Which Kings players are the best defenders?

[King Baller]

I'm gonna say Chuck Hayes. We have not seen much from Chuck as a King. With the Malone's in charge i think we are about to see this change.

Here is a line from Chuck's Wiki: "From 2003 to 2009, Hayes had the second highest defensive adjusted plus-minus of all NBA players."

I think Chuck will be put in a position to succeed. Most likely as a designated rotation player to come in and defend certain Bigs. I'm calling Chuck my Dark horse to start at PF.

KB

 

[Bricklayer]

I'm calling Chuck my Dark horse to start at PF.

KB

the thought had occurred to me, but that makes the rotations almost impossible. You've annointed Cousins your franchise guy. 30+min. 35+min if he can hold the fouls down. JT is your only non-Cousins size. You went out of your way to drop a silly contract on Landry. Those guys almost have to get significant minutes. So Patterson then benched as 5th big? That's a criminal underuse of that asset if you ruin his trade value like that.

 

[pshn80]

OP, you've named your best defender. Are there any others worthy of note? Hayes is not going to stop the Lakers by himself.

 

[jcwkings]

Hayes, Mbah Moute are the ones that stand out, JT has become a good post defender. IT has shown and could be a very good perimeter defender if he commits. McCollum and McLemore have the tools to become good defenders.

 

[Capt. Factorial]

IT has shown and could be a very good perimeter defender if he commits.

I'm not sure I can agree with that. I watched quite a bit of IT's defense last year for the grades threads, and he was consistently poor at just about every aspect of perimeter defense. He gets caught up on screens with an alarming frequency and recovers slowly, he has trouble keeping the ballhandler in front of him on a drive, and opposing guards often shoot right over the top of him.

Surprisingly, he has been quite effective as a post defender, which is hard to explain because he doesn't really have the ability to alter the shot. One guess is that he may hold his ground better due to a lower center of gravity, and the offensive player may be less willing to back him down because they worry that they'll knock him over and get called for an offensive foul that might be considered a flop from a bigger defender. These factors may lead to post shots being taken farther from the basket when IT is "the mouse in the house".

 

[Hadlowe]

It isn't so much that JT is a good post defender as it is that there are only about 5 good post players in the league. Chuck Hayes is a better post defender against all of them. The vast majority of 4's that JT is matched up with are face-up guys, and he is pretty bad at stopping them.

Pick and roll defense is the biggest weakness for the team. Part of that is that our guards get hung up on screens far more than you would like. The other part is the abysmal job our bigs do of knowing when to hedge, when to jam their cover against the roll, and when to rotate weakside to protect against penetration. PnR defense is tough, but the Kings are laughably inept at it.

That is the biggest change I hope to see with Malone involved.

 

[Gary]

I'm not sure I can agree with that. I watched quite a bit of IT's defense last year for the grades threads, and he was consistently poor at just about every aspect of perimeter defense. He gets caught up on screens with an alarming frequency and recovers slowly, he has trouble keeping the ballhandler in front of him on a drive, and opposing guards often shoot right over the top of him.

Surprisingly, he has been quite effective as a post defender, which is hard to explain because he doesn't really have the ability to alter the shot. One guess is that he may hold his ground better due to a lower center of gravity, and the offensive player may be less willing to back him down because they worry that they'll knock him over and get called for an offensive foul that might be considered a flop from a bigger defender. These factors may lead to post shots being taken farther from the basket when IT is "the mouse in the house".

Where was the site that shows opponent fg% per position? (I thought it was on 82games, but I cannot for the life of me find it)

If I remember correctly IT had one of the best opponent fg% on the team last year when guarding PGs. I can't find the site that it was linked from though. Can someone help me out here?

 

[Bricklayer]

Where was the site that shows opponent fg% per position? (I thought it was on 82games, but I cannot for the life of me find it)

If I remember correctly IT had one of the best opponent fg% on the team last year when guarding PGs. I can't find the site that it was linked from though. Can someone help me out here?

