What do you think of Coach Smart's "small ball" style of play?
- Thread starter K F Jay
- Start date
Speed kills. Except for DMC the Kings are not a powerful dominant team. Sometimes it is better to get there first. I like small ball, but I have been a fan of IT for 5 years. Watching him match up with James in the zone was unusual, but worked fine. I would take the chance of playing IT, Evans, and Thornton together. It helps the defense for the most part, and allows for a lot more points on the break. We get posted sometimes, and give up some scoring in the paint. Evans makes up for some of that.
With minimal bench production, it might help to trade Jimmer, Hickson, Garcia, or Salmons, etc. for a legit 3. Small ball is very entertaining and explosive bball, and gives us as good a chance as any other arrangement so far. Smart is a thinking man's coach. He knows how to be creative and has helped the team mentally a lot. Thomas has a level of confidence no one expected, but it tends to rub off on the other players. You can see the power between Cousins and Thomas and the other guards.
With minimal bench production, it might help to trade Jimmer, Hickson, Garcia, or Salmons, etc. for a legit 3. Small ball is very entertaining and explosive bball, and gives us as good a chance as any other arrangement so far. Smart is a thinking man's coach. He knows how to be creative and has helped the team mentally a lot. Thomas has a level of confidence no one expected, but it tends to rub off on the other players. You can see the power between Cousins and Thomas and the other guards.
Kingster
Hall of Famer
I think Smart has got to do some small ball until he sees some consistent production from Greene. (I'm just leaving Salmons out of the conversation). If Greene can take a step up, then it's a no-brainer to put him at the 3 to give us more size . It's all there for Greene to take the spotlight if he performs. But if he doesn't, it makes sense to have Tyreke at the 3. Tyreke rebounds better than Greene at the 3, that's for sure. If he gets that rebound, then he can race up the floor and do what he does best. Regardless, this team can play better D than it has, whether Greene is at the 3 or Tyreke. I still don't see the cohesiveness or sense of urgency on D that this team needs. One night, they are OK, the next they are aweful.
kennadog
Dog On It!
It may work occassionally depending on matchups, but I generally don't like it and we won't go far playing that way. I also think it's ridiculous to play Evans as a small forward. Last year we were generally big at every position, now we play smaller at most positions. There's a reason it's mainly exceptionally tall people in pro basketball and its not to provide an economic boost to tailors of custom clothing.
Last edited:
Glenn
Hall of Famer
I agree with most of this. More generally I would say if we had a real NBA quality starter at SF, this small ball nonesense wouldn't be be necessary. As it is, it may be the best way to work around an impotent SF position. At least the coach is used to small ball and I think Tyreke will expand his skills in small ball sets. Will we win? Oh, heck no.
And as to Kennadog's comment: ha! ha! ha! ha! That was great.
jalfa
Starter
right now it's rebound rates of 10.3% vs. 7.6% in favour of Evans. can't really quantify whether this is because of Greene spending more time at PF or not. at any rate, I just really, really, *really* want Smart to give Thomas/Evans/Greene/JT/Cousins some run, because whenever he did play at SF the last few games, he's looked really solid and it would probably help him out tremendously to play with the starters. nevermind that it might also cure some of the 'everybody in the lineup needs his touches' problem the Kings have.
completely agree with your last to sentences btw, maturity problems that correct themselves one would hope.
Kingster
Hall of Famer
That's the mystifying thing about Greene - his rebounding. He should be a consistently good rebounder, given his size and quickness. But he's not. I don't even have to look at stats to know Tyreke is better at rebounding the ball, especially when he's at the 3. And when Tyreke plays more at the 3, he's going to get even better rebounding the ball because he will anticipate the angles better on getting to the ball.
Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Tyreke has always been one fo the best reboudning PGs. But Green's rebounding is notably improvved this season. Not huge, but per minute he's respectable now, and sandwiched in between Joel Anthony and Tyrus Thomas on the rebounding lists. He outrebounds Andre Igoudala for instance, or Carl Landry. Weak for a PF obviously, but call him a SF and he's finally doing pretty well.
Kingster
Hall of Famer
That's definitely part of it, no doubt. Maybe the major part.
