying to insult you in any way and I don't know if I am misinterpreting your posts, but they come off as brushing off a bunch of evidence and interjecting a roundabout argument that really has no end. It just spins and spins and spins. Demarcus Cousin's job is to play basketball and to lead us to as many wins as possible. People doubt his ability to lead, but I don't think he would have any issue with leading or leading us to wins. Demarcus Cousins does not need to prove himself as much as the Sacramento Kings have to prove as an organization. They have never given him the tools to succeed and have constantly been their own worst enemy. If you or anyone needs proof of this, just answer this for yourselves: how many people from last year's FO have been kept for this year?

The reason I was making the Paul argument about +/- (as well as many others) was exactly to show that +/- is a flawed stat in the respect, the comment on Paul was that his +/- went considerbly up (to a ridiculous +20 this year) as his back ups became weaker- I wasn't giving him anything, I was just trying to show the faults of the +/- stat (because i think what have changed is not Paul but his enviorment). and no- I don't think Pachulia is better than Cousins though he has a better +/-.

I don't think you can compare Cousins to HOF's because the reason they are HOF's is being successful, Cousins hasn't reached there yet- when he will go ahead and do it. that's my opinion, I think you can't compare between the two. and I don't like it when it's done with any player.

I didn't make the argument that he didn't make the other players better, simply because I don't believe in that concept. I'm talking about Cousins as Cousins. sure, when a player is good there is an affect on his team, but I think the "makes other players better" is more often than not just used to support things you can't back up and I guess we agree on that.
About last year, the 9-5 run is still small sample, and we don't know what will happen next season- but I agree with you that there were a lot of positive things aboutit and also think the team will get better and approach .500 ball.

This was about the use of a stat I don't like, and keeping in mind what Cousins has done and what he hasn't yet and not an attempt to "spin" things against DeMarcus, I do believe that he can lead this team to wins and I see the "ability to lead" argument as to vague (and I don't think the leader has to be the best player, you can have a role-player as a locker-room leader).

I just think we shouldn't claim Cousins is thing he is not (atleast not yet), he is a franchise player, probably the best center in the NBA and a top 10 player with the potential to become with time a top MVP candidate... but RIGHT NOW he is not a HOF, he isn't the MVP and no he hasn't proven that he can carry a team and make it a winning one- is that his fault? probably not, but nevertheless he hasn't done any of those things- hence in that regard he remains unproven (and that was my meaning).

I too believe that this season is going to be better, that Cousins is going to get more respect around the league and yes I do believe the media and Vegas have underestimated us.
But to prove them wrong we'll have to win, just like to get rid of this question mark Cousins will need to succeed on a winning team- I hope this team will be the 2015/16 Kings!

 

[k_dubb90]

Well I doubt anything can get worse than what was the 'complete circus' of last years season. I'm expecting at the least a battle for the 7th and 8th seed. We know if rondo doesn't work out we still have collision running the point and a much improved bench

 

[KingMilz]

The talent is there. The coaching is there. There is no excuse for this team not exceeding .500 ball. I don't want to hear about Cousins and the refs, Cousins and Karl, Rondo and Karl, or any other drama. Winning needs to take the place of drama on this team. Drama is the tantrum of losers. If they don't win, they can all be traded and then I'll give them a standing ovation for their last curtain call.

Beautifully said