If he was it had little to do with him. Capt's analysis of what actually happened on the court is correct, and it got worse as the year went along. Its largely physically impossible for a 5'9" guy to adequately defend 6'2"+ guys anyway, but once you quit even really trying to get over screens and whatnot, its hopeless. If he was one of th better PG defenders on the team last year, what that really says is the other options were Aaron Brooks and Jimmer Fredette. Oy vey.

 

[jcassio]

Mbah a Moute and Hayes are the only proven defenders on the team. Other have some skills, but also some glaring weaknesses. Agree with Capt's assessment of IT as a defender.
Also, John Salmons used to be a pretty good defender, but hasn't shown that since coming back to the Kings (where he's been playing against taller and stronger small forwards). So as a guard, he probably deserves some mention. On the other hand, there's no way he should get any of minutes in front of Thornton and McLemore!

 

[rainmaker]

Where was the site that shows opponent fg% per position? (I thought it was on 82games, but I cannot for the life of me find it)

If I remember correctly IT had one of the best opponent fg% on the team last year when guarding PGs. I can't find the site that it was linked from though. Can someone help me out here?

And this is yet again where stats and the lack of a context fails.

Take for example going against OKC. Reke would be switched onto WB to cover for IT, and IT put on Sefolosha. If Reke defended WB to the tune of say, 9-21, and IT defended Selofosha to the tune of say, 3-5, of course just going by opponents FG % IT was more impressive. But the second you put that into context you realize that stat is incredibly misleading.

People continue to fail to understand defensive matchups on both sides of the ball. One, the extra attention and shading a premier perimeter player will get, opening up opportunities for others due to that extra attention and two, not taking into account defensive matchups on our end and who's guarding the top perimeter option vs who's guarding the support/role players.

Same problem with anointing Hayes that great of a defender(not that you did). Yes he can be above average in 1v1 post up situations, but as soon as you take into account his utter lack of lateral quickness on rotations and that he's too short to contest shots effectively when rotating, in a team defensive scenario he doesn't add much on his own and arguably hurts us since what we need is a team defender, someone who can help when rotating and contesting shots next to Cuz. Chuck would be much more effective next to a shotblocker defensively compared to asking him to be that help defender. Of course, put 90% of the shotblockers out there next to him and you have little offense down low, and that's part of the issue with Chuck. The limited part of the game where he's an asset doesn't help all that much in a team concept and to put him in a situation to play to his strengths usually means you're suffering elsewhere.

 

[dude12]

IT2 is close to on par with Jimmer for defensive ability. I'll say as the season unfolds, we may see more and more of Ray Mac if he is able to play good defense. If he is capable of handling a rotation role, we may see IT2 traded or see some 3 guard lineups with Vazquez guarding some SFs......certainly dependent on match ups. I think GS moved Klay Thompson down to SF and Barnes to PF occasionally.......for those opposed to the small ball, which is understandable why you would be, we may still see some of that.

LMbM is our best defensive player....and might be our only "defensive" player.

 

[bajaden]

Mbah a Moute and Hayes are the only proven defenders on the team. Other have some skills, but also some glaring weaknesses. Agree with Capt's assessment of IT as a defender.
Also, John Salmons used to be a pretty good defender, but hasn't shown that since coming back to the Kings (where he's been playing against taller and stronger small forwards). So as a guard, he probably deserves some mention. On the other hand, there's no way he should get any of minutes in front of Thornton and McLemore!

Since I had to grade Salmons quite a bit last season, I'm going to disagree with you. On the offensive side of the ball, he ranged from average, to downright horrible. It got so bad at one point, I didn't even want to grade him anymore. I felt like I was battering a pinata. However, I thought he did a good job defending his man on a regular basis. There were times when I felt John was the only player on the floor playing defense. I grant you that he's better at defending SG's, but I still have to give him his prop's for defending the SF positon. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough in my opinion to warrant starting him all year long.

