What happened to our team? (merged)

[Tetsujin]

The wall is kevin plain and simple I mean are best defensive player (Donte) is rotting on the bench now because of kmart lets ship him out and get the buzz around the kings again.

Sorry to pee on your Martin hate parade but our rooks weren't exactly blowing people out of the water for a couple of games before Martin showed up. To say that it's Martin's fault that Tyreke can't finish like he could earlier in the season and Omri can't seem to buy a basket and has been taking a few pages from the Andres Nocioni School of Forcing Things would be like saying that because we bought a puppy, th other dog has to start eating cat food. In addition, Donte rotted on the bench for the first game. Last night, he played a lot but got into foul trouble. I'd attribute the inconsistency of minutes to Paul Westphal not Kevin Martin since he's the guy who doles out the minutes and Paul seems obsessed with Nocioni playing a nice chunk of minutes despite the fat he does absolutely nothing. I'm not saying that Martin hasn't had a part in our losses (because he definitely has) but that the rookies and young players have done little to help matters.

 

[OptimusRhyme]

You know, maybe people need to quit expecting instant gratification from this young team and accept that there are gonna be really good nights and really bad nights.

more like really good months and really bad months.

 

[basketfan]

You know, maybe people need to quit expecting instant gratification from this young team and accept that there are gonna be really good nights and really bad nights.

If it ain't broken, don't fix it, if IT IS broken, don't wait for it to get fixed by itself..

I don't know about the rest of the guys here, but if you are talking about a young rebuilding team, i prefer to see a team lead by Evans+Casspi+Greene rather than Kevin+Martin.

At the last two games(especially against the 76ers), what happened most of the time was that either Evans or Udrih passed the half-court, and then gave the ball to Martin who started the offensive play, Martin is a shooter, and a damn good one, but he needs to be a last stop in an organized offensive play, and not the "give me the ball and watch" type of player he(apparently) is now...I'm not blaming him with selfishness, what's wrong is the hierarchy of the Kings offense, if you got a PG like Evans or Udrih, let them do their job, which is playmaking, with Evans first step, it's simply a crime not to let him penetrate every offense while Martin and Casspi waits in the wings for the pass...if Evans can finish with a layup, great, if not, it means that a defensive player left either Martin or Casspi open, and that kind of offense can be very deadly...

 

[VF21]

If it ain't broken, don't fix it, if IT IS broken, don't wait for it to get fixed by itself..

I don't know about the rest of the guys here..

You'd probably be very surprised to find out just how many of the good folks here AREN'T guys.

as far as your opening quip goes, "If you think it's broken, make sure before you take it completely apart."

 

[Larry89]

The Curse of Muss

 

[basketfan]

You'd probably be very surprised to find out just how many of the good folks here AREN'T guys.

Do i need to check every word i write here a 1000 times or is it ok to assume the posters here don't get offended that easily? especially when it wasn't my intention.

as far as your opening quip goes, "If you think it's broken, make sure before you take it completely apart."

Ok, so how many losses does it take to become "broken" in your standard? 5? 10? 30? if you read the rest of my post, you would have read what in my opinion is broken, and how to fix it, if you consider letting the PG do their job as taking it completely apart, then i don't know what to tell you.

 

[VF21]

Do i need to check every word i write here a 1000 times or is it ok to assume the posters here don't get offended that easily? especially when it wasn't my intention.

Don't get your panties in a bunch. I merely pointed out a fact.

Ok, so how many losses does it take to become "broken" in your standard? 5? 10? 30? if you read the rest of my post, you would have read what in my opinion is broken, and how to fix it, if you consider letting the PG do their job as taking it completely apart, then i don't know what to tell you.

It's a matter of making sure you know what's broken and two games isn't enough to narrow it down IMO. I read your opinion; I just don't necessarily agree that it's either the definitive cause or solution. And, for that matter, I don't agree with your assessment of "what happened most of the time was that either Evans or Udrih passed the half-court, and then gave the ball to Martin who started the offensive play."

 

[Arco Thunder]

In the past couple of months, the kings were playing pretty much game with a admirable level of intensity and working their butts off every game. Every time i turned on the tv it was exciting to watch and support the kings even if they lost just because you could see the amount of effort and heart everyone on the team was putting into the game. Recently tho it seems like our team has lost their drive and motivation and they just aren't as exciting to watch anymore. In addition With tyreke not playing as well as he was before his ankle injury I don't see anybody really stepping up to help out the team and take some of the burden off of reke.(except martin of course) It's just been so frustrating watching these kings play the way they have been playing the last couple of games. Wats even more frustrating is their desicion making and ball handling late in the game after having remained competitive for the first 3 quarters. they have been getting even more sloppy late in the game instead of doing wat they need to do: taking care of the ball and keeping their head in the game. Pls don't tell me I'm the only one feeling this change of tone with these kings..

