Thoughts about the season

[sterö]

Football season is oficially over for me since yesterday, so I can finally shift my focus to the NBA for the upcoming season.

Since the league stole the title from us more than 10 years ago, everything went south for this team. Years of terrible coaching, terrible on court products and terrible front-office decisions have pushed us fans to the limit. I remember too many occasions where I almost suffered a heart attack because of this team. But hey, we are still here and in my opinion, we have suffered enough.

My hope level is at an all-time high right now since I think we finally have all the pieces needed for a playoff run: Good starting lineup including the best center on the planet, great coach, deep bench. Let's do this. You owe it to us fans!

Go Kings!!

 

[Chupacabra]

I get the feeling that theres a reason why we arent pounding the ball inside to Cousins yet. We're showing the league that we can space the floor. We're trying to earn the leagues respect for our ability to score outside of the paint. Once we have that respect guess who will be seeing some man defense in the paint. I see what Karl is doing as making things easier for us to win games in the long run. I distinctly remember the Nuggets playoff run in 08 when suddenly denver started feeding the ball to Nene on the low and high block. Karl isnt dumb. He isnt pretending that Cousins isnt a low post player.

 

[Sac.Kings]

On ESPN, not that I really care or believe in their intelligence (or lack thereof), but they just ranked Ricky Rubio 6 spots ahead of Rudy Gay and Hassan Whiteside was ranked higher than Rudy Gay. Rudy Gay, at minimum, is a top 50 player in today's NBA. He's a 20 point scorer on a nightly basis. There are not 69 better players in this league than Rudy Gay.

I wish I didn't click the damn button. It's just utterly amazing that people can be this clueless about basketball.

 

[gunks]

ESPN is basically The Onion at this point.

Nothing can touch my hype levels.

This is the season we've been waiting for.

 

[nebs]

ESPN just pulled the Down in the Valley doc because of the KJ allegations.

 

[Bricklayer]

ESPN just pulled the Down in the Valley doc because of the KJ allegations.

Which is amazing because those allegations have been public knowledge for 20 years. In fact I think ESPN even did a story on them. So not lack of knowledge. Worry about negative press.

 

[Sac.1989]

On ESPN, not that I really care or believe in their intelligence (or lack thereof), but they just ranked Ricky Rubio 6 spots ahead of Rudy Gay and Hassan Whiteside was ranked higher than Rudy Gay. Rudy Gay, at minimum, is a top 50 player in today's NBA. He's a 20 point scorer on a nightly basis. There are not 69 better players in this league than Rudy Gay.

I wish I didn't click the damn button. It's just utterly amazing that people can be this clueless about basketball.

Agreed. No one benefits more from Karls system then Rudy who has been nothing short of great for us since we acquired him.

Im very much looking forward to having the Rudy light up opponents and leveraging his strengths from the PF spot.

Rudy is a top 3 SF in the west. Nothing short of consistently solid.

 

[Sac.Kings]

Agreed. No one benefits more from Karls system then Rudy who has been nothing short of great for us since we acquired him.

Im very much looking forward to having the Rudy light up opponents and leveraging his strengths from the PF spot.

Rudy is a top 3 SF in the west. Nothing short of consistently solid.

Rudy has looked far more comfortable in this offense than Cousins, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Rudy's PPG shoots up a couple of points. During work today, I couldn't help but think about how George Karl seems to be treating Cousins in the same manner as he did Carmelo. Carmelo's game in Denver was a mixture of post-ups, threes, and mid-range shots, with occasional drives to the hoop. Karl is playing Cousins in the same exact manner, except Cousins is not Carmelo. He's not the same shooter (obviously - he's a big man) and he's much more liable to turnovers while driving to the hoop from 3. I've already seen a handful of occasions when Cousins drives from the three point line and a guard pokes his hand in there and pries it loose.

Cousins is who he is. Why turn him into something he's not? Plant his *** on the block, eliminate the threes (mercifully), and let him go to work. Rondo should always initiate the offense with drives to the hoop as he finds seams in the defense with ease. I cringe every time Rondo kicks out to Cousins for a three. It's blasphemy!

 

[ShastaKingsFan]

Agreed. No one benefits more from Karls system then Rudy who has been nothing short of great for us since we acquired him.

Im very much looking forward to having the Rudy light up opponents and leveraging his strengths from the PF spot.

Rudy is a top 3 SF in the west. Nothing short of consistently solid.

I see him having a career year with Karl. The style is taylormade for him

 

[Sac.1989]

Cousins is who he is. Why turn him into something he's not? Plant his *** on the block, eliminate the threes (mercifully), and let him go to work. Rondo should always initiate the offense with drives to the hoop as he finds seams in the defense with ease. I cringe every time Rondo kicks out to Cousins for a three. It's blasphemy!

This is my fear also. Vlade interestingly has made comments both in the media and to cousins that he needs to dominate the paint and forget the 3 ball. Demarcus is our competitive advantage, our dominant presence and we need to do a decent job of building a system around utilising his advantages. Yes facilitating the offense through him in the high post and fringe can be a facet of our collective game plan however having him there for stretches isnt something id like to see often.

The way to the very top is to ride demarcus there, we all know that. There will be an upswing in Ws this season, but how we get those Ws and how we play will say a lot for the ongoing sustainability of progress and future dominance. Encouraging a system with Demarcus not getting the bulk of his touches on the block isnt the right way to go about setting us up for future long term success.

Im hopefully this is just preseason tinkering

 

[bajaden]

For now, I'm not worried about how Karl is using Cuz. It's preseason, and I don't put much value on the results. This is when a player like Cousins can experiment with a few things. Like the three point shot. I suspect that once the season starts, we'll see a different look altogether.

 

[Bricklayer]

For now, I'm not worried about how Karl is using Cuz. It's preseason, and I don't put much value on the results. This is when a player like Cousins can experiment with a few things. Like the three point shot. I suspect that once the season starts, we'll see a different look altogether.

Not unless we run a different offense.

That's the issue, its not shot selection, its actually built into the offense we've run thus far for Cuz to get half his catches above the three point circle and chuck up a three if not guarded. In the absence of other shooters, we are sacrificing our franchise player to make him the "spacer" for the scrubs rather than the other way around. Its as if Pat Riley had taken a look at the '94 Knicks and said well, crap. Aside from Starks, who is just a chucker, we've got no spacing to open the lane for Oakley and Charles Smith. I got it! Let's spot Patrick up out there!

 

[King Baller]

Relax folks enjoy watching the Kings this preseason You are going to get high blood pressure worrying about the Big Fellas shot selection.

If Cousins is shooting a bunch of threes and missing them after 25 regular season games then we can worry. As of now it is just practice games. When the regular season rolls around my bet is we will see him back in the paint and also shooting some J's from the elbow. It sure would be nice to see more of that little hook shot he showed off a couple games ago!