I'd like to also say that I agree with the Capt. IT got continually caught up in screens last season, and there were times when he flat quit after running into a screen. I'm going to blame some it on his teammates for not being vocal enough and giving him a heads up. But even Jimmer, who also seemed to like making the acquaintance of the opposing center, would at least follow the play and try to regain position on his man.

 

[bajaden]

Mbah a Moute is our best individual defender. Hayes probably comes in second. What happens isn't about who is our best individual defender, its about who else will step up and become a good defender. Its about team defense. If anyone listened to the interview with a Moute yesterday, when asked about defense he was very insightful. He said it wasn't about having great lateral quickness or great foot speed and athleticism. All those things help of course, but they don't make you a good defender. McLemore has all those quailties, but is he a good defender right now? It was about knowing whom your defending and doing your homework. Its about knowing where your supposed to be on the floor. Its about commitment, technique, hardwork, and teamwork.

If everyone buys in, then our defense will improve. If we can just move to somewhere near the middle of the pack, I'll be happy. Hopefully we'll be able to add to whatever we build this season in the next offseason.

 

[PurpleHaze]

The Kings are worst defensive team in NBA, by all stats and measures. Here's individual grades on D-end as I see it - with hope for Malone system improvement this season:

Thomas C-
Vasquez C
Thornton C-
Fredette D
Salmons B
McLemore INC
McCollum INC
Cousins C-
Hayes B
Thompson C
Patterson C+
Landry C+
Mbah a Moute A-
Outlaw D

 

[KingMilz]

Imo if Luke Mbah A Moute is our best defender and he starts @SF you have to play Patterson @ PF for floor spacing on offense and while size wise Patterson is not a great defender he's very smart and does rotate very nicely.

 

[SacTownKid]

If allowed to play, Mbah a Moute and Hayes are arguably two of the best defenders in the league.

I agree, I think a Luc/Patterson SF/PF combo is a really good fit for Cousins.

 

[bajaden]

Imo if Luke Mbah A Moute is our best defender and he starts @SF you have to play Patterson @ PF for floor spacing on offense and while size wise Patterson is not a great defender he's very smart and does rotate very nicely.

Patterson isn't a shotblocker, but he is a good team defender. He knows where and when to rotate. He's also my choice to start next to Cousins. He really needs to put more effort into rebounding the ball though.

 

[randymoss1881]

Mbah A Moute is an elite defender just ask Kobe and durant. Last year he was coming off knee surgery and after 2 years hopefully he's back to 100% he is a game changer

 

[The_Jamal]

Patterson isn't a shotblocker, but he is a good team defender. He knows where and when to rotate. He's also my choice to start next to Cousins. He really needs to put more effort into rebounding the ball though.

The interesting part of Mbah-Patterson is I think you could, in the the right match-ups, get away with putting Mbah on PF's, and Patterson on SFs. With JT or Landry, you lose that flexibility of being able to move Mbah all over the floor, which is a big part of his value

As stated many times, all the parts are there for a really good offense around Cousins. Floor spacing (Patterson, McLemore, Thornton, IT, Salmons, Jimmer), secondary scorers who can create (Thornton, IT, Landry, somewhat Vasquez) a ball-distributor (Vasquez), and players who understand how to stay out of the way offensively (Mbah, JT, Hayes)

The question, as always, is if we can stop anybody.

 

[King Baller]

IMO after Hayes the best defender is Luc Mbah a Moute. On the front line then comes JT & PPat. Cousins and Landry can hold down their man and supply the O.

For the guards its Salmons then the Rookies. Ray Mac is my dark horse to steal the veteran minutes anytime defense is needed at the PG spot.


KB

 

[Double-K]

Cousins, PPat, and Luc starting doesn't sound too terrible actually. Vasquez is pretty much locked as our starting PG and he might need some help on perimeter D and Luc can only cover one aspect...
Thornton doesn't really defense that well... maybe Salmons starts on SG?

