SacKings384
Starter
Really good article worth the read.
http://www.sbnation.com/nba/2015/2/...gs-lineup-starters-ty-corbin-demarcus-cousins
The Kings' starting five is great, so why are they bad?
- Thread starter SacKings384
- Start date
Really good article worth the read.
http://www.sbnation.com/nba/2015/2/...gs-lineup-starters-ty-corbin-demarcus-cousins
SacTownGrantFan
Bench
Because the rest of our players are the worst.
SacTownGrantFan
Bench
Think of them as the opposite of the Warriors; no depth yet.
G
GQ_Gabriel
Guest
Great article.
It touches on how Mike Malone was able to mask the issue by playing his starters heavy minutes.
Our bench is FAR from being an average NBA caliber second unit, I mean they really are TERRIBLE.
It touches on how Mike Malone was able to mask the issue by playing his starters heavy minutes.
Our bench is FAR from being an average NBA caliber second unit, I mean they really are TERRIBLE.
G
GQ_Gabriel
Guest
Carl Landry is solid.
Omri is average.
Hollins is average.
Ray McCallum is bad.
Sessions is terrible.
Derrick Williams is terrible.
Reggie Evans is terrible.
Stauskas is terrible.
Omri is average.
Hollins is average.
Ray McCallum is bad.
Sessions is terrible.
Derrick Williams is terrible.
Reggie Evans is terrible.
Stauskas is terrible.
SacTownGrantFan
Bench
You think Hollins is average?
Chubbs
Starter
"There's also a noticeable downgrade when Williams plays with the starting five in lieu of Thompson. Considering Cousins and Thompson are the longest-tenured Kings and have started together for much of 4-1/2 seasons, that the duo would be solid defensively is no surprise. The drop-off when Sacramento goes away from them is huge."
"Thompson is ridiculously better than Williams, especially on defense. Yet Ty Corbin chose to start Williams over a healthy Thompson Tuesday. Thompson's minutes have decreased since Corbin replaced Michael Malone. Williams plays way too much under Corbin, which is to say Williams plays at all."
So why would we EVER START Williams? Anyone?
That article says what many have said here over and over again. This team had a talent problem, not a coaching problem. Now it has both problems.
The FO is delusional to think this team was ever underperforming under Malone. Quite the opposite.
As a comment points out, corbin is playing this ultra successful starting lineup LESS while playing Williams 6.5 minutes more. What data point are they looking at? Is it just stubbornness, a refusal to acknowledge Williams doesn't belong in the league or what? I just don't get it.
Did they really fire Malone partly cause he wouldn't play Derrick bleeping Williams?
"Thompson is ridiculously better than Williams, especially on defense. Yet Ty Corbin chose to start Williams over a healthy Thompson Tuesday. Thompson's minutes have decreased since Corbin replaced Michael Malone. Williams plays way too much under Corbin, which is to say Williams plays at all."
So why would we EVER START Williams? Anyone?
That article says what many have said here over and over again. This team had a talent problem, not a coaching problem. Now it has both problems.
The FO is delusional to think this team was ever underperforming under Malone. Quite the opposite.
As a comment points out, corbin is playing this ultra successful starting lineup LESS while playing Williams 6.5 minutes more. What data point are they looking at? Is it just stubbornness, a refusal to acknowledge Williams doesn't belong in the league or what? I just don't get it.
Did they really fire Malone partly cause he wouldn't play Derrick bleeping Williams?
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MizzouKing
Starter
The abrupt coaching change left players feeling alienated and the ownership group on different pages.
The players are stuck with a coach the FO is committed to, who does not command their loyalty/commitment/respect.
The fan base is in revolt, angry at feeling betrayed and having post-traumatic stress flashbacks.
The owner has turned his back on the season and is looking ahead.
So why are they so terrible? Because they aren't stupid and know all of this!
The players are stuck with a coach the FO is committed to, who does not command their loyalty/commitment/respect.
The fan base is in revolt, angry at feeling betrayed and having post-traumatic stress flashbacks.
The owner has turned his back on the season and is looking ahead.
So why are they so terrible? Because they aren't stupid and know all of this!
Because Williams matches up better with Draymond Green, who starts for the Warriors, and Thompson matches up better with David Lee, who comes off the bench for the Warriors. Corbin did mention it in his post-game presser, and it's not really that hard.
