Training camp roster/Media Day (merged)
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Sacramento Kings @SacramentoKings 30m30 minutes ago
Photos || Kings on the court for Day 3 of Training Camp
http://www.nba.com/kings/gallery/gallery-2014-kings-training-camp-day-3
Photos || Kings on the court for Day 3 of Training Camp
http://www.nba.com/kings/gallery/gallery-2014-kings-training-camp-day-3
Actually yes, Mr. Negative Sarcastic Know It All. Or Ms. Don't want to be presumptuous.
Healthy competition on a team does build chemistry, that way when spots have been settled, everybody is on board (if they are team players, such as we have), and they know it's not favoritism.
Go away with your stanky attitude.
Healthy competition on a team does build chemistry, that way when spots have been settled, everybody is on board (if they are team players, such as we have), and they know it's not favoritism.
Go away with your stanky attitude.
You need to be able to separate blanket optimism from various strengths and weaknesses of our roster, as well as what my post was actually about, which was how we stacked up against the West and judging this team on wins/losses.
Are there reasons for optimism? Sure.
1) Boogie taking it to yet another level, becoming an AS and All-NBA player, putting up 25/12/4 which I think he can come near this season.
2) Rudy meshing more with the team, becoming the clear 2nd option while remaining efficient.
3) Better PG depth, although less overall talent there. Will have to see if addition by subtraction helps but the ball should move more.
4) Drafted Stauskas who appears to have high basketball IQ and should be able to contribute this year, although like most rooks will have ups and downs.
5) Moreland might become enough of a defensive presence that he's a regular part of our rotation.
6) Rudy/Omri is a better SF rotation than we've had in years.
I however don't need to be reminded about anything regarding this regime. You're new here so I know you're likely not aware of this, but many of these discussions have been ongoing for a while, nor is most of your reply to me related to my post. When being judged on wins and losses in the stacked WC, we could see a number of my reasons for optimism listed above prove to be right, yet still be 10 games out of the playoff race. Yet when our owner says he's judging this season by wins/losses, compartmentalized improvements don't weigh as much, in part because sports is a bottom line business. If we don't see success in the win/loss column, pointing to my list above would be deflecting from the target criteria of judgement. That doesn't mean there isn't value to the points listed above, but it's a different set of criteria than I was commenting on.
At the same time, everyone has their own opinions on what define acceptable improvement in the standings. For me, 30-35 wins isn't much of an improvement. At this point, I don't see the talent to win more than that. I'd love to be wrong though, I'd love for our role players to step up and play like proven NBA level starters/rotation players, for Stauakas/Ben to become a legit SG platoon, for Collison/Sessions to at least hold their own against the strongest position in the modern day NBA, for both Moreland and Hollins to provide the defense down low we need and so on, and win 40+ games. But I'm also not going to sit here and pretend that's likely. Why not? Here's a few reasons:
1) Neither Collison nor Sessions are what I would classify as legit NBA starters.
2) Neither of our SG's have proven thus far they're capable of starting in this league.
3) Our PF's look like a poor fit, eat up salary space and don't answer to a vital need down low; defense.
4) I have little confidence in Hollins being even a semi-adequate defensive backup center
5) We're going to be over-matched defensively at the 1, 2 and 4 on most nights before the ball even goes up
6) Outside Cuz and Rudy, we don't have what I'd label as legit NBA starters on this roster. JT has been for us but I maintain his best role would be as a 3rd big.
7) Either Rudy of Cuz goes down for any amount of time, we're ****'ed.
You're free to be as optimistic as you like. I do find it funny though how a few here appear to have an optimism meter in their back pocket and repeatedly have a problem with those they feel don't register high enough on that meter.
Are there reasons for optimism? Sure.
1) Boogie taking it to yet another level, becoming an AS and All-NBA player, putting up 25/12/4 which I think he can come near this season.
2) Rudy meshing more with the team, becoming the clear 2nd option while remaining efficient.
3) Better PG depth, although less overall talent there. Will have to see if addition by subtraction helps but the ball should move more.
4) Drafted Stauskas who appears to have high basketball IQ and should be able to contribute this year, although like most rooks will have ups and downs.
5) Moreland might become enough of a defensive presence that he's a regular part of our rotation.
6) Rudy/Omri is a better SF rotation than we've had in years.