With that, we have IT, Thornton (or McLemore?) and Landry as our main back up scorers. Now JT alongside Landry makes more sense height wise but Hayes is a better defender. Then... where to fit Outlaw? McCallum? Jimmer?

 

[KingMilz]

Thornton doesn't really defense that well... maybe Salmons starts on SG?

I really think we are at that point where Salmons should not even see any playing time tbh, dude at this point is just crap nothing really more to say

 

[Sac.1989]

Salmons is far from a scrub, the fact he is still here speaks volumes. He can ball. We need his D and his passing mindset not his selfish black hole mentality. I have every faith that coach Malone can bring it out him in and that he will do well this season

 

[mac]

Salmons is far from a scrub, the fact he is still here speaks volumes. He can ball. We need his D and his passing mindset not his selfish black hole mentality. I have every faith that coach Malone can bring it out him in and that he will do well this season

Really? I think the fact that he is still here just tells you that nobody else wants him for the price we're paying him. The guy averaged 9 pts 2.7 rebounds 3 assists in 30 mpg shooting 40%. Kawhi Leonard 31.2 mpg 11.9 pts, 6 reb, 1.6 ast shooting 50%. Harrison Barnes in 25 minutes 9 pts, 4 reb, 1.2 ast shooting 44%.

Don't get me wrong, Salmons is no scrub, but "per dollar" he may very well be worth less than your typical 12th man. He'd be a semi-decent backup guard/SF, but right now he's our defacto starting SF and our other options are Travis Outlaw and Mbah a Moute. Kings fans have a lot of things to look forward to this season. Having a solid SF for the first time since Artest left is not one of those things. You take into consideration that we just added a big playmaker in Vasquez, bench scoring in Landry/McLemore or Thornton and basically you're paying 7.6 million for a SF (there's no way he swings to guard with McLemore, IT, Vasquez and Thornton) who gives you a tiny bit of defense.

 

[dude12]

What I'm looking forward to seeing is if Malone and his defensive reputation can make the Kings into a decent defensive team with his system. He's done it at every place he s been and with GS, the jump they made in defensive ability was impressive considering it was a roster made up of only a few defensive oriented players. I'm just asking for decent with this group.

The other thing is if he can bring out the best in each player. I think most people would agree that Smart brought out the worst in our previous team.....maybe not 1 player playing to potential. This would include the vets such as Salmons or Hayes or even an Outlaw. At one time, these guys had more value than recently. Can Malone get them to play to their full potential? If you look at what Landry did with GS last year with the improved reb numbers.....can he get more out of the vets?

 

[HighFlyingMonkey]

Defensively speaking, I think we're largely screwed.

Starting Mbah a Moute is a must if our backcourt is going to be Isaiah/Vasquez at PG and Thornton at SG. But that means that we need Patterson out there for floor spacing. While Patterson has a working knowledge of rotations, he gets bullied by bigger 4s like Randolph and Griffin. With Cousins as the starter at C, its going to take one miraculous scheme to be even average defensively.

Plus, because of our personnel, I feel like we're in for a long year of smallball. Just look at the possible minutes distribution:

C- Cousins 36, Thompson 12
PF- Patterson 20, Landry 25, Thompson 3
SF- Mbah a Moute 30, McLemore 18
SG - Thornton 35, McLemore 4, Vasquez- 9
PG - Isaiah - 32, Vasquez - 16

Riding the bench: Salmons, Outlaw, Hayes, Jimmer, McCallam

Totals:
Cousins: 36
Thornton: 35
Thomas: 32
Mbah a Moute: 30
Vasquez: 25
Landry: 25
McLemore: 22
Patterson: 20
Thompson: 15

Minutes distribution is going to be a nightmare. Thompson is better than a 15 mpg player, but can't play more because of fit (why did we sign Landry again?). Vasquez is probably better than 25 mpg but there's a massive guard logjam. And I just can't see them being a decent defensive team.

