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Cold
Guest
Good list, especially Drummond who looks real promising. Paul George may have superstar potential as well.
However, the rest of these guys are best served as complimentary pieces and not that transcendent superstar.
Good list, especially Drummond who looks real promising. Paul George may have superstar potential as well.
However, the rest of these guys are best served as complimentary pieces and not that transcendent superstar.
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Cold
Guest
Thank you for the great post.
Utah Jazz ticket sales are going up this season, despite trading away veterans and starting a bunch of young players. The fans are far happier with this new approach. Granted Utah has more young talent than we have, I see little return in playing Thornton, Hayes, Salmons, Landry, etc. this season. I mean, really, what do we get out of it?????
They are who they are. They've been in the league long enough. Nothing they can do in the next 70 games that will change their trade value from Marcus Thornton to Victor Oladipo.
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Glenn
Hall of Famer
This pretty much covers it.
"Tastefully tanking" must be a real skill but I hope we have that skill if it becomes necessary. I think we have adequate reason to play Jimmer, N'daiye, et. al. without aggravating the daylights out of the fan base. Heck, I'd like to see N'daiye play 6-8 continuous minutes. I might not like what I see but I'd like to see him on the court. If after a few more games, Thornton continues the funk, Jimmer deserves a shot. As to the Jimmer/MT discussion, we need to decide if our long term interests are served more by helping MT get his groove back or giving Jimmer a prolonged shot. Giving Jimmer a prolonged shot would be part of a tasteful tank.
I still think you are missing the point. They deliberately shed veteran talent and salary to focus on their buried young core. The fact that the young core is going to lose a lot is deliberate icing on the cake. We have neither the young core nor the ejected veteran talent/salary to pursue that (and the Philly, Phx) route. Had we elected to send off MT, Salmons, Hayes, etc this offseason and added/retained (ie. Evans) young talent, it may have made sense.
We didn't and we don't so what's the point? What do we really get out of not playing the guys we'd like to be able to send out in trades? Maybe 2 extra combos of lottery balls. Tanking is a purposeful and 2-3 year strategy. The FO (whose moves haven't impressed me so far) didn't have the time or inclination to do that. It's kind of hard to just make it happen with the lineup we have.
S
storisaurus
Guest
Tanking? Really? To even consider such an idea is disgusting. I don't care if you have the worst team in the history of basketball, you play your butts off night in and night out. It's called integrity. Purity. Character. Please don't take away the purity of sport, there isn't much purity in this world as is. You play for your teammates and you play for the people who spend their money to watch you.
Guys we have under the age of 25:
PG: IT,Ray
SG: Ben, Jimmer
SF: Nobody
PF: PPat
C: Cousins
So, how exactly do we play our young guys to tank? The only two positions it impacts are point guard (by squeezing out the one unselfish backcourt player) and 2 guard (by giving Mac/Jimmer MT's minutes). It has no impact on our SF-PF positions so we'd still end up playing Luc/Salmons/Outlaw/JT/Hayes. We wouldn't see if GV is worth retaining and we'd kill any trade value MT might regain. The point is we didn't plan to tank so its not as easy as it's being discussed.
PG: IT,Ray
SG: Ben, Jimmer
SF: Nobody
PF: PPat
C: Cousins
So, how exactly do we play our young guys to tank? The only two positions it impacts are point guard (by squeezing out the one unselfish backcourt player) and 2 guard (by giving Mac/Jimmer MT's minutes). It has no impact on our SF-PF positions so we'd still end up playing Luc/Salmons/Outlaw/JT/Hayes. We wouldn't see if GV is worth retaining and we'd kill any trade value MT might regain. The point is we didn't plan to tank so its not as easy as it's being discussed.
We were actually 11th in 3pt % last season. The issue was all our shooters were guys who liked to create off their own dribble. You know there's a problem when IT was the best spot-up shooter on the team last season. I didn't get into then, but the stats Padrino posted have a lot of context issues and are not even using the best efficiency stats. But anyway, not the point
This year, I expect that to change. Ppat and McLemore two "spot-up" shooters in the exact mold that we are looking for: guys who catch and shoot. Those are the kind of guys you want/need to spread the floor for DeMarcus. IT is one of the more efficient guards in the league. And if Thornton gets his head out of his behind, he's up there in efficiency as well.
