We need a long lanky defensive CENTER!

[fxhsurjono]

we need a shot blocker, may is the best we can come up with really?
swift is a 7footer, so is petro, i hoope we sign a long big who can block shots
cuz i think thats all we need now. steven hunter? ryan hollins? anyone?
wee need a C no more 4's!

 

[beb0p]

we need a shot blocker, may is the best we can come up with really?
swift is a 7footer, so is petro, i hoope we sign a long big who can block shots
cuz i think thats all we need now. steven hunter? ryan hollins? anyone?
wee need a C no more 4's!

Scrub, scrub, scrub and scrub. I want a shot blocker too but the Kings don't need more scrub.

This season is about letting the kids play. If we get a shot blocker fine; if not, it's not a big deal. As long as the youngsters get plenty of PT to prove themselves then all is good.

 

[Jespher]

I say make a move for Tyson Chandler while he's still on the trading block.

http://www.kingsfans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32753

 

[Bricklayer]

we need a shot blocker, may is the best we can come up with really?
swift is a 7footer, so is petro, i hoope we sign a long big who can block shots
cuz i think thats all we need now. steven hunter? ryan hollins? anyone?
wee need a C no more 4's!

You're absolutely right about what we need -- in all of the years of our decline and fall we have managed to go a grand total of one season (actually closer to half a season) with such a player even theoretically on the roster. And Tag was overweight, mediocre, and a year from retirement. The connection to our perpetually weakening defense and annual bottom 5 appearances in interior defense could not be stronger. Yet it never gets addressed. But unfortunately none of the above really satisfy the requirement -- can't help from the end of the bench.

What those guys ARE, or should be, are the 5th bigs for a team serious about defense. If you are one of those teams, you'll have a big defensive stalwart somewhere in your Top 3 bigs, but then you'll have another down on your bench as insurance too. We have neither, and with May and presumably Brockman, we have (shocker) decided to go short and groundbound again with our 4th/5th bigs. Since none of the guys you mentioned are good enough to be true rotation #3 bigs, and the #4/#5 spots they would normally fill are already taken by stubby guys, I'm assuming those guys are off the menu. The only question at this point is whether we will spend the assets to bring in a true defensive #3 big or not. But Hunter, Hollins et al are not at that level.

 

[MassachusettsKingsFan]

Im going to give Geoff the benefit of the doubt here and say that if there is someone out there worth it he would go after him. We have all looked at at the big man FA list and there isnt a shot blocker / defender out there worth it to us at the part of the rebuild. Theo Ratliff looks like the best FA defender out there, but he is 349 years old and would most likely want to go to a contender for the vet minimum so he a has a shot at the title.

There are a few guys he could try and trade for .. an overpaid Tyson Chandler or Samual Dalembert, but there really arent a whole lot of defensive big men out there.

 

[dbfish]

You're absolutely right about what we need -- in all of the years of our decline and fall we have managed to go a grand total of one season (actually closer to half a season) with such a player even theoretically on the roster. And Tag was overweight, mediocre, and a year from retirement. The connection to our perpetually weakening defense and annual bottom 5 appearances in interior defense could not be stronger. Yet it never gets addressed. But unfortunately none of the above really satisfy the requirement -- can't help from the end of the bench.

What those guys ARE, or should be, are the 5th bigs for a team serious about defense. If you are one of those teams, you'll have a big defensive stalwart somewhere in your Top 3 bigs, but then you'll have another down on your bench as insurance too. We have neither, and with May and presumably Brockman, we have (shocker) decided to go short and groundbound again with our 4th/5th bigs. Since none of the guys you mentioned are good enough to be true rotation #3 bigs, and the #4/#5 spots they would normally fill are already taken by stubby guys, I'm assuming those guys are off the menu. The only question at this point is whether we will spend the assets to bring in a true defensive #3 big or not. But Hunter, Hollins et al are not at that level.

Looks like we're going to be stuck with the smurf defense.

 

[fnordius]

Looks like we're going to be stuck with the smurf defense.

Smurf matador.

 

[KingsInBrazil]

In my honest opinion Steve Hunter is the one who fits the most wiht that style of player and hes still young at 25, hes a 7 footer who plays good D and I wouldnt mind giving him a shot... maybe a 2 year 4M deal with the 2nd year a team option.. but thats just me

 

[Bricklayer]

In my honest opinion Steve Hunter is the one who fits the most wiht that style of player and hes still young at 25, hes a 7 footer who plays good D and I wouldnt mind giving him a shot... maybe a 2 year 4M deal with the 2nd year a team option.. but thats just me

Unfortunately his knees went out, and if you looked carefully he was an absolutely putrid rebounder. A product of Nash's run n gun in Phoenix, but as soon as the game slows down, just nothing anymore.

