It’s up to him to convince the coaches in practice that he needs more than garbage time. Frankly, if he excelled in practice he could have easily gotten playing time. It’s a position the Kings need, so if he has gotten the time it tells me something. I honestly think he should spend more time in the gleague
What will it take to get better internally
- Thread starter sactowndog
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I'm fine with that - but is that really what our offense was this year?
My biggest frustration was seeing either impatient early threes or a lot of late in the shot clock threes out of desparation. What you describe should be what happens when Fox drives and gets closed in on and passes back out and one of the wings hits but we were seeing Fox chuck threes instead of driving and I was getting the impression he was tired of getting no calls and settling for threes instead of contact with no reward.
I felt like we were seeing too many "prayer threes" this season that missed and so any call for more threes of any sort felt deranged.
My biggest frustration was seeing either impatient early threes or a lot of late in the shot clock threes out of desparation. What you describe should be what happens when Fox drives and gets closed in on and passes back out and one of the wings hits but we were seeing Fox chuck threes instead of driving and I was getting the impression he was tired of getting no calls and settling for threes instead of contact with no reward.
I felt like we were seeing too many "prayer threes" this season that missed and so any call for more threes of any sort felt deranged.
I don't know that perception and reality align when it comes to De'Aaron Fox's season. Let's look at what he did post-All Star break in 2024:
26.2 ppg / 5.9 apg / 5.5 rpg / 2.3 spg / 0.5 bpg / 46.6 fg% / 35.6 3p% / 82.7 ft%
Let's go back to last October ... is anyone disappointed by these numbers?
His full season stats are slightly lower but not by much. So what changed between the beginning of last season and the end of it to cause this dramatic change in perception where Fox can post career highs in most categories, play his best basketball in the most important stretch of the season, and is still looked at as part of the problem? I was also in the camp of people who felt he settled for threes too much but just looking at his splits -- in the two months when he shot the most threes (9.2 attempts per game in December and 9.9 attempts per game in April) he was hitting them at over 40% -- casts some doubt on that perception. Guys who take and make threes at that high of a volume are all considered elite shooters.
Maybe we should just accept that the 3pt shot his here to stay and Fox isn't going to handicap himself any longer by refusing to shoot them at the same rate as the league's other top scorers?
26.2 ppg / 5.9 apg / 5.5 rpg / 2.3 spg / 0.5 bpg / 46.6 fg% / 35.6 3p% / 82.7 ft%
Let's go back to last October ... is anyone disappointed by these numbers?
His full season stats are slightly lower but not by much. So what changed between the beginning of last season and the end of it to cause this dramatic change in perception where Fox can post career highs in most categories, play his best basketball in the most important stretch of the season, and is still looked at as part of the problem? I was also in the camp of people who felt he settled for threes too much but just looking at his splits -- in the two months when he shot the most threes (9.2 attempts per game in December and 9.9 attempts per game in April) he was hitting them at over 40% -- casts some doubt on that perception. Guys who take and make threes at that high of a volume are all considered elite shooters.
Maybe we should just accept that the 3pt shot his here to stay and Fox isn't going to handicap himself any longer by refusing to shoot them at the same rate as the league's other top scorers?
Is it not possible that what was good for Fox was not good for the team as a whole this season? Clearly the offense changed and him taking more 3s, not always good ones, was a part of it. Especially at key moments of the game, I recall him taking a few in clutch time that missed where last year he would have taken them to the rim.
Also what about (theoretically) getting opponents into foul trouble early?
I am not mad that he developed the 3 and hope he keeps using it as a tool but we all saw what we saw. And I think it's also just part of a frustration many of us have with the modern game. Analytically it makes more sense to shoot 40% from 3 than it does to shoot 55% from 2, but typically you don't draw fouls and passing can be less effective when it's around the perimeter than the drive and kick, which I guess is how I am understanding the "spray" to be even though I felt our offense often lacked that.
Also what about (theoretically) getting opponents into foul trouble early?
I am not mad that he developed the 3 and hope he keeps using it as a tool but we all saw what we saw. And I think it's also just part of a frustration many of us have with the modern game. Analytically it makes more sense to shoot 40% from 3 than it does to shoot 55% from 2, but typically you don't draw fouls and passing can be less effective when it's around the perimeter than the drive and kick, which I guess is how I am understanding the "spray" to be even though I felt our offense often lacked that.
I guess then I'm "loudly" excited about Keon. He completely transformed the defense for the Kings while providing enough shooting and offense to not be a liability on that end. If the Kings could find the PF version of him to fill out the starting five around Keon, Fox, Keegan, and Domas then you're really in business. My wish for that spot is Jonathan Isaac if Monte could pry him out of Orlando, but for now I'm hugely impressed with Keon's growth and impact.