It's also not entirely fair to judge a brand new offense this early. Also, it doesn't help that the 3 high b-ball IQ guys we went and acquired this offseason essentially haven't been able to play. You can tell GV still isn't 100% on the ankle, Mbah hasn't played yet, and Landry is still hurt. Having those 3 guys healthy and playing big minutes would have a much different showing on the floor.
Glenn
Hall of Famer
In a perfect world I would agree but if a tank got us the #1 pick, a mega franchise player for the next 15 years, wouldn't that be worth it for the franchise and the fans? The fans of this year could be screwed and I understand that. Padrino introduced the idea of tasteful tanking and that might mean giving Jimmer and N'daiye minutes. Believe me, I used to have your attitude but I now am seeing that a great tank can make for a decade of great teams. What's another bad year if it is an investment in greatness?
The NBA rules encourage tanking. I think the lottery odds need to be changed to make tanking less likely to lead guaranteed great results.
Again, I just don't think we have the young pieces to do it plus we need to do something with the vets we have.
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storisaurus
Guest
No, thank you. I prefer integrity, hard work, and the true nature of sport. There is no draft guarantees, as evidenced by countless #1 picks that were busts.
Also, playing Jimmer would mean more wins. Not sure I understand that statement.
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Cold
Guest
1 or 2 wins = the difference between drafting Demarcus Cousins VS drafting Ekpe Udoh.
1 or 2 wins = could be the difference between trotting out Wiggins VS Salmons, Randle VS JT, Marcus Smart VS IT next few seasons
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Cold
Guest
Positioning the team in its best position for future success is a great gift intelligent owners owe it to fans.
Making sacrifice now (ticket sale, fan backlash, etc.) for future gains is a vision, integrity, and true nature of a winner.
Or do you want 5 more 30 win seasons?
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Glenn
Hall of Famer
In the long run if we lost Cousins for the year with an injury that wasn't career threatening, this might be the best thing to happen to the team in a long time. It's not tanking and darn near guarantees a putrid season. If Landry was really that great signing who might have made a difference in this team, we have a nice start. 
Nobody's integrity could be questioned.
Nobody's integrity could be questioned.Not really how the lottery system works. You could make the same argument that if we'd just lost a couple more games we may have been in the position of a team that jumped us in the lottery. Or if we had slipped we wouldn't have even taken TRob and could have had Drummond. It's simply too much of crap shoot to depend on it. Again, you only use it if it makes sense with your personnel and that requires planning.
Some history on the team's real draft position for the guys you mentioned (which discounts that many of the older stars like Kobe/KG/Pierce etc were later picks as well):
Harden: 4th worst
westbrook: 2nd worst but slipped (may have ended up with Beasly/Mayo)
durant: 5th worst (portland who won had the 7th)
lebron: Worst
Kyrie: 8th worst
Melo: Worst
Rose: 9th worst
CP3: 2nd worst
Dwight: Worst
Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
In the long run if we lost Cousins for the year with an injury that wasn't career threatening, this might be the best thing to happen to the team in a long time. It's not tanking and darn near guarantees a putrid season. If Landry was really that great signing who might have made a difference in this team, we have a nice start.
No no no NO. This year is absolutely critical to Cousins place in this league, and ours too. If we lost him for the season even I might not even bother watching anymore. Be as bad as 07-08 with a bunch of nobodies and soon to be ex-Kings wasting time running around pretending to compete.
Tanking is an overused word. Most of the time it is just prioritizing. Prioritizing youth development over winning. Priortiizing capspace over winning etc. Well, for us both of those might be true, but so is this one: prioritizing Cousins developing into a franchise player over losing. Anything else I can see. But Cousins developing into a perennial All Star is by far and away the most important thing that could happen for this franchise this year.
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Cold
Guest
It is a crapshoot, but generally speaking, picks 1-4 have a significantly higher success rate than picks 5th on. Significant.
I once saw a chart where the NBA charted all-time all-nba, all-star, and all-defense selections. The dropoff was clear as pick # got higher. The top pick was MASSIVELY, MASSIVELY more successful than any others.
Just because players can bust, or teams can jump in lottery order, doesn't mean you shouldn't care to put your team in the best position to land the best possible pick.
