Uncle Keegs
- Thread starter Tetsujin
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iowamcnabb
Hall of Famer
when asked if he still basically eats chicken and rice Keegan said, “na I like to mix it up. I eat chicken, vegetables, wings and burgers”
coolhandluke
Starter
If Keegs and Huerter remember how to shoot and keep this defense/rebounding thing going..... Oh boy. We're in for a hell of a season.
Underrated, Keegan at 7.3 RPG this year. Been super consistent with 8, 7, 8, 6 in our 4 games. Excellent progress from last year where he'd go long stretches with no rebounding impact.
Yep and that's really good considering he is competing with the league leader in rebounds on most possessions.
Keegan has had a very underwhelming start to his 2nd year. After all the talks about him being our 3rd star and improvements as an on-ball scorer, we haven't seen any of that in live games. Tonight was probably one if most disappointing games. He was horrible offensively versus the Warriors, but you were able to admire his defensive effort on Steph. But tonight? he brought nothing. In 33mins against one of the worst teams in the league, he gave you 2 rebs and 1 asts. That's not enough.
Keegan needs to find more ways to score than just chucking up 3pt shots. His shot selection has been awful. Shot selection includes the ones he passes up as well. How many times in the Warriors game did we see him being defended by Steph or CP3, and he didn't even try to post up or attack them? What about tonight and 6'0 FVV. There's not a single elite SF in the league who wouldn't be demanding for the ball. If he wants to be special in this league, he needs to be able take these opportunities head-on. Like come on dude. You are 6'8 220lbs.. why are you scared of these tiny guards?
People gave me flack when I said Keegan is one of those players who needs 20 shots to get 20pts... haven't been wrong at all. I don't really care what Klay did next to the greatest shooter of all time. Keegan is not Klay. They're not the same person and they don't even play the same position. Keegan has to develop a lot more of his game than 3pt shooting if he wants to take that next step. I'm very concerned about his lack of ball skills, handling, attacking, and shot-creation. If his shots aren't falling, his offensive contribution stops there.
Srzly
G-League
It’s early and he has been playing through a hand injury and has had a tape job on it for most of these games which would impact anyone’s outside shooting.
We have already seen what he can do on offense. He’s been one of our best defenders up to this point in the season and frequently drawn the hardest matchup.
I do wish that he was more involved with Fox out but part of that has to come from the coaches. Out of half they clearly had him working that two man game with Sabonis well for two possessions and then it stopped completely and he reverted back to his corner spot, which makes sense when fox is out there to space the floor but adjustments should have been made the last two games.
It has been a rough start but it’s a bit early to sound the alarms. Almost no one played well last night. He had stretches like this last year, as did everyone.
This isn’t an issue with handles, skill, etc. it is mental and he needs to stop overthinking and just play aggressively and take over the game on offense with Fox out. He has the tools.
Let’s give it a little more time.
Edit: Also, there is no way he is a player that needs 20 shots to get 20 points. He has proved that already last season. His shot just isn’t falling right now.
We have already seen what he can do on offense. He’s been one of our best defenders up to this point in the season and frequently drawn the hardest matchup.
I do wish that he was more involved with Fox out but part of that has to come from the coaches. Out of half they clearly had him working that two man game with Sabonis well for two possessions and then it stopped completely and he reverted back to his corner spot, which makes sense when fox is out there to space the floor but adjustments should have been made the last two games.
It has been a rough start but it’s a bit early to sound the alarms. Almost no one played well last night. He had stretches like this last year, as did everyone.
This isn’t an issue with handles, skill, etc. it is mental and he needs to stop overthinking and just play aggressively and take over the game on offense with Fox out. He has the tools.
Let’s give it a little more time.
Edit: Also, there is no way he is a player that needs 20 shots to get 20 points. He has proved that already last season. His shot just isn’t falling right now.
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iowamcnabb
Hall of Famer
He has 2 bad games out of 5, that’s worth noting. He had 16, 15 and 17 points while rebounding, defending and distributing in the first 3 even without the shot really falling. THAT is what we have asked for. The last two games have been bad. He can’t shoot right now and it’s in his head. His natural instinct is to defer when he doesn’t have it going but he has Brown in his ear ready to pull him when he doesn’t fire. That also reduces his drives because the expectation is he shoots. It’s a tough situation because his primary weapon will always be the three and when that’s not falling it’s a delicate balance between keep shooting and passing them to someone else who might have it going.
The 20pts on 20 shots is kind of an over-exaggeration meant to imply that he needs a lot of his attempts in order to score a lot of points. It's actually not even that far off from his rookie year. He needed 9.8 FGA in order to score 12.2pts... almost 1 for 1 because most of his FGA came from 3pt land and he wasn't able to generate FTs.
Moving on from Keegan's rookie year, the hope is that he's able to continue his elite 3pt shooting, but also adding more aspects to his scoring game. You can't be one-dimensional. He's no longer the unproven rookie, teams will actually gameplan to shut him down and take his shots away. The mental part plays a big role in it, but I don't think we can expect Keegan to just be rookie Keegan on a higher shooting sapmple.