 

[pshn80]

Your minute distribution seems like a reasonable possibility but so is a distribution that is quite different. I hope the actual is based on how the players and each one of them take to Malone's defensive system. We all have views on how these players have played defense in the past. We don't know how much individual team improvement we can get out of Malone, his system and each player.

 

[bajaden]

Defensively speaking, I think we're largely screwed.

Starting Mbah a Moute is a must if our backcourt is going to be Isaiah/Vasquez at PG and Thornton at SG. But that means that we need Patterson out there for floor spacing. While Patterson has a working knowledge of rotations, he gets bullied by bigger 4s like Randolph and Griffin. With Cousins as the starter at C, its going to take one miraculous scheme to be even average defensively.

Plus, because of our personnel, I feel like we're in for a long year of smallball. Just look at the possible minutes distribution:

C- Cousins 36, Thompson 12
PF- Patterson 20, Landry 25, Thompson 3
SF- Mbah a Moute 30, McLemore 18
SG - Thornton 35, McLemore 4, Vasquez- 9
PG - Isaiah - 32, Vasquez - 16

Riding the bench: Salmons, Outlaw, Hayes, Jimmer, McCallam

Totals:
Cousins: 36
Thornton: 35
Thomas: 32
Mbah a Moute: 30
Vasquez: 25
Landry: 25
McLemore: 22
Patterson: 20
Thompson: 15

Minutes distribution is going to be a nightmare. Thompson is better than a 15 mpg player, but can't play more because of fit (why did we sign Landry again?). Vasquez is probably better than 25 mpg but there's a massive guard logjam. And I just can't see them being a decent defensive team.

McLemore is going to get more minutes than you have listed, and he's not going to get them at SF. He's only 6'4"and you would be doing him a disservice playing him there. Don't underestimate him, or McCallum. They have future plans for both players, and personally, I don't think they see Thornton as part of the long term future, and perhaps Vasquez as well. Vasquez might change their minds this season, but if not, I don't see them paying him big bucks to stay, especially if McCallum shows he can ball in the league.

I'm looking at the team as a ship on a shake down cruise. You take it to sea, and see what needs the most repair, and whats the most efficient way to fix it.

 

[lwc]

Defensively speaking, I think we're largely screwed.

Starting Mbah a Moute is a must if our backcourt is going to be Isaiah/Vasquez at PG and Thornton at SG. But that means that we need Patterson out there for floor spacing. While Patterson has a working knowledge of rotations, he gets bullied by bigger 4s like Randolph and Griffin. With Cousins as the starter at C, its going to take one miraculous scheme to be even average defensively.

Plus, because of our personnel, I feel like we're in for a long year of smallball. Just look at the possible minutes distribution:

C- Cousins 36, Thompson 12
PF- Patterson 20, Landry 25, Thompson 3
SF- Mbah a Moute 30, McLemore 18
SG - Thornton 35, McLemore 4, Vasquez- 9
PG - Isaiah - 32, Vasquez - 16

Riding the bench: Salmons, Outlaw, Hayes, Jimmer, McCallam

Totals:
Cousins: 36
Thornton: 35
Thomas: 32
Mbah a Moute: 30
Vasquez: 25
Landry: 25
McLemore: 22
Patterson: 20
Thompson: 15

Minutes distribution is going to be a nightmare. Thompson is better than a 15 mpg player, but can't play more because of fit (why did we sign Landry again?). Vasquez is probably better than 25 mpg but there's a massive guard logjam. And I just can't see them being a decent defensive team.

The only way that I disagree with your minutes breakdown involves Luc Richard. IF Mbah a Moute is 100% healthy his defense alone warrants his 36+ minutes per game. The key is health though.

 

[sdballer]

The only way that I disagree with your minutes breakdown involves Luc Richard. IF Mbah a Moute is 100% healthy his defense alone warrants his 36+ minutes per game. The key is health though.

That rarely happens with all-defense guys. At some point their offensive liabilities keep them off the court for 15+ minutes/game