I however don't need to be reminded about anything regarding this regime. You're new here so I know you're likely not aware of this, but many of these discussions have been ongoing for a while, nor is most of your reply to me related to my post. When being judged on wins and losses in the stacked WC, we could see a number of my reasons for optimism listed above prove to be right, yet still be 10 games out of the playoff race. Yet when our owner says he's judging this season by wins/losses, compartmentalized improvements don't weigh as much, in part because sports is a bottom line business. If we don't see success in the win/loss column, pointing to my list above would be deflecting from the target criteria of judgement. That doesn't mean there isn't value to the points listed above, but it's a different set of criteria than I was commenting on.
At the same time, everyone has their own opinions on what define acceptable improvement in the standings. For me, 30-35 wins isn't much of an improvement. At this point, I don't see the talent to win more than that. I'd love to be wrong though, I'd love for our role players to step up and play like proven NBA level starters/rotation players, for Stauakas/Ben to become a legit SG platoon, for Collison/Sessions to at least hold their own against the strongest position in the modern day NBA, for both Moreland and Hollins to provide the defense down low we need and so on, and win 40+ games. But I'm also not going to sit here and pretend that's likely. Why not? Here's a few reasons:
1) Neither Collison nor Sessions are what I would classify as legit NBA starters.
2) Neither of our SG's have proven thus far they're capable of starting in this league.
3) Our PF's look like a poor fit, eat up salary space and don't answer to a vital need down low; defense.
4) I have little confidence in Hollins being even a semi-adequate defensive backup center
5) We're going to be over-matched defensively at the 1, 2 and 4 on most nights before the ball even goes up
6) Outside Cuz and Rudy, we don't have what I'd label as legit NBA starters on this roster. JT has been for us but I maintain his best role would be as a 3rd big.
7) Either Rudy of Cuz goes down for any amount of time, we're ****'ed.
You're free to be as optimistic as you like. I do find it funny though how a few here appear to have an optimism meter in their back pocket and repeatedly have a problem with those they feel don't register high enough on that meter.
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Bs. This is professional sports not high school ball. While depth and the natural competition that comes with it are nice things to have, it's a need to find the purple lining that leads celebrating the fact that we have failed to once again nail down starting caliber talent.
Again there is a reason good teams are pretty settled heading into training camp with roles.
It's not the end of the world and obviously we all hope our cream rises to the top. I'm just getting sick of any posts that note where we may be off from tried and true team building strategies eliciting "whiny, cry baby, get out of here with that" responses. This board is supposed to be a place where different viewpoints can be shared and for a team that has sucked as badly as ours for as long as ours, a little shared concern over issues should be treated more respectfully.
Again there is a reason good teams are pretty settled heading into training camp with roles.
It's not the end of the world and obviously we all hope our cream rises to the top. I'm just getting sick of any posts that note where we may be off from tried and true team building strategies eliciting "whiny, cry baby, get out of here with that" responses. This board is supposed to be a place where different viewpoints can be shared and for a team that has sucked as badly as ours for as long as ours, a little shared concern over issues should be treated more respectfully.
Your right about sharing viewpoints and people are optimistic right now. We have the best big man in the league, a high level SF, I personally think we have an interesting group of pieces that Malone can play in situations. While you pee and moan about the FO not nailing down starting caliber players (not even sure what the heck that means), the FO has in 1 full year: turned over the roster which was an extremely tough chore to do, loaded the roster with a mix of professional vets and interesting young guys like Stauskas, Ben, Ray, Moreland. The depth is better than ever. We switched from a selfish me guy of a PG to a PG who has been on winning teams and is already showing more leadership than the previous guy. The FO has given Malone many, many options or players that he can mix and match in situational basketball and matchups. We have a big 2. If someone can emerge as another piece and take a jump forward such as Collison or Ben or Nik or Ray ....maybe Sessions can provide some spark off the bench. Malone is a defensive whiz and he's convinced that the team is going in the right direction defensively as he stated about the end of last year's squad....a squad that had players coming and going all year.
We played freaking Jimmer Fredette as our backup PG last year...Jimmer Fredette. Instead of IT, Fredette and Ray who they didn't play for most of the year....we have Collison, Sessions and a year under the belt Ray.....yeah I'll take this years group of PGs over last years ineffective group....you can take ITs numbers and blow them out a flute. A PGs most important numbers are wins and losses and IT is a fail there.