And before anybody jumps in with the old "we should force them to adjust to us" bit, let me pre-emptively address that. The move to start Williams instead of Thompson was a defensive move. The emphasis on this board is defense, defense, defense. Williams is much better at defending a perimeter PF (to call Green a "stretch" is a stretch - he's a perimeter player) than JT would be. JT is much better at defending a post player like David Lee than D-Will. Sure, we could ask JT to post up Green, and we could ask Williams to blow by Lee and try to force Golden State to figure it out - but by doing that we'd be intentionally creating a more offensive game. We'd be asking if their offense from Green and Lee playing to their strengths could match our offense from JT and D-Will playing to their strengths. And that's a win for Golden State. We decided to match up defensively, and it couldn't have been too bad of a choice - Green and Lee each scored 8, which is below their season averages.
So, to sum up: We made a defensive matchup. It apparently worked at least a little. This board preaches defense. We should therefore be at least a little bit happy. We don't need to automatically complain and moan about every single little thing like it's a disaster. Look closer and sometimes you'll realize that it's not.
This. It's simply this.
G
GQ_Gabriel
Guest
Average isnt good. Average means youre good enough to be in the NBA, but thats it. Hollins can contribute when used sparingly and effectively in the right system. He isnt very good, just average.
SacKings384
Starter
Switch Evans and Hollins in that list and you've got yourself a solid list. I'd take Reggie over Ryan all day.
Chubbs
Starter
Oh cmon.
Williams makes no team better when he's on the floor and everyone knows it.
You went to elaborate lengths to show how starting dwill is really quite smart. Clearly, great choice, right? We only lost by 25! Remember how dwill didn't even play in the game before? The one we actually won? Then he starts? And that makes sense to you?
Paging Paul Westphal.
Anytime you can find a reason to start Williams, you've gotta do it. That's just NBA 3.0 in action. Us country bumpkins just don't understand it. Indeed, I should just shut up and watch the masters at work and stop complaining. Dwill dominated to the tune of 1-3, 3 rebounds, 2 points in 21 mins.
We need to get him out there more! I mean, double those numbers if he was playing 40 mpg, and we'd be looking at a 6-8 ppg, 6 rebounds,no steals, blocks or assists kind of a guy. That's the guy you want to replace Thompson in a highly effective starting group.
Dwill, you are the chosen one. Worth firing a coach over. Totally. Boy am I wrong.
G
GQ_Gabriel
Guest
I can see that.
Personally id prefer Hollins length over Evans rebounding, I think he can finish around the rim better too, but its a toss up.
Elektrik
Starter
The Kings are bad because the players feel they have been screwed by ownership...and they have been. They play because they have to and they put forth effort but they don't have the heart and desire that they had prior to the Malone firing. Cousins Gay and Collison all bought into a vision that was Mike Malone's. The players now all feel manipulated and resentful because they were misled by PDAS and Vivek. They played hard for the coach and at the time also for ownership. Now they don't play for either of them. Only for themselves which obviously isn't good enough. The state of our team reminds me of the "welcome to hell" quote of yesteryear.
TheJewishKing
G-League
Because current coach Mr. Corbin which I have lot's of respect for just can't use the bench the ideal way, there are no other words to say it, what I mean is that we had the same bench in the beginning of the season when the team was coached by coach Malone, Malone knew how to use the bench the proper way, bench looked very decent under Malone while right now the bench is not even mediocre..
Let's face it, the bench stayed the same, only that coach Malone used it more effectively than coach Corbin is using it right now, that's all.
Casspi looked better under coach Malone, Carl Landry and Reggie Evans looked better under coach Malone, Malone knew how to embed bench players with the rotation players which caused better results for both the starting line-up and the bench.
Starting five is the same starting five from the beginning of the season, only that in the beginning of the season the starting five blossomed under Malone while now it is being decayed by coach Corbin.
Let's face it, the bench stayed the same, only that coach Malone used it more effectively than coach Corbin is using it right now, that's all.
Casspi looked better under coach Malone, Carl Landry and Reggie Evans looked better under coach Malone, Malone knew how to embed bench players with the rotation players which caused better results for both the starting line-up and the bench.
Starting five is the same starting five from the beginning of the season, only that in the beginning of the season the starting five blossomed under Malone while now it is being decayed by coach Corbin.
Glenn
Hall of Famer
I am sorry if this is a duplicate of what has been sai before. I've been busy elsewhere and even forgot the game last night.
