I think this debate can be divided into several groups. One group is in love with Thomas, and he can do no wrong. Another group just doesn't like Thomas, and he can't do anything right. In the middle of this discussion are people that understand basketball, but who are also influenced by personal dislike or likes, one way or the other. I fall somewhere in the middle. I like Thomas, but my experience in basketball tells me what his limitations and advantages are. What this discussion is really about in the end, is what kind of team do you want going forward? They come in all sorts of flavors, but its the ingredients that make up those flavors that matter.
Like everyone else, when I go down the breakfast cereal isle, I pick my flavor of choice. Cherrios usually wins, with bran flakes coming in a close second. So what kind of basketball do you like? Isolation, or unselfish ball movement. And which ever way you choose, do we have the right ingredients? The Miami Heat play for the most part isolation basketball, and they won an NBA championship with it. However, they do have Wade and Lebron on their team. Phil Jackson has so many rings that he's running out of fingers, but he's played a motion type of offense, both with the Bulls, and the Lakers. Despite the fact that he had great isolation players on both teams in Kobe and Jordan.
The truth is, you do need one or if your lucky, two great go to guys when you have to have a basket. But just because you have them, it doesn't mean you have to play that way all the time. We have on the Kings, in my humble opinion, two very good players. Players with the potential to be all stars. But after that, based on potential alone, we have a large drop off. And thats OK, as long as you utilitize those players properly, and those players are the right fit next to your two best players. That however, is not the case! Thomas is a better SG than he is a PG, and that would be OK as well, if he were to take on the Mike Bibby role and play off the ball. That wouldn't solve his defensive liabilities, but it would help the offense. JT is fine on offense as long as he stays out of the way, but when we run plays through him, which seem token at times, such as, well, he certainly deserves a turn, then we become very predictable and easy to defend.
Yes, we score a lot of points on offense, but at what price. For every missed three, or fast break point, how many points do we give up at the other end when we get lost in transition, or complain about the and one, we didn't get. We don't play as a team. We play as a group of individuals each taking his turn at the firing line. When forced into a halfcourt set, we are perhaps the most predictable team in the NBA. We become stagnent with little or no ball movement. As they say, the ball moves faster than a player dribbling the ball. And please, don't tell me we can't pass the ball because the other team is clogging the passing lanes. You spread the floor properly, and I guarantee you you can find lanes to pass the ball in. Even teams that rely on isolation basketball, move the ball better than we do.
So what kind of team do you want? One that relies on one on one play, or a team that moves the ball not caring who scores it, but that that player has a high percentage shot. How many times do want to watch a team like the Spurs, pick us apart piece by piece with crisp passes and players moving without the ball. Some of our problem is personnel, and part of it is coaching. Nothing most of you didn't know already. There are a lot of changes that I would make, that I won't go into right now. Enough to say, that some players would be gone, and some that are starting would be coming off the bench. And not coming off the bench as a demotion, but because I believe it would help the team be better.
This debate is not as much about Thomas, as it is the style of basketball you want to play. Someone implied that the style played by Vlade and Webb etc. won't work now. Thats nonsense! It'll work, but it requires disclipine. You need players that are capable passers and enough players that can hit the open shot. We have all of those ingredients, we just don't have the coaching, the incentive, nor the experience. Our player development is terrible. Instead of developing players, we keep trying to steal other teams developed players and plug them into our system. In a way, thats an admission of failure in player development. If you plant your own seeds and grow your own crops, you'll get what you want. Otherwise, you become a bus stop where players just pass through on their way to someplace else.