I'll take a 1 year older Ben and the rookie Stauskas and the combo guard play of Sessions over rookie Ben, Marcus Thornton or the ghost of MT whoever that was.
Salmons or Gay....tough choice.....................not! Love the Casspi pickup, say what you want but he's a hard nosed vet who plays hard. I won't talk about DWill...can't play.
And a healthy Landry goes a long way to upgrading the PF spot, along with a full year of Evans and for those who love JT, he's still here. It's not the wasteland that people think it is.
But more importantly, if Malone and the veteran leadership can truly play a more team oriented brand of ball and improve their team defense, I suspect they will, then we can make great strides. No team plays better team ball than the Spurs and they have great team depth. That's the style of ball we want to try and emulate. No one is saying that the Kings are going to be the second coming of the Spurs but can they get to .500 ball....possibly. I choose to think they can and if your a Debbie Downer, that's your choice.
Ok rant over.
We played freaking Jimmer Fredette as our backup PG last year...Jimmer Fredette. Instead of IT, Fredette and Ray who they didn't play for most of the year....we have Collison, Sessions and a year under the belt Ray.....yeah I'll take this years group of PGs over last years ineffective group....you can take ITs numbers and blow them out a flute. A PGs most important numbers are wins and losses and IT is a fail there.
I'll take a 1 year older Ben and the rookie Stauskas and the combo guard play of Sessions over rookie Ben, Marcus Thornton or the ghost of MT whoever that was.
Salmons or Gay....tough choice.....................not! Love the Casspi pickup, say what you want but he's a hard nosed vet who plays hard. I won't talk about DWill...can't play.
And a healthy Landry goes a long way to upgrading the PF spot, along with a full year of Evans and for those who love JT, he's still here. It's not the wasteland that people think it is.
But more importantly, if Malone and the veteran leadership can truly play a more team oriented brand of ball and improve their team defense, I suspect they will, then we can make great strides. No team plays better team ball than the Spurs and they have great team depth. That's the style of ball we want to try and emulate. No one is saying that the Kings are going to be the second coming of the Spurs but can they get to .500 ball....possibly. I choose to think they can and if your a Debbie Downer, that's your choice.
Ok rant over.
Since you feel that way, I totally get why your original post I cited was stated in such a respectful tone. 
Honestly, it's a message board so I don't really care. I just don't understand how anytime anything is posted that questions the team's strategy, even when it's done in a thoughtful way (which my sarcasm may not have been the best demonstration of), a small segment of the board jumps on these posters with far more aggressiveness than the "cry babies" send their way.
The last time one of ESPN's geek posers got hired by an NBA basketball team the very first thing he did was convince them that dumping Rudy Gay for an over the hill Tayshaun Prince and a never to be used Ed Davis was an upgrade. That stupidity also eventually cost them their coach. Now we got one of our own. And hey, know who else we got? ESPN fav Rudy Gay! Who oddly coaches seem to like, and Cuz seems to like, because you know basketball people have this thing about working with talented people.
Again, I agree and I'm not a fan of guys that built their reputations on stats with no basketball experience. When he was with Denver, his influence is widely credited with the Iverson/Billups swap, drafting Lawson and with helping get as much value out of the Anthony trade as possible. He also didn't really have any big oops moves to lay at his door. So, yes stat-geek scares me, but his track record in terms of actual influence on moves has looked good so far.
The thing is that the Rudy Gay that Memphis traded and the Rudy Gay who played for the Kings last year are entirely different players.
When Gay was traded from Memphis in early 2013, he was in the midst of a three-year slide culminating in what was basically the worst season of his career (not counting his rookie year). He was looking straight in the face of three consecutive declining seasons in such "advanced" stats as FG%, FT%, 3PT%, and PPG (not to mention more "traditional" advanced stats like TS%, eFG, FTr, ORtg, WS/48...) On top of this, he was owed something on the order of $45M for the next 2.5 seasons. It didn't take an advanced stats guru to want to dump him, as he was nowhere near performing up to his contract.