You may be relying too much on the numbers. The eye test revealed to many of us that that his style from the previous season, was a better fit for this team. It's not about refusing to shoot the 3, as much as it is not settling for it as much. His best skill that will translate to the playoffs is applying pressure on the defense, by getting into the lane and mid/short range where his shot is elite
Two things can be true here:
(1) As fans we're unhappy to see Fox settling for threes because over the course of his career we've seen him excel as a slasher and mid-range shooter and the increased volume of threes he took this past season negatively impacted his overall shooting efficiency.
(2) The team is ultimately better with a version of De'Aaron Fox who is as capable as an outside shooter as he historically has been as a slasher and transitioning his offensive game away from pure athleticism and finishing ability toward a more perimeter based skillset will allow him to stay relevant in the league longer.
I would agree with most of what you expressed here. I also prefer to see players driving the ball into the defense and forcing the other team to make a play to stop you. But the mitigating factor here is that even if Fox is fouled that gets us nothing unless the officials call it a foul and they've been reluctant to do that. And complaining about it only gets you less calls. So the choice isn't necessarily up to us about which style of play we prefer so much as it is about adapting to how the league wants to see the game played instead of stubbornly hoping something will change on the officiating end.
Let's look at the overall 3pt shooting though. Has it really changed that much from 2023 to 2024? According to team stats, the Kings as a team attempted 37.3 3pt shots in the 2022-2023 season and 39.3 3pt shots in the 2023-2024 season. Those shots weren't coming from Fox as often in the previous season (5 per game instead of 7.8 per game) but with Monk, Murray, and Huerter all shooting around 35-36% on their attempts in 2023-2024, it made sense for them to shoot less and Fox to shoot more. The more significant change was seen in the fourth quarter shot distribution. Whereas a year ago the plan was to give the ball to Fox and let him dissect the defense off the dribble, in the final period last season we saw a lot of threes taken early in the shot-clock resulting in wasted possessions at critical points of the game.
Statistically speaking, Fox should be shooting a lot if he's able to make them at a 40% clip. And to his credit, he seems to have recognized this and shot more of them in the parts of the season when his shot was going in at around a 40% clip and less of them when it wasn't. Where he could adjust in the future is in his situational awareness. Even if the numbers average out to where a 3pt attempt is better than a 2pt attempt in the aggregate, when the score is close and the clock is winding down, the difference between 2 pts and 0 pts is potentially game-breaking. In that situation it's better to get the 2 pts.
Ultimately I guess we're saying the same thing in different words. Nobody is mad about Fox's improved outside shot. The frustration stems more from the over-reliance on off the dribble threes and the ball sticking with one player on the perimeter instead of moving around to the open shooter. I do wonder how much of this stems from our elite shooters being either reluctant to take the shot when it's there (Barnes and Ellis) or losing confidence in their jumper by the second half of the season (Huerter and Murray). This is another area where a healthy and confident Sasha Vezenkov coming off the bench next year could help us. He was one of our better shooters this year and he was under-utilized in that capacity.
I guess I'm just rambling at this point. To address the original topic, I still think the biggest changes need to happen on defense. The offense was good enough -- we outscored 4 of the 6 top-ranked teams in the West this year (Denver, Minnesota, LA Clippers, and Phoenix). Conversely, we allowed more points than all of those top 6 teams except for Dallas. There's no way to know for sure but the decision to jettison Queta and Noel in order to keep JaVale McGee as the primary backup C looks really bad right now. McGee is solid on defense but everything else he does on the floor makes him borderline unplayable. I also can't see us rolling into next season with Kessler Edwards as the only backup SF again unless Mike Brown can be hypnotized into actually playing him. If Monte can find a full size defensive wing and a defensive backup C / starting PF who will both be regular parts of the rotation next year, now we're in business. I have confidence in the rest of the rotation guys to continue to improve on both sides of the ball.
(1) As fans we're unhappy to see Fox settling for threes because over the course of his career we've seen him excel as a slasher and mid-range shooter and the increased volume of threes he took this past season negatively impacted his overall shooting efficiency.
(2) The team is ultimately better with a version of De'Aaron Fox who is as capable as an outside shooter as he historically has been as a slasher and transitioning his offensive game away from pure athleticism and finishing ability toward a more perimeter based skillset will allow him to stay relevant in the league longer.
I would agree with most of what you expressed here. I also prefer to see players driving the ball into the defense and forcing the other team to make a play to stop you. But the mitigating factor here is that even if Fox is fouled that gets us nothing unless the officials call it a foul and they've been reluctant to do that. And complaining about it only gets you less calls. So the choice isn't necessarily up to us about which style of play we prefer so much as it is about adapting to how the league wants to see the game played instead of stubbornly hoping something will change on the officiating end.