 

[bajaden]

Im going to give Geoff the benefit of the doubt here and say that if there is someone out there worth it he would go after him. We have all looked at at the big man FA list and there isnt a shot blocker / defender out there worth it to us at the part of the rebuild. Theo Ratliff looks like the best FA defender out there, but he is 349 years old and would most likely want to go to a contender for the vet minimum so he a has a shot at the title.

There are a few guys he could try and trade for .. an overpaid Tyson Chandler or Samual Dalembert, but there really arent a whole lot of defensive big men out there.

He's only 321 years old.

 

[bajaden]

In my honest opinion Steve Hunter is the one who fits the most wiht that style of player and hes still young at 25, hes a 7 footer who plays good D and I wouldnt mind giving him a shot... maybe a 2 year 4M deal with the 2nd year a team option.. but thats just me

I would rather gamble on Swift, whose younger and his knee injuries aren't nearly as bad, or a Hollins, also younger, who played pretty well at the end of the season. Look, I agree on what we need. There's only a couple of ways to go. Either trade for a more established back-up center, or take a flyer on a 7 footer thats young with possible upside. My gut tells me that there's going to be a trade. My gut also tells me that I'm hungry.

 

[gunks]

I say just chillax before we sign some scrub to a contract.

This season's draft AND FA crop was low low low on defensive bigs.

Next season's draft has a couple shotblockers in the top 10, and the FA crop is huge. If we dont get our defensive big in 2010 THEN there is no excuse, but for now it's going to be another layup drill season. It's not like we're making the playoffs anyways.

 

[fxhsurjono]

This season's draft AND FA crop was low low low on defensive bigs.
Next season's draft has a couple shotblockers in the top 10,

i wouldnt want to spend our lotto pick on a defensive center next year when we already have hawes ims aying next year with o ur high 2nd round pick, we could get a rotation big that will play d, like this year when i thought we had pendergraph, i was so happy, then he got traded....

 

[fnordius]

Im going to give Geoff the benefit of the doubt here and say that if there is someone out there worth it he would go after him.

I used to do that, but it went on for too many years. We went from Vlade + Keon to, on average, a fraction of an Ostertag, Skinner or 3Will per season. And that's giving Geoff the benefit of the doubt and counting the stubby ones. You really can't do that for 5-6 years running if you were trying to fix it, only if you don't care, or prefer not to. We don't have someone like Hollins because we traded away the 2nd round pick that was used to select him in order to get Jason Hart, and traded away another that could have been used on Marc Gasol (IIRC, this was a pick we gave to Utah in order to get them to take Keon Clark's last contract year off our hands). We traded away Kendrick Perkins' 1st round pick, too. That's not to try to critique those particular trades (although a couple of them were questionable), it's just to show that players like those have been in our reach, even when our draft position wasn't very good. If Geoff had wanted them, we could've had them. Defensive players, especially those over 6'7", are valued at approximately zero, if you add up everything we got for Keon, Ostertag, Skinner and 3Will total, it's roughly nothing. We gained a couple of worthless enders who played about 5 minutes of season-end garbage time between them, and gave up a draft pick. He could have had any number of defensive bigs with half the effort he wasted trying to sucker someone into taking KT's contract off our hands.

I can only conclude that, the less someone plays like a 6'7" G/F, the less likely Geoff is to add them to the roster. And some big who can't shoot a 3, and is hard-pressed to hit a 15' jumper, is just too far outside Geoff's comfort zone. So I keep wishing for one, but I don't expect it to happen.

 

[VF21]

He's only 321 years old.

Harumpf. Talk about ageism. What about the maturity, the experience, the knowledge? All of that brushed aside simply because someone is two years older than dirt?

 

[kupman]

We do need better interior D and there is no reason that Hawes cannot grow into a more defensive minded center. He has already surprised everyone with his shot blocking ability and that happened in his 2 year in the NBA and at the age of 20. I hope that he continues to work on this side of his game and I hope that he eats a ton food, lifts weights and adds about 30 lbs to his frame to help him on his interior offense and defense. Perhaps in 2-3 years time he will do just that.

 

[SacTownKid]

You're absolutely right about what we need -- in all of the years of our decline and fall we have managed to go a grand total of one season (actually closer to half a season) with such a player even theoretically on the roster. And Tag was overweight, mediocre, and a year from retirement. The connection to our perpetually weakening defense and annual bottom 5 appearances in interior defense could not be stronger. Yet it never gets addressed. But unfortunately none of the above really satisfy the requirement -- can't help from the end of the bench.