Honestly, dumping Gay was probably the right move. Memphis couldn't figure out how to get value out of him. Toronto couldn't figure out how to get value out of him. Remember the tear that Toronto went on with our discarded bench players? But he came to Sacramento and WE figured out how to make something click. I'm not sure what exactly it is, though I've seen some evidence in the past that Gay's shooting really suffers when he's asked to shoulder the bulk of the scoring load. Instead we asked him to play Robin to Cuz's Batman (with Cousins drawing defensive help attention from Rudy's defender, no less) and Gay turned into a stathead's dream. Across the board his advanced stats were the best of his career in Sacramento. His 3PT% is down a bit, but he's taking far fewer threes and getting far more FTs than he did in Memphis or Toronto which allows his efficiency numbers to shine. In fact, I think it's fair to say that in the Sacramento era his advanced stats look even better than his traditional stats. Dean Oliver is not going to look at what Gay did in Sacramento last year and say "we gotta get rid of this guy, because something something ESPN".
When Gay was traded from Memphis in early 2013, he was in the midst of a three-year slide culminating in what was basically the worst season of his career (not counting his rookie year). He was looking straight in the face of three consecutive declining seasons in such "advanced" stats as FG%, FT%, 3PT%, and PPG (not to mention more "traditional" advanced stats like TS%, eFG, FTr, ORtg, WS/48...) On top of this, he was owed something on the order of $45M for the next 2.5 seasons. It didn't take an advanced stats guru to want to dump him, as he was nowhere near performing up to his contract.
Honestly, dumping Gay was probably the right move. Memphis couldn't figure out how to get value out of him. Toronto couldn't figure out how to get value out of him. Remember the tear that Toronto went on with our discarded bench players? But he came to Sacramento and WE figured out how to make something click. I'm not sure what exactly it is, though I've seen some evidence in the past that Gay's shooting really suffers when he's asked to shoulder the bulk of the scoring load. Instead we asked him to play Robin to Cuz's Batman (with Cousins drawing defensive help attention from Rudy's defender, no less) and Gay turned into a stathead's dream. Across the board his advanced stats were the best of his career in Sacramento. His 3PT% is down a bit, but he's taking far fewer threes and getting far more FTs than he did in Memphis or Toronto which allows his efficiency numbers to shine. In fact, I think it's fair to say that in the Sacramento era his advanced stats look even better than his traditional stats. Dean Oliver is not going to look at what Gay did in Sacramento last year and say "we gotta get rid of this guy, because something something ESPN".
Small sample sizes and unknown influence alert, but:
Seattle Supersonics, 3 seasons before Oliver: 0.496 win%
Seattle Supersonics, 2 seasons with Oliver: 0.530 win%
Seattle Supersonics, 3 seasons after Oliver: 0.301 win%
Denver Nuggets, 3 seasons before Oliver: 0.553 win%
Denver Nuggets, 5 seasons with Oliver: 0.615 win%
Denver Nuggets, 3 seasons after Oliver: 0.570 win%
It would be relatively easy to dismiss this by saying that we don't know how much credit Oliver deserves for these numbers. But they don't provide much of a handle to argue for Oliver making teams worse.
Seattle Supersonics, 3 seasons before Oliver: 0.496 win%
Seattle Supersonics, 2 seasons with Oliver: 0.530 win%
Seattle Supersonics, 3 seasons after Oliver: 0.301 win%
Denver Nuggets, 3 seasons before Oliver: 0.553 win%
Denver Nuggets, 5 seasons with Oliver: 0.615 win%
Denver Nuggets, 3 seasons after Oliver: 0.570 win%
It would be relatively easy to dismiss this by saying that we don't know how much credit Oliver deserves for these numbers. But they don't provide much of a handle to argue for Oliver making teams worse.
We weren't the only ones. Doc Rivers lauded Collison for his defense with the Clippers. I lauded Collison for his defense every time I saw him play last year. McCallum plays above average D. It's the sg spot where we lack defense, not the entire backcourt. That assessment, sir/ma'am (rainmaker), is false.
Being not as "advanced" as most on here, please tell me what Oliver does for a living, what his positions in the past have been called, and, lastly, if he is being hired by the Kings, what work would he do, who would he report to, and what would he be called? Advance me. (Is this sort of like the ongoing discussions of "small ball", "like Den and GS"?)
He is an advanced stat guy who has helped to create and develop the NBA equivalent of Moneyball. In his basketball operations career, he has been a Director of Quantitative Analytics and he would likely report to PDA. He would assist the team primarily in identify players to target and avoid in discussions around the draft free agency and trades. He would probably be in support of positionless basketball but mostly his focus has been on maximizing offensive possesions through efficiency (EFG%, limiting turnovers, O-Reb and getting to the free throw line) while minimizing the same things on the other end of the court.