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storisaurus
Guest
In the long run if we lost Cousins for the year with an injury that wasn't career threatening, this might be the best thing to happen to the team in a long time. It's not tanking and darn near guarantees a putrid season. If Landry was really that great signing who might have made a difference in this team, we have a nice start.
Disgusting.
Last time I respond on this one since we seem to be going in circles. I have no problem with a team deliberately setting themselves up for a youthful rebuild at ideal draft years. We DIDN"T do that. This team is not in a position to gain as much out of sitting vet's we either need to make decisions on or move in order to play mostly non-existent young talent.
This is the only distinction I am trying to make. How it applies to this team this year because frankly I don't really care about the abstract concept of tanking. If the team was suddenly able to unload our unwanted vet weight to bring in promising young talent and that whole arrangement led to a better draft position, great! Because it will mean we've shed salary, un-needed players and brought in more talent, regardless of what happens in the lottery.
If not, work with what we have and balance developing our young guys with seeing what we have in GV,IT,PPAT and trying to boost the trade stock of vets.
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Guest
There are far better ways to tank without injury to your best player. Sounds pretty depressing. Cousins is a 5. He's not a superstar point guard who has the ball in his hand. If ownership/management want to subtletly tank games, Cousins doesn't need to miss a game or play less minutes. Give him 40 minutes. Means nothing.
Let's be clear on 1 thing: no all-star for Cousins if Kings don't make playoffs. Very unlikely.
Let's be clear on 1 thing: no all-star for Cousins if Kings don't make playoffs. Very unlikely.
Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
If we're out of the playoffs in March, and the last 10 games we want to sit Cousins for precautionary reasons because of a banged up knee or some such...well normally I'd say go for it! But since Cousins is a mainstay on 3 of my 4 fantasy teams, and all 3 I actually drafted myself, screw that!
And what, have them freeze Cousins out? Sounds like a good way to have said pg get punched in the face by our star.
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KingMilz
Guest
If we get blown out of the playoff picture and have literally zero chance to make it half way through the season you have to tank, until than you go hard to win imo.
Cue my broken record: Exactly what would our rotation look like in a tank?
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Cold
Guest
I get what you're saying, but this sounds errily similar to what the Warriors did for 20 years. Play the vets enough to win some games, play the rookies behind the vets just enough to stunt the rookies' development. Miss playoff narrowly, summer comes, draft a late lottery rook with zero superstar potential, trade a mediocre vet for another mediocre vet because no superstars want to play here. Rinse and repeat.
Yikes.
Who are these mysterious young guys getting squeezed out of minutes because of bad vets, besides Ben who will probably increase from his 20 to around 30 minutes/game anyway?
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KingMilz
Guest
Imo you probably make some trades to make us worse and get maybe young unproven talent which might have potential. I can't really say much on the rotation but you would look to get slightly worse. But I really hope it does not come to this. S
Glenn
Hall of Famer
Oh, please, if you are going to say that something I wrote is "disgusting" at least elaborate on what has upset you so much.
Glenn
Hall of Famer
If we're out of the playoffs in March, and the last 10 games we want to sit Cousins for precautionary reasons because of a banged up knee or some such...well normally I'd say go for it! But since Cousins is a mainstay on 3 of my 4 fantasy teams, and all 3 I actually drafted myself, screw that!
The truth is revealed.
Glenn
Hall of Famer
I didn't postulate a faked injury of Cousins. Here's some history. In 1997 David Robinson injured his back in preseason. He returned to the Spurs in December. A few games later he broke a bone in his foot ending his season. Sean Elliot also was out for half a year. As a result of the predictably poor season the Spurs had as a result of these troubles and because of the percentage chances of the lottery, the Spurs ended up with the #1 pick who was Tim Duncan. Therefore in the next year the Spurs had Duncan, Robinson, and Elliot. There was nothing deliberate about any of this but voila! the Spurs ended up with Tim Duncan who has had a pretty decent career.
That's just the way it worked out and I doubt if the Spurs fans were upset at how it all worked out except for those who had Robinson and Elliot on their fantasy teams. That's all I was suggesting. I didn't mean Tonya Harding's friend would knee cap Cousins.
Was this tanking?
That's just the way it worked out and I doubt if the Spurs fans were upset at how it all worked out except for those who had Robinson and Elliot on their fantasy teams. That's all I was suggesting. I didn't mean Tonya Harding's friend would knee cap Cousins.
Was this tanking?
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