I don't think there is all that much wrong with our starters that a good coach couldn't fix. At the beginning of the season our starters were actually thought to be good. Upgrading the starters is a mistake but let me explain.
Our bench sucks. There is no question here. So what do we do? Do we upgrade the starters which is probably very expensive or direct our money to upgrading the bench? For instance, upgrading Collisen can be done but what would an upgraded PG cost? Collisen costs $5 mil or something like that. To upgrade him might cost $10 mil.
Now let's take a shift to the bench. The bench is close to useless. What would it cost to upgrade the bench PG? Certainly not $10 mil. We could probably have a darn good backup PG for $5 mil. I'll do a quick comparison: upgrading the starting PG costs $5 mil more than the present. The bench PG could be upgraded for an extra $3 mil instead of $5 mil. This would probably fix that part of the bench. Let us say an upgrade at SG would be another $5 mil or $3 more than what Nik costs. This might be a huge change of adding competence where there is incompetence.
The general idea is to be satisfied with our starters as upgrading them could cost an awful lot of money and might not show a huge improvement. Let's let the 5 we have get used to each other. A starting 5 of Collisen, Ben, Gay, JT, and Cuz is pretty darn good. It won't win an NBA championship but let's take this step by step.
Let us invest our money in the bench. As there are limits in what can be spent (CAP rules), I think this would bring the most bang for the buck. Let us have a bench that we are not afraid to put on the floor.
I am not sure I have written something totally understandable so I would prefer people ask for clarification than ripping my ideas apart right from jump street. As the general idea is to upgrade the bench before we think of upgrading any part of the starters mainly because there is more bang for the buck in upgrading the bench rather than the starters, it shouldn't be difficult to see where I am going. It is also easier upgrading a bench than upgrading starters.
I don't think there is all that much wrong with our starters that a good coach couldn't fix. At the beginning of the season our starters were actually thought to be good. Upgrading the starters is a mistake but let me explain.
Our bench sucks. There is no question here. So what do we do? Do we upgrade the starters which is probably very expensive or direct our money to upgrading the bench? For instance, upgrading Collisen can be done but what would an upgraded PG cost? Collisen costs $5 mil or something like that. To upgrade him might cost $10 mil.
Now let's take a shift to the bench. The bench is close to useless. What would it cost to upgrade the bench PG? Certainly not $10 mil. We could probably have a darn good backup PG for $5 mil. I'll do a quick comparison: upgrading the starting PG costs $5 mil more than the present. The bench PG could be upgraded for an extra $3 mil instead of $5 mil. This would probably fix that part of the bench. Let us say an upgrade at SG would be another $5 mil or $3 more than what Nik costs. This might be a huge change of adding competence where there is incompetence.
The general idea is to be satisfied with our starters as upgrading them could cost an awful lot of money and might not show a huge improvement. Let's let the 5 we have get used to each other. A starting 5 of Collisen, Ben, Gay, JT, and Cuz is pretty darn good. It won't win an NBA championship but let's take this step by step.
Let us invest our money in the bench. As there are limits in what can be spent (CAP rules), I think this would bring the most bang for the buck. Let us have a bench that we are not afraid to put on the floor.
I am not sure I have written something totally understandable so I would prefer people ask for clarification than ripping my ideas apart right from jump street. As the general idea is to upgrade the bench before we think of upgrading any part of the starters mainly because there is more bang for the buck in upgrading the bench rather than the starters, it shouldn't be difficult to see where I am going. It is also easier upgrading a bench than upgrading starters.
Glenn
Hall of Famer
Absa-****ing-lutely.
SacKings384
Starter
It certainly doesn't help that we signed Landry to such a large contract. I think anyone with an ounce of basketball sense knew that it was a horrific signing.
Williams: I would guess the playing of Williams before and after the coaching change, was at FO (Ranadive, Mullin, PDA) direction. It goes with their PACE thing, a very athletic DWill. I would suspect that both coaches could see the flaws in him but "boss says". Probably Malone spoke up about playing him and Corbin already knew the situation when he signed on. Nothing to do about DWill until Vivek changes his mind.
Thompson: He was probably identified as one who would have to go when the new regime took over. I don't believe either Malone or Corbin has played him as much as they wanted because of the initial prejudice and the insistence. on playing Williams.
Corbin: I believe the reason that he was signed for the year was because the FO (Ranadive, Mullin, PDA) weren't ready to hire their high quality coach and turn the reins over to him.