What those guys ARE, or should be, are the 5th bigs for a team serious about defense. If you are one of those teams, you'll have a big defensive stalwart somewhere in your Top 3 bigs, but then you'll have another down on your bench as insurance too. We have neither, and with May and presumably Brockman, we have (shocker) decided to go short and groundbound again with our 4th/5th bigs. Since none of the guys you mentioned are good enough to be true rotation #3 bigs, and the #4/#5 spots they would normally fill are already taken by stubby guys, I'm assuming those guys are off the menu. The only question at this point is whether we will spend the assets to bring in a true defensive #3 big or not. But Hunter, Hollins et al are not at that level.

Ah, you see, the much bigger problem is in order to have those types of players you need the other 95% of the puzzle. The one or two guys so good that you can stick a player or two like that in the rotation. We aren't there yet and need to find out if what we have now can lead us there. Plenty of terrible teams with some legit shotblockers in the lane, yet, they're still pretty terrible.

After watching Brockman he's far from "groundbound" but a shotblocker he is not! Although you could tell the last two games or so he was trying to be pretty aggressive in that area.

 

[SacTownKid]

i wouldnt want to spend our lotto pick on a defensive center next year when we already have hawes ims aying next year with o ur high 2nd round pick, we could get a rotation big that will play d, like this year when i thought we had pendergraph, i was so happy, then he got traded....

It might be our luck that there could be a long list of PF's that fit our needs. Ed Davis, Derrick Favors, John Henson, Cole Aldrich (C but he can play PF), Greg Monroe, Larry Sanders, Jarvis Varnado, Demarcus Cousins, Gani Lawal, Trevor Booker, Patrick Patterson, and a few more. Kind of strange how we've needed a PG for so long and this last draft was stacked with them, and next years draft is stacked with shotblocking PF's.

 

[AriesMar27]

unless youre cool with trading for chandler or dalembert i just dont know who else is out there as a defensive bigman that we could get our hands on that doesnt totally suck. portland isnt giving up pryzbilla for anything we have on our roster... they have no need for the players that we would trade for the big.

i still love the idea of getting chandler, especially now with sergio on the team. between him and martin, sergio would have to fail miserably not to average atleast 8 assists a game.

 

[kingsnation]

I say make a move for Tyson Chandler while he's still on the trading block.

http://www.kingsfans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32753

Second. and I'll throw in a third and a fourth too!

 

[bajaden]

Harumpf. Talk about ageism. What about the maturity, the experience, the knowledge? All of that brushed aside simply because someone is two years older than dirt?

Ahhhh, are you talking about me???

 

[gvucko]

http://www.nba.com/playerfile/radoslav_nesterovic/

Not the youngest of the bunch, but defensive specialist, can post, performs when he needs to (remember when Bosh was out for a couple of months) and acts cool when he is not needed (works wery hard on practices, supports his teammates even if he is benched for a while...let's say if Hawes plays like an all-star).

And may be cheap as well.

 

[AyeCarly]

After seeing what Tom Watson was capable of doing at age 59, I say we take a chance and bring back Ralph Sampson. He's only 49, btw.

 

[bajaden]

http://www.nba.com/playerfile/radoslav_nesterovic/

Not the youngest of the bunch, but defensive specialist, can post, performs when he needs to (remember when Bosh was out for a couple of months) and acts cool when he is not needed (works wery hard on practices, supports his teammates even if he is benched for a while...let's say if Hawes plays like an all-star).

And may be cheap as well.

Something tells me that he wouldn't pass Bricky's smell test. And, he would probably want more than the league minumin. On the positive side, he's been a backup for most of his career, and he would lend some vetrean leadership to the team..

 

[gvucko]

He has actually been a starter for a bigger part of his career. But he accepted his role as a backup now and he is not expecting to start anymore.

But I do agree that he would probably not play for the minimum.

But as a backup, even a 3rd big, I don't see any other player available.

 

[Merdiesel]

I say make a move for Tyson Chandler while he's still on the trading block.

http://www.kingsfans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32753

Chandler will be exposed as soon as he is traded away from CP3. Hes a good player but definitely not worth what hes paid.


I actually think that if Hawes works on it, he can turn out to be a very good defender. Hes quick on his feet and has good hands.

 

[allrightythen]

Totally agree with the OP about our needs but none of those guys really excite me. It doesn't seem like there is that type of guy available in FA so we'll have to trade for one. Or maybe wait til the draft next year. It would be nice to add that type of player now but since this year is not likely to be a highly successful year (in terms of wins), I would be ok waiting to really find the right guy to work a 3 man rotation with Hawes and JT.

 

[Andriod_KiNg]

Still need someone. Is Hawes our only 7 footer ?

 

[AriesMar27]

if you want to get technical hawes isnt even 7ft... but yeah... he is.

 

[One and Done]

I'm really not getting my hopes up for an "awesome" backup center when it's our starting 5 that needs to be addressed. However, I like the recent Fabricio Oberto rumors, but doubt we'll be in play given the Kings penny-pinching habits of late.