You're not the only one. They have been very painful to watch here lately. I'm hoping that things get better soon...

 

[Kings Fan Gerard]

Me too, seeing them struggle is really disappointing. I wish we could win like 20 games before the break but it's not looking like that could happen with the way the team has been playing recently.

Maybe all of the close losses and the Laker ref bail outs have exhausted and have frustrated our team so much that it has affected their play.

 

[VF21]

Maybe all of the close losses and the Laker ref bail outs have exhausted and have frustrated our team so much that it has affected their play.

I think it's quite likely all the close losses have indeed had a fact on the team. It's got to be disheartening to try so hard and yet always come up a little bit short.

What I've seen thus far is a team that actually rises way above expectations when they play the tough teams but seems less inclined to do so against poorer opponents.

It's all very much still a work in progress, however. There are lessons being learned that I think will enable them to do much better down the road. And the coaches and Petrie are seeing what will work and what won't. You need that data before pulling the trigger on a trade that could send a very popular player off to another team.

 

[bajaden]

I wouldn't blame Kevin for these two matches- it's true and I agree he has disrupted the team chemistry, but what I see it's the team has slowed down since he is back, so it's more on Westphal.

We don't run as much as we ran before, and thats why we have averaged 80ppg instead of 100+ ppg. We try to squeeze every possesion trying to search Kevin, and slowing down the rythm only to integrate Martin it's a bad idea. Because the point it's our bigs have much more trouble to score against static deffense; they don't have a great catalogue of post movements or tools in attack if the deffense is already set. It's not about seeing his throw attemps and saying they aren't having this best nights, the point is they will never have their night if they have to play static offense 99% of the time.

This team is going no-where if they're trying to play a half-court game, because the overall deffense still sucks, and half-court offenses are great when you have an atonishing deffense and at least one big who can score by himself, but we don't have any of these things. Even if Martin scored a three in every possesion, it doesn't worth it.

I think you make a couple of good points here. Our offense has become more of a halfcourt offense for the last couple of games. And, I agree we don't play as well in a half court set. Its definitely affected Casspi who is more of, take whats there type of player. And thats a lot easier to do if you can attack before the other team gets into its defensive set.

At the same time I can understand slowing everything down for a while to work Martin back into the flow. We'll just have to see how it shakes out. What bothers me the most is that our energy level is down, and thats the one thing thats kept us in games. Sorry, I not buying into everyone hitting the wall just yet. But I can see them being a little emotionally spent. Its hard to go at 100% everynight and not get a win. Trust me, winning cures everything.

 

[casspion]

Do i need to check every word i write here a 1000 times or is it ok to assume the posters here don't get offended that easily? especially when it wasn't my intention.



Ok, so how many losses does it take to become "broken" in your standard? 5? 10? 30? if you read the rest of my post, you would have read what in my opinion is broken, and how to fix it, if you consider letting the PG do their job as taking it completely apart, then i don't know what to tell you.

SHE can be a bit annoying with that in-your-face moderating style, but hopefully you can get over it like I did.

 

[CruzDude]

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."

Somehow this seems oddly appropriate. Cabbages and Kings somehow related? The sea = playing floor and the pigs = our bigs. (With due respect to (Lewis Carroll who wrote that in 1872).

To deviate for a moment:
Tyreke and Omri have hit the rookie wall, to a lesser extent so have JT and Hawes. With Martin fresh and apparently ready to play some minutes, Noce, Greene and Udoka are seeing their minutes drop and the typical performance decrease when minutes drop big time. Their energy late in games is gone since Martin is back, a coincidence only.

 

[pshn80]

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."

Somehow this seems oddly appropriate. Cabbages and Kings somehow related? The sea = playing floor and the pigs = our bigs. (With due respect to (Lewis Carroll who wrote that in 1872).

To deviate for a moment:
Tyreke and Omri have hit the rookie wall, to a lesser extent so have JT and Hawes. With Martin fresh and apparently ready to play some minutes, Noce, Greene and Udoka are seeing their minutes drop and the typical performance decrease when minutes drop big time. Their energy late in games is gone since Martin is back, a coincidence only.

I like that. Thanks. Reading that over three or four times happens to be more fun for me this evening than a moment more of analyzing the Kings or reading someone else do the same. Go Walrus!

 

[folsomfella]

Well, I gotta admire the optimism many of you have for our team that is clearly devolving and playing just terribly. Still, I think Petrie is going to make a big move with Martin and was/is waiting to see if he still works on this team - which signs suggest he doesn't.