My question has always been how Tyreke fits with the team they had been assembling. I still find the front office confused with what they're trying to create. This goes back to Theus and the 'pretty' comment he made about the team he coached. Taking his ego out of it, he clearly saw a direction of play represented in the players Petrie had drafted and attained, and that team he coached was seen by most everyone as lacking a PG to get all those offensive players the ball. Then they go and draft Tyreke, who fits more naturally into Kevin's position, but you can't say that as long as you have Kevin. Kevin's agent felt this way as well. He is speaking for Kevin, so I won't say that Kevin completely felt this way, too. I would assume though that the current evidence of this season would agree with this assessment.
So, it leaves me questioning whether the team is rebuilding yet again, if previous pieces like Cisco, Hawes, JT, etc even fit with what a Tyreke future represents, and how an organization can continually lie to its fanbase while expecting to get an arena deal done. The Kings keep breeding bad blood by not being upfront. They're failing on the court to convince fans of an intention to win and failing off the court in convincing the fans to trust them. They are living off of past good will.
What happened is not rocket science, although the front office's steadfast pursuit of its new course has been borderline shocking even to those of us who have been calling for it for years.
We absolutely 100% changed course. Went a whole new direction. Out with the old and all that. That's not hard to see. Its a whole new era, and its almost as if we have a whole new braintrust. We are aquiring players for a completely different skillset than we were just 24 months ago. The front office said it wanted to add toughness, and it has been remarkably single-minded and consitent about doing so. I'm not sure if you could accurately say that bringing in Noc was the beginning of it, but certianly by draft night we were 100% on a toughness kick. Since that time our acquisitions:
*Noc -- tough
*Reke -- tough, defense
*Casspi -- tough
*Brockman -- tough, rebounder
*May -- wuss
Sergio -- wuss
Mason -- eh, defense, or we thought
*Udoka -- tough, defense
Armstrong -- eh, defense, in theory
*Landry -- tough as nails
*Dorsey -- tough, rebounder
*McGuire -- tough, defense
Hughes -- doesn't count, but defense
* still with team
you add in Donte coming back with a dramatically tougher attitude, and Cisco, who despite the drama queen stuff is a heck of a scrappy guy, and we have quickly assembled almost a complete 12 man roster of guys who all have real toughness about them. It was deliberate, and it was FAST. JT even wants to be tough, but just can't figure out how. The last of the softies with contract running beyond this year are Beno and Hawes. An endangered species. This hasn't been a mysterious process, or a gradual one. Its been sudden and quite obviously deliberate. And I should add, incredibly welcome. New ballgame, and already startng to pay divdends.