Let's look at the overall 3pt shooting though. Has it really changed that much from 2023 to 2024? According to team stats, the Kings as a team attempted 37.3 3pt shots in the 2022-2023 season and 39.3 3pt shots in the 2023-2024 season. Those shots weren't coming from Fox as often in the previous season (5 per game instead of 7.8 per game) but with Monk, Murray, and Huerter all shooting around 35-36% on their attempts in 2023-2024, it made sense for them to shoot less and Fox to shoot more. The more significant change was seen in the fourth quarter shot distribution. Whereas a year ago the plan was to give the ball to Fox and let him dissect the defense off the dribble, in the final period last season we saw a lot of threes taken early in the shot-clock resulting in wasted possessions at critical points of the game.
Statistically speaking, Fox should be shooting a lot if he's able to make them at a 40% clip. And to his credit, he seems to have recognized this and shot more of them in the parts of the season when his shot was going in at around a 40% clip and less of them when it wasn't. Where he could adjust in the future is in his situational awareness. Even if the numbers average out to where a 3pt attempt is better than a 2pt attempt in the aggregate, when the score is close and the clock is winding down, the difference between 2 pts and 0 pts is potentially game-breaking. In that situation it's better to get the 2 pts.
Ultimately I guess we're saying the same thing in different words. Nobody is mad about Fox's improved outside shot. The frustration stems more from the over-reliance on off the dribble threes and the ball sticking with one player on the perimeter instead of moving around to the open shooter. I do wonder how much of this stems from our elite shooters being either reluctant to take the shot when it's there (Barnes and Ellis) or losing confidence in their jumper by the second half of the season (Huerter and Murray). This is another area where a healthy and confident Sasha Vezenkov coming off the bench next year could help us. He was one of our better shooters this year and he was under-utilized in that capacity.
I guess I'm just rambling at this point. To address the original topic, I still think the biggest changes need to happen on defense. The offense was good enough -- we outscored 4 of the 6 top-ranked teams in the West this year (Denver, Minnesota, LA Clippers, and Phoenix). Conversely, we allowed more points than all of those top 6 teams except for Dallas. There's no way to know for sure but the decision to jettison Queta and Noel in order to keep JaVale McGee as the primary backup C looks really bad right now. McGee is solid on defense but everything else he does on the floor makes him borderline unplayable. I also can't see us rolling into next season with Kessler Edwards as the only backup SF again unless Mike Brown can be hypnotized into actually playing him. If Monte can find a full size defensive wing and a defensive backup C / starting PF who will both be regular parts of the rotation next year, now we're in business. I have confidence in the rest of the rotation guys to continue to improve on both sides of the ball.
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Len was already under contract. Monte didn't have to cut Queta (age 24) to keep Len, he had to cut him to keep McGee (age 36). That was supposed to be a win-now move but I don't think there's any argument to be made now that McGee was the missing piece this team needed. We may have been better this season with Queta instead of JaVale and certainly would have been better long-term continuing to develop a young center who had just been selected to the All G-League first team and G-League All Defense first team in his previous season.
Queta is terribly slow and would get hunted every night. He would pick up a ton of fouls and give nothing on offense. McGee was actually a decent lob threat for monk. No one, no one expect McGee to be a win now piece. Queta would not have got us more wins. He had plenty of chances to show what he could do and just couldn’t stay on the floor. Sorry g league accolades mean nothing.
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Queta played all of 149 minutes for the Kings spread out over 2 seasons. For a starter that number of minutes would be obtained in just 4 and a half games. You think after 4 and a half games worth of minutes you've seen all there is to see? So did Monte apparently. But I can't understand why he would sign a 36 year old and cut a 24 year old who plays the same position unless he thought the 36 year old would make the team better. That didn't happen.
This. We saw this the season before with KZ Okpala and Matthew Dellavedova (and to a lesser extent Chima Moneke). Coaches like to have "their guys" when they can, especially when they help reinforce the culture the coach is trying to establish. This worked out somewhat with Dellavedova, but not quite as well with McGee. He seemed like a good veteran voice in the locker room, but unlike with Dellavedova, Brown was counting on him to be a contributor on the floor in a sizable role as well and he just wasn't good enough.
Was he a better option than Queta? Hard to say. But I'd argue that Len was a better option than either so at the very least the McGee signing gummed up the works by giving JaVale minutes early in the season that probably should have been Alex's all along.
Either way, the Kings still likely need an upgrade at backup center this off-season if they can find one.
Was he a better option than Queta? Hard to say. But I'd argue that Len was a better option than either so at the very least the McGee signing gummed up the works by giving JaVale minutes early in the season that probably should have been Alex's all along.
Either way, the Kings still likely need an upgrade at backup center this off-season if they can find one.