Who cost the Kings ping pong balls?

#91
Yes they might. But you leaving out part of his argument. He stated, 'host of issues ....' implying multiple reasons not just the moral high ground. The other issue he specifically mentioned was the paying customer. You conventionally ignored them.

The paying customer may be no more than collateral damage to you, but a tanking team is not what they were sold. The fact that there is a 100% mortality rate for humans not all of the current customers will be around. The customer comes first. I'm not willing to shortchange them today for my benefit tomorrow. I'm not corporate america and I'm not going to act like them.
I abandoned my reply but your last bit made me share it.

In early February I went to a sports bar with fellow BU alumni to watch the Beanpot as we do every year. At the end of the game, I noticed a small group huddled around another TV watching the Kings play the Bulls. Now I was in pretty much full tank mode at the time, and they were all cheering the team while I was sitting there thinking "a loss would be great right now".

They were enjoying the hell out of that win, including Bogi hitting some crucial shots down the stretch.

And I thought to myself, what the hell am I doing??? And it dawned on me, just a week or two after I lost my dad, that you can't just go around life waiting for a tomorrow that will never come.

Bottom line, with the possible exception of Dallas, I don't see any of the tanking teams sniffing an NBA final with whoever they draft this year.
 
#92
I abandoned my reply but your last bit made me share it.

In early February I went to a sports bar with fellow BU alumni to watch the Beanpot as we do every year. At the end of the game, I noticed a small group huddled around another TV watching the Kings play the Bulls. Now I was in pretty much full tank mode at the time, and they were all cheering the team while I was sitting there thinking "a loss would be great right now".

They were enjoying the hell out of that win, including Bogi hitting some crucial shots down the stretch.

And I thought to myself, what the hell am I doing??? And it dawned on me, just a week or two after I lost my dad, that you can't just go around life waiting for a tomorrow that will never come.

Bottom line, with the possible exception of Dallas, I don't see any of the tanking teams sniffing an NBA final with whoever they draft this year.
My dad has had his prostate cancer in remission, has battled skin cancer a long time but was recently diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. Time is too short for gnashing of teeth.
 
#93
I wish I could agree with you, but karma does seem to be affecting Philadelphia who is about to win the Eastern Conference..
And I bet if you asked most of their fans right now the majority of them would say they are happy with The Process and would gladly go through those bad years again if it met they would be where they are at now. That front office cheated the hell out of their fans and sold them a bad product for years and it looks like that risk is about to pay massive dividends for them. The arena was at 86% occupancy 3 years ago and was at 96% this year. They also have two of the top eight best selling jerseys in the league which drastically increases their merchandise revenue. It turned out to be a massive win win for everyone. I can't help but think Sacramento would yield similar results.
 
#94
I abandoned my reply but your last bit made me share it.

In early February I went to a sports bar with fellow BU alumni to watch the Beanpot as we do every year. At the end of the game, I noticed a small group huddled around another TV watching the Kings play the Bulls. Now I was in pretty much full tank mode at the time, and they were all cheering the team while I was sitting there thinking "a loss would be great right now".

They were enjoying the hell out of that win, including Bogi hitting some crucial shots down the stretch.

And I thought to myself, what the hell am I doing??? And it dawned on me, just a week or two after I lost my dad, that you can't just go around life waiting for a tomorrow that will never come.

Bottom line, with the possible exception of Dallas, I don't see any of the tanking teams sniffing an NBA final with whoever they draft this year.
The thing I've always argued against tanking is that teams have managed to rebuild without doing it. Small market teams have done it like Denver and Utah. So I've never really been one of those fans wanting us to lose when I've been watching the game. Hands up I did later question why we were hellbent on beating the Grizzlies and Lakers in those two close contests, but in the heat of the moment I was cheering them on and was elated when we won.

Too many people these days are obsessed with tanking because they believe it is the solution and if the 76ers go deep in the play offs I suspect more will want their team to follow the same process. But tanking doesn't have a good success rate and most teams that do tend not to end up in a final within five years, or at all. A lot of teams get stuck in a rut or end up in mediocrity and we have certainly been one of those teams since our play off days ended.

For me, the best thing this team can do is try to highlight potential franchise changing talent without relying on high draft picks. This year we can get a good player at seven. We already have some decent young talent. So invest in them and bet on them developing into a good young team. Try and find ways to improve the roster without resorting to tanking. Try and find ways to build a positive team culture as well because the teams that rebuild well tend to do that early on, they set the tone. We generally haven't done that, and when combined with some questionable drafting it is no wonder we've been stuck in a rut.

I hope we can see this team back on the winning route soon. We've no reason to be bad next year due to having no first round pick. So let's hope we can have some good quality Kings basketball to cheer on!
 
#95
My dad has had his prostate cancer in remission, has battled skin cancer a long time but was recently diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. Time is too short for gnashing of teeth.
Ugh. I'm sorry. One of my dear friends has had it and fought it off for a long time but she's incredibly lucky.
 