Eh, in his first 3 games he only had 1 where he was effectively distributing. He did do a great job on the boards, and we've always asked Keegan that if he's not scoring, how does he contribute? That's only 1 facet of this process for him to be our 3rd star, but we need more from him than that.
For me, I would like to see them Give Keegan spots in the mid-range to post up and work from there. He was very capable of hitting that spot in college. Back the little defenders down and get to his spot. These are all things HB does, and there's no reason why Keegan can't take control of his mismatches. Teams don't respect him at all outside of 3pt shooting. It should be very telling that they hide their weakest or smaller defenders on him. You can't be that guy they don't worry about on the ball.
We need summer league Keegan. I know the defenders are better in the NBA, but he's not trusting his ball handling at all right now. Maybe the thumb injury has played a part, but the last 2 games without Fox have been extremely disappointing from him. I would say he played ok in his first 3 games. Not exactly earth shattering
iowamcnabb
Hall of Famer
I agree, I just think 16 and 7 when he doesn’t have his shot is pretty solid. As you said, if you can’t shoot, find ways to help the team elsewhere.
Keegan has that little brother persona and he is going to have to grow past that if he wants to reach his potential.
As Mike Bibby said, either shoot out of a slump or step a way for a bit and take your mind off basketball. Tough to do when you don’t have the star ok the court with you easing the burden. He might have to look at his tape from last November and see if there are any parallels with his shot this season as that was his big struggle month.
SacTownKid
Hall of Famer
If in the end he ends up a 3 and D forward and the Kings can find that 3rd star elsewhere, this could actually work out for the better. The stat to watch is going to be those free throws and iso scoring. We know he can shoot, the Kings don't need shooters, they need shot creators. Iso stats are way too early to be calculated properly but predictably so far the only player on the list for the Kings is De'Aaron Fox.
SacTownKid
Hall of Famer
The other question to ask is why the system DHO guys in Keegan and Huerter are having the biggest problems. Year 2 could also partly be teams figuring out that DHO more and more. You can notice Huerter seems to be shifting sideways and shooting quicker off the hand off, that shows a lack of comfort. Then those wide open shots will indeed get a lot harder to hit if they are second guessing shots because they aren't the same shots they would prefer. The shot will come back. Keegans shooting might not be what it was last season at his top elite shelf because he's getting more attention but he's obviously a really good shooter. This needs to be about the parts of the team needs they aren't seeing. Without those it's very hard to hit that peak they expect out of him. Even if you produce, there is a difference between producing and creating.
Vinny Basketballerino
Starter
I'm afraid this seems to be the case. We need to make some serious changes to our offensive strategy because it really does appear teams have figured out our Sabonis-led DHO.
HndsmCelt
Hall of Famer
I'm not sure I see the DHOs the problem itself, it's about reading the defense before going into it. It's one of the things Fox has done really well. When defenses are focused on Fox as the primary threat it opens up the DHO and he can pass out to Sabonis to initiate the offense, all well and good. The problem occurs of course when either Fox is not on the court or doesn't read the defense well and they go into the DHO despite a cheating defense that's ready to collapse on Domas. So the solution of course comes before the past to Sabonis making sure that there is a clear plan B. It's one of the reasons I thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to run a high pick and roll with either Keegan or Barnes in order to discombobulate defenses and set the board for the offense. Then the point guard should be able to see options more clearly. This will of course use more clock but I think would help non-Fox point guards see where the good play is.
iowamcnabb
Hall of Famer
Deuce and Mo said “the Sacramento offense is producing the second most wide open 3s in the league”. Keegan is hitting those threes at 31 percent instead of 47 last year. KVon is at 20 percent
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macadocious
Starter
I was going to refute what was being stated with just my eye test, glad the facts back that up. Dude just cold.
sactowndog
All-Star
a big part of the problem is the wing defenders are overplaying Huerter and Keegan and not worrying about giving up the back door cut. They aren’t worried because Domas’s defender is in the paint giving him 5 ft of space and taking away the back door cut. We have not seen one lay up on a back door cut I can remember this year.
macadocious
Starter
Huerter has 3 or 4 himself. You’re seeing what you want to.
Checks out. Defense has been incredible, just needs to start making 3's again and we got ourselves one of the more valuable wings in the NBA
I felt that as well. We have had enough good looks from 3. Keegan, Huerter, haven't been missing with hands in their face, they've just been missing. And it's not like last year they only had easy to make threes with the opposition like 'its ok, Hollinger says this team is ass, I won't close out!' They were hitting shots off movement. The shooting will come around.
whitechocolate
Bench
Don't worry; Keegan's going to be that man. His swagger meter just needs to catch up with his potential meter. And by swagger I just mean how much a player is feeling themself. And by feeling themself I mean being confident in who they are and comfortable with where they are. He's still young as far as NBA experience is concerned. Let the man work.
I mean if you can stay in front of Swipa, you can pretty much with any guards in the league
The defensive flashes we're getting from some of our young guys so far this year is DAMN exciting. Keon/Keegs/Colby/Kessler all have had moments of absolute brilliance on the defensive end so far. I don't think Keegan has had a bad defensive game yet, despite his shooting struggles.