If indeed our starting backcourt is Collison and Stauskas, then I can safely say that it would be an improvement over last seasons starting backcourt of Thomas and McLemore. I saw enough of Stauskas in summer league to say he's a better defender than McLemore. Just on BBIQ alone. So how that stacks up league wise, I have no idea, but at least its an improvement. Collison was known as a good defender coming out of college. Not sure how his reputation has taken such a hit, but I'm willing to wait and see how it plays out. You could be right, but who knows? In the end, it will all come down to how everyone buys into what Malone is selling. I think I can safely say, based on what I saw at the world championships, that Cousins is an improved defender. Not sure about Gay, and not sure about the PF position.
Considering that we were near bottom of the league defensively last year. 29th in defending the three point shot. 20th in field goal percentage allowed. 27th in forcing turnovers. And 24th in points allowed. We obviously need improvement. However, we wern't very good on the offensive side of the ball either. We wern't very efficient. We were last in the league in assists. We were 27th in three point percentage. And, we were the 23rd worst team in turning the ball over. In other words, we weren't very good on either side of the ball. Yes we scored a lot of points, but we weren't very effieicnt at it. And here's a little secret. An efficient offense, helps your defense. The other team gets most of its easy baskets (fast break points etc.) off our missed baskets. Especially missed shots early in the shot clock when no one is there to rebound.
My point is, that there's a lot to fix on this team, and you don't wave a magic wand and fix it. It's going to take some time. I know, blah blah blah! I don't like it either. At my age, I'm running out of time. So I understand the criticism, and agree with most of it. But I also understand that its easier to talk about these things than it is to fix them. I think we can all agree that PDA is trying. It's not for lack of effort. But, at the same time, we can disagree on some of the decisions that's he's made. So I'll finish with this. Go look at the Sun's roster. It's for the most part, the same roster that won 49 games last season. Take a look at it, and then look at ours, and then you tell me that they have a huge advantage in talent. If they can win 49 games with that roster, then there's no reason we can't win something close to that amount. I'm not saying we will, just that they proved its possible. All it takes is playing like a team.
Considering that we were near bottom of the league defensively last year. 29th in defending the three point shot. 20th in field goal percentage allowed. 27th in forcing turnovers. And 24th in points allowed. We obviously need improvement. However, we wern't very good on the offensive side of the ball either. We wern't very efficient. We were last in the league in assists. We were 27th in three point percentage. And, we were the 23rd worst team in turning the ball over. In other words, we weren't very good on either side of the ball. Yes we scored a lot of points, but we weren't very effieicnt at it. And here's a little secret. An efficient offense, helps your defense. The other team gets most of its easy baskets (fast break points etc.) off our missed baskets. Especially missed shots early in the shot clock when no one is there to rebound.
My point is, that there's a lot to fix on this team, and you don't wave a magic wand and fix it. It's going to take some time. I know, blah blah blah! I don't like it either. At my age, I'm running out of time. So I understand the criticism, and agree with most of it. But I also understand that its easier to talk about these things than it is to fix them. I think we can all agree that PDA is trying. It's not for lack of effort. But, at the same time, we can disagree on some of the decisions that's he's made. So I'll finish with this. Go look at the Sun's roster. It's for the most part, the same roster that won 49 games last season. Take a look at it, and then look at ours, and then you tell me that they have a huge advantage in talent. If they can win 49 games with that roster, then there's no reason we can't win something close to that amount. I'm not saying we will, just that they proved its possible. All it takes is playing like a team.
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I don't disagree with most of what you posted. The only comment I'm going to make is about neither Collison or Sessions being classified as legit NBA starters. I don't disagree with that comment. But, that in and of itself, doesn't mean they can't be legit starters. Since I've been helping out with our own reference library, its given me some insights into the early careers of players that ended up contributing to our team. Doug Christie springs to mind. He was traded twice before being traded to us, and had trouble getting any minutes with any of his previous teams. But for us, he became a valuable starter, and one could argue, a player that had an impact on the team.
My point is, sometimes it's all about the right fit on the right team at the right time. Not saying that Collison or Sessions fit that description. But its possible. You just never know........
My point is, sometimes it's all about the right fit on the right team at the right time. Not saying that Collison or Sessions fit that description. But its possible. You just never know........
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