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30 teams in 30 days - Kings
9/25/2006 6:12:22 PM
TSN.ca basketball columnist Tim Chisholm is looking at one NBA team each day for the month of September.
Season Preview - Sacramento Kings
I'll give the Kings this: they rebuild quickly.
Only three seasons removed from being an offensive powerhouse with the likes of Chris Webber, Vlade Divac and Peja Stojakovic spotting the roster, the Kings have now switched their focus to defense under new head coach Eric Musselman and what remains to be seen is how the leftover parts adapt to the new regime.
Back in the day, the Kings were the Phoenix Suns of the NBA. They ran a highly effective Princeton offense that would often overwhelm their opponents with points while playing little to no defense in the process. The game plan was to score and score fast, not slowing the game down with 'D' in the process. To make that work, the team was loaded with offensive talent like Webber, Stojakovic and point guard Mike Bibby while containing only one true defensive stopper (Doug Christie). What resulted were often entertaining games that many felt were the team's undoing in the playoffs when they couldn't clamp down to stop other opposing teams when it mattered most.
So after several years spent on the cusp of making the NBA Finals, GM Geoff Petrie astutely recognized that his team wasn't going to get it down with that configuration. I have to hand it to him there. So few GM's are able to make that assessment of their squad, and even fewer seem to be able to do it when they are that close to the top. If a mix isn't working after three years and the window has closed on their chances, the quicker a GM can realize it and capitalize on his player's values, the better. Petrie made several quick and decisive moves in an attempt to construct a more complete, well-rounded roster to replace his potent-scoring group.
What remains of his retooling is something of a mish-mash, and he is by no means done his reconfiguration. While Mike Bibby and Brad Miller remain the only holdovers from the previous version of the Kings, the team's style is being unapologetically tailored to bad-boy forward Ron Artest. This could either be the savviest move of Petrie's career, or it could be the last. As anyone who follows the league knows, Artest isn't the most reliable personality to ever enter the NBA. That said, he is also exceptionally talented at both ends of the floor, and if he can get himself under control, he could easily be the anchor for an effective NBA club.
The concerns that I have revolve more around Bibby and Miller. Both are players who thrived in deposed-coach Rick Adelman's high-post system that put the playmaking duties into the hands of the frontcourt and allowed Bibby to be the primary finisher in the backcourt. Neither one plays particularly good defense, both come with a hefty price tag, and neither one fit this new system very well. Bibby isn't a true playmaking point guard and could see his value plummet if he's asked to lead a halfcourt attack while Miller is a finesse post player who doesn't rebound the ball enough nor does he block enough shots for a starting centre on a defensive-oriented team.
The good news in the immediate future is that neither one has much competition for their job on the lineup right now. Most of the depth is at the big guard and forward positions that will give Bibby and Miller time to try and adjust to the new Kings. Keep in mind that Miller was an All-Star in Indiana playing a grittier type of game, and Bibby did lead the Arizona Wildcats to the NCAA title, proving that while he may not be a prototypical point, he does have oodles of leadership in him. So, it could turn out to be that my concerns are completely unfounded and Musselman has the ideal starting roster to work with, and has time to mold his relatively young (Francisco Garcia, Quincy Douby) and not very good (Loren Woods, Vitaly Potapenko) bench into something that works for him.
Petrie will make trades if this team still doesn't work, but at least he's man enough to admit when what he built isn't working. Despite long odds at times this decade, the Kings have found a way to be a mainstay on the Western Conference playoff circuit. What remains to be seen now is how much higher this new-look Sacramento team can rise above its run 'n' gun progenitors.
PROBABLE STARTING LINEUP
PG – Mike Bibby
The thing that sets Bibby apart from so many of the gun-slinging point guards in the NBA is that at his core he's a very smart basketball player. For all of the players who have been stuck with the distinction of being a shooting guard wrapped in a point guard's body, I believe the title fits Bibby the least. For so many players, the name has stuck because they cannot adapt their game's to multiple positions, but for Bibby, he's never been asked to take a good team by the horns and steer it to success. Rick Adelman saw his team's strengths and knew that Bibby was more effective shooting than playmaking, and so that's what he did. This will be the first time Bibby has ever been asked to truly pilot the Kings, and his intelligence and maturity may make this whole hang-up a non-issue.
SG – Kevin Martin
It was written many times last year that the only person who was happy to see Bonzi Wells go down with injury was Kevin Martin. I beg to differ. I think the Kings feeling confident that they can succeed without coughing up $8 million for Wells' contract extension makes them pretty happy Martin got a chance to prove himself last season, too. At this point, Martin is still something of an unknown quantity on this Kings roster. He played quite well while Wells was out, but doing it for a whole season is another matter. He doesn't have the excuse that should he not perform on any given night that it's because he's been thrust into a new role on the team. He's the permanent starting guard on this team now, and the bevy of draft picks and free agent signings at his position demonstrate exactly how confident the Kings may be with their selection. Martin ran Wells out of town as much as Wells' contract demands did, now it's time to prove it was the right move.
SF – Ron Artest
One of the best two-way players in the game today, if not the best outside of Kobe, Artest the player has never really gotten a chance in recent years to demonstrate his considerable talents because Artest the crazy person keeps getting in the way. Artest knows he used up almost all of his nine lives in the league, and the Kings hope they can get at least a few years out of him before he tests his remaining ones. Anchoring a team around Artest has never been tried before, but it's what he claims he's always wanted, and maybe that added responsibility will turn out to be what it takes to get Ron Artest to focus on the game the way a team-leader should. If instead Artest finds a new way to demonstrate his other considerable talent of running afoul of the league, at least he wont be able to say that no one gave him the chance to be a success.
PF – Kenny Thomas
One of the steadiest players in the league, he even keeps a player like Shareef Abdur-Rahim out of the starting five with his dependable 9 and 8 game. It's not enough, of course, for this team going forward to have Thomas as a permanent solution to their starting power forward slot, but that seems to be rap on Thomas everywhere he goes, fair or not. Thomas is one of those guys who just never seems to perform off of the bench the way he does as a starter. That said he's also never managed to beef up his game as a starter to help elevate a team with his play. He's a stopgap player, the kind of guy a team uses to shore up a position effectively until the permanent solution rolls into town. Everyone in the league seems to have their own unique little niche that they occupy to stay employed, and this apparently is Thomas's. The Kings now have to wait until their real power forward shows up so Thomas can plug a hole on one more roster before he exits his prime.
C – Brad Miller
It'd be a shame to see Brad Miller's talents harnessed in a half-court game where he is parked down in the paint to bang with the big bodies of the league. Like Mehmet Okur, Miller needs a banger at the power forward position that can allow him to sit at the top of the key and hit little jumpers and drop sweet dimes to cutting wingmen. Musselman has been around players of Miller's ilk before, Troy Murphy in Golden State quickly comes to mind, so maybe Miller will remain a high-post threat for the Kings. If not, his exorbitant contract will make him trade bait for a player than could anchor a low-post attack more economically than Brad.
Tim Chisholm can be reached at timchisholm@telus.net.
