Hadlowe
Starter
The question is whether he was the best pick for us, not whether some other player is putting up better stats than him who was picked after him. Where would we be right now with Cousins out if we had picked a PG instead?
1 and 4?
The question is whether he was the best pick for us, not whether some other player is putting up better stats than him who was picked after him. Where would we be right now with Cousins out if we had picked a PG instead?
That's not really saying much. Anyone is playing better than McLemore. By the way, I wasn't clowning on the Trill pick. I vouched for Trill for two seasons and he was what the team needed the most for a long time. He fell and I was elated he fell. I am talking more about the Ben, Jimmer, T-Rob picks...
1 and 4?
I just have a bad feeling that we'll look back at this draft 5 years from now and look at all the guys we whiffed on.The question is whether he was the best pick for us, not whether some other player is putting up better stats than him who was picked after him. Where would we be right now with Cousins out if we had picked a PG instead?
I just have a bad feeling that we'll look back at this draft 5 years from now and look at all the guys we whiffed on.
You can already tell that we failed in the 2014 draft..because we gave up on our guy for cap space. 2014 was the year that was supposed to be the best lotto draft classes in a loooong time.
Right now, I'm just not a big fan of Vlade's moves.
WCS filled an immediate need..just like how T-Rob did. In 2012, I wanted MKG or Drummond. In 2013, I wanted CJ McCollum. In 2014, I wanted Stauskas or Payton. We did draft Stauskas, but gave him up.
People were so surprised that Stauskas sucked after having to learn under 3 coaches all in 1 year. (None of them utilized him to his strengths either. ..because Andre Miller was such a good backup PG that we didn't need Stauskas to handle the ball)
I think if we don't reach the playoffs or at least 45wins, Vlade will be the worst GM in the NBA.
You really can't sugarcoat what we gave up for cap space...you really can't..
We gave up crap.
It was the move that had to be made. At a certain point not trying to make a move like that is not only lacking vision, its approaching cowardice.
But nothing will ever work without the big guy. That's largely true for any franchise though. Injuries to your The Man can always sink you. in fact already sunk this franchise once a decade ago. We're just in such a delicate situation after a solid decade of nonsense that even a 2-game miss because of a sore achilles is a threat. A month with a sprained ankle a disaster. We are so on the edge that it doesn't take anything serious now. We need 70+ games of Boogie. To maximize our chances we might need 75+
Ahhhh, I think WCS is going to be just fine. And, so far this year, Stauskas is playing well for Philly. He started the last two games and is averaging 14.5 points for those games. At worse, he's playing better than McLemore.
We gave up crap.
It was the move that had to be made. At a certain point not trying to make a move like that is not only lacking vision, its approaching cowardice.
But nothing will ever work without the big guy. That's largely true for any franchise though. Injuries to your The Man can always sink you. in fact already sunk this franchise once a decade ago. We're just in such a delicate situation after a solid decade of nonsense that even a 2-game miss because of a sore achilles is a threat. A month with a sprained ankle a disaster. We are so on the edge that it doesn't take anything serious now. We need 70+ games of Boogie. To maximize our chances we might need 75+
It's true that any team that loses it's best player is going to struggle. The Warriors without Curry are still a great team but with a greatly diminished chance at a championship.
But the Kings are much worse than most teams when Cousins goes down. And that's because the 2nd best player on the team has consistently shown himself to be absolutely awful and inefficient when tasked with stepping into the role of primary scorer.
Rudy Gay has been a good wingman for Boogie but he's a major liability when Cousins is out.
I saw somewhere thst Nik's TS% was above .500.Stauskas is actually shooting worse so far this young season than he did last season in terms of both FG% and 3P%.
Sure he scored 14 points in nearly 35 minutes in his last game but he also shot 5 of 19 from the field and 3 of 14 from three.
That said, if Nik is going to make anything of himself as an NBA player getting to play 25-30 minutes a night and having the green light to shoot at all times is going to give him the best chance to develop.
Very much so, but I also thinks it goes further than that. All successful teams have a good fundamental system that allows to cover for their star going down that much easier, whereas we do not. It puts a lot more pressure on Cuz when he is in, and makes it that much more devastating when he's not. Malone's system was "defense no matter what" which will keep you in games more often than not (his offensive schemes were not very inventive though). Karl's system is 1) dribble and drive; 2) ???; 3) profit.
I don't like the confusion and lack of organization, especially defensively.I completely agree. Also was I was furious over Malone's firing.
You have to have something to hang your hat on as a team regardless of whether your best player is out. An identity.
I thought that with a full training camp Karl would be able to give this team that even if it wasn't the identity I wanted. So far I'm not seeing it.
It's extremely early in the season and at most we're going to get 78 games out of Cousins. Maybe the title of this thread is serious.
I saw somewhere thst Nik's TS% was above .500.
I think Philly is a nice place for him to develop, but there's no reason why he couldn't be our Evan Fournier. Nik is talented, but he's just raw. The only downside to his game was his strength. He had everything else. Shoot lights out? Check. Ball handler? Check. Passer? Check.
His strength was his biggest weakness.
I hope Nik becomes a good NBA player, but at the same time if he does, it'll show how bad Vlade messed up.
Well, good point, but I was referring to the big picture overall. WCS filled a need we've had for some time. As much as I liked Stanley Johnson or any of the players picked after Willie, we didn't have a glaring need for any of them. I know some would argue that point, but that's my opinion.
It's true that any team that loses it's best player is going to struggle. The Warriors without Curry are still a great team but with a greatly diminished chance at a championship.
But the Kings are much worse than most teams when Cousins goes down. And that's because the 2nd best player on the team has consistently shown himself to be absolutely awful and inefficient when tasked with stepping into the role of primary scorer.
Rudy Gay has been a good wingman for Boogie but he's a major liability when Cousins is out.
Very much so, but I also thinks it goes further than that. All successful teams have a good fundamental system that allows to cover for their star going down that much easier, whereas we do not. It puts a lot more pressure on Cuz when he is in, and makes it that much more devastating when he's not. Malone's system was "defense no matter what" which will keep you in games more often than not (his offensive schemes were not very inventive though). Karl's system is 1) dribble and drive; 2) ???; 3) profit.
I liked Stauskas and I thought he was going to have a solid rookie year after watching him in summer league.
But Nik has more issues than a lack of strength. He tested well at the combine but in games he didn't show the lateral quickness to stay in front of guys. That combined with a lack of strength made him an easy target and opposing teams just went at him, relentlessly at times.
But the biggest thing for me was that the swagger he showed at Michigan was gone. He was tentative, often passive. I hesitate to throw this label around but to me he looked like he was playing scared. So much of the NBA hinges on confidence and I just didn't see it from Stauskas.
Yet, we were just as awful with Malone when Cousins went down.
That stretch continues to get overrated around here. Yes, we were playing good basketball and getting after it on the defensive end, but the shooting percentages were completely not sustainable. A full year of Malone wouldn't have been 45-50 wins, but closer to 35-38 wins. We were close to last in basically every major efficiency category, but got to the line a freakish amount of times, that it kept us (and won us) games.
Yet, we were just as awful with Malone when Cousins went down.
That stretch continues to get overrated around here. Yes, we were playing good basketball and getting after it on the defensive end, but the shooting percentages were completely not sustainable. A full year of Malone wouldn't have been 45-50 wins, but closer to 35-38 wins. We were close to last in basically every major efficiency category, but got to the line a freakish amount of times, that it kept us (and won us) games.