Ranadive, Mullin, PDA: The problem.
Chubbs
Starter
Re
willVery odd that Malone (on orders from the FO?) gave this big vote of confidence to dwill in the preseason, the proceeded to play him only 39 minutes with 5 DNP-CDs in those first 11 games. I believe actions speak louder than words, and that was the case there. Malone had no confidence in Dwill. Who in their right mind would?
Was Dwill's non-use a point of contention? I think thats very very likely. And I just don't get it. We took a gamble, failed, yet the FO will not move on. Careers on the line, and they're starting Dwill?
Really, I want to see the numbers that back that up.
Re
Very odd that Malone (on orders from the FO?) gave this big vote of confidence to dwill in the preseason, the proceeded to play him only 39 minutes with 5 DNP-CDs in those first 11 games. I believe actions speak louder than words, and that was the case there. Malone had no confidence in Dwill. Who in their right mind would?
Was Dwill's non-use a point of contention? I think thats very very likely. And I just don't get it. We took a gamble, failed, yet the FO will not move on. Careers on the line, and they're starting Dwill?
Really, I want to see the numbers that back that up.
I don't get it either. Ranadive over sees all this, after all he hired a personal BB consultant. That tells me that Mullin must be the driving force here. Hard to believe that these people would stick with a bum decision this long.
I agree with the general sentiment, and before the Malone firing, my opinion was pretty similar. I actually don't think the front office did a bad job putting this team together. As bad as we were last season, having an effective starting unit is a huge win. Until you get that you don't even know what you need on your bench. Some of the parts they picked up haven't worked out (Stauskas, Sessions, Hollins, Williams) but some of them have (McLemore, Gay, Collison, Casspi). And that starting unit was playing well together and seemed to have everything you need from your starting lineup. Find a few key bench guys to compliment them and we're a solid all-around team.
Where I differ now is that losing Malone (and subsequently tanking the rest of the season) has afforded us a different set of possibilities going forward. For one thing, we are actually back in the draft picture again which is significant considering the depth of this draft. Rudy signing his extension early makes him a known asset rather than an off-season free-agency target. And while normally I would say it's cold blooded to sign a guy and then flip him 6 months later, cold blooded seems to be this front office's M.O. and I'm not so sure Rudy wouldn't appreciate a change of scenery now anyway. Also, the biggest fallout from the Malone fiasco has been the complete implosion of team morale. Rather than building chemistry together as an up and coming team, these guys are developing bad habits and a surly indifference to the coaching staff and front office. That's not a good sign for the future. The fact that our front office willfully created this situation is upsetting, but it is what it is. We have to accept it and move on with the new plan at this point.
So what should we do differently? It wouldn't bother me if we broke up the starting unit, provided we go about it in the right way. Actually, I wouldn't think about it as a starting unit and a bench unit anymore. We should try to make the substitution patterns both more well-defined and more fluid. What I mean by that is that you can have a third guard play big minutes if they split time at both positions. When looking at upgrading the PG position and adding SG depth off the bench, it would help if we could combine them in one "Jamal Crawford"-esque package (that's in terms of impact more than play style). Someone who could play PG alongside Ben and SG alongside Collison gives us a lot of options to split up their minutes and keep the backcourt consistent. The same idea could be applied to the frontcourt. Most teams have 3 solid bigs and another guy at each position for depth. Thompson is a solid third big so the ideal starting PF for us would be a defender who can also play some minutes at C.
In other words, the positions are fluid as our starting PF and PG also become our backup SG and C but the roles (and minute allotments) are well-defined. In theory this makes our starting lineup stronger and our bench stronger and establishes a player rotation where there's never a huge drop-off in talent on the floor because the whole starting unit is never on the bench at the same time.
Thinking about it this way means we're not necessarily looking for replacements for our current starters and we're not necessarily looking for value bench players. What we're looking for is the most talented 9 man rotation we can put together. And if that means breaking up our current starting unit either by shifting guys to the bench or packaging one or more of them in a trade, so be it.
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randymoss1881
Starter
Reading that just pisses me off most of us in here knew that of we traded for some bench players we most likely a lock to get in the playoffs this year. We could have traded for JR/Shumpert or more recently T.Young/Martin our starter were great under Malone this isn't a revelation.
I would like this 100 times if I could. Since I cannot, I'm going to quote it for truth.
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