#96
The thing I've always argued against tanking is that teams have managed to rebuild without doing it.
I've pointed out time and again the Blazers got where they are picking behind us every year after we got Cousins. We could/should be a top 3 team in the west right now.

People poo-poo winning culture but there are a few intangibles that come with it, one is a consistent coaching vision which allows draft picks to pan out at a higher rate. Most of the kids enter with comparable levels of talent it's what they make of it at the level that defines them. Secondly, there is just no doubt that winning teams get calls from the refs and loser franchises don't and that is also essential when making a star or snuffing one out (see Cousins).
 
#97
And I bet if you asked most of their fans right now the majority of them would say they are happy with The Process and would gladly go through those bad years again if it met they would be where they are at now. That front office cheated the hell out of their fans and sold them a bad product for years and it looks like that risk is about to pay massive dividends for them. The arena was at 86% occupancy 3 years ago and was at 96% this year. They also have two of the top eight best selling jerseys in the league which drastically increases their merchandise revenue. It turned out to be a massive win win for everyone. I can't help but think Sacramento would yield similar results.
I think this is where Philly really trumps everyone and it will probably won't ever happen again, like it has for Philly.

The NBA is going to make some big changes to the lottery system and its going to happen sooner rather than later, likely this coming summer for the 2019-20 season.

No other team will be able to maximize their tanking and their draft spot as well as Philly has done these past 6+ years.
 
#98
And I bet if you asked most of their fans right now the majority of them would say they are happy with The Process and would gladly go through those bad years again if it met they would be where they are at now. That front office cheated the hell out of their fans and sold them a bad product for years and it looks like that risk is about to pay massive dividends for them. The arena was at 86% occupancy 3 years ago and was at 96% this year. They also have two of the top eight best selling jerseys in the league which drastically increases their merchandise revenue. It turned out to be a massive win win for everyone. I can't help but think Sacramento would yield similar results.
They got very lucky that their picks ended up being as productive as they did. It could easily have gone the opposite way for them had they landed the second pick in 2016 rather than the first pick because I'm not convinced Brandon Ingram would have been as good for them as Ben Simmons has been. Joel Embiiid was drafted in 2014 and didn't play in his first two seasons due to injury. He's a star now but at one point people were concerned by those injuries, had he not overcome those injuries they would have been lining up with Jahlil Okafor or Nerlens Noel at center. So as nice as it is for them to sit back now and marvel at the roster they have got, it could have been different for them with a bit of bad luck.

Other teams haven't been that lucky to get franchise changing talent. For example, when Charlotte were the worst team in the strike shortened season they fell from 1 to 2 while New Orleans moved up to 1. Due to that bad lucky they ended up with Michael Kidd-Gilchrist while New Orleans ended up with Anthony Davis. One team got a defensive specialist, the other got a superstar. Orlando have been stuck in rebuild mode post-Dwight Howard and haven't managed to get a franchise changing player. One year Cleveland got Anthony Bennett first overall, the next they got Andrew Wiggins. So there are factors like that to consider ranging from weak years to so-called stronger years. If your tank ends up being in a weaker year you're in dire trouble.

Would I be able to stomach the process if it landed us a title contender? Probably, but I don't think it is something we should entertain because you need to be very lucky to pull off a successful rebuild like that.
 
They got very lucky that their picks ended up being as productive as they did. It could easily have gone the opposite way for them had they landed the second pick in 2016 rather than the first pick because I'm not convinced Brandon Ingram would have been as good for them as Ben Simmons has been. Joel Embiiid was drafted in 2014 and didn't play in his first two seasons due to injury. He's a star now but at one point people were concerned by those injuries, had he not overcome those injuries they would have been lining up with Jahlil Okafor or Nerlens Noel at center. So as nice as it is for them to sit back now and marvel at the roster they have got, it could have been different for them with a bit of bad luck.

Other teams haven't been that lucky to get franchise changing talent. For example, when Charlotte were the worst team in the strike shortened season they fell from 1 to 2 while New Orleans moved up to 1. Due to that bad lucky they ended up with Michael Kidd-Gilchrist while New Orleans ended up with Anthony Davis. One team got a defensive specialist, the other got a superstar. Orlando have been stuck in rebuild mode post-Dwight Howard and haven't managed to get a franchise changing player. One year Cleveland got Anthony Bennett first overall, the next they got Andrew Wiggins. So there are factors like that to consider ranging from weak years to so-called stronger years. If your tank ends up being in a weaker year you're in dire trouble.

Would I be able to stomach the process if it landed us a title contender? Probably, but I don't think it is something we should entertain because you need to be very lucky to pull off a successful rebuild like that.
I'm not saying I endorse that method or that it always works, but that Sacramento cheating their fans and selling them a bad product probably wouldn't harm their image that much, if at all, with those fans if it lead to a good team in the long run.
 

Mr. S£im Citrus

Doryphore of KingsFans.com
Staff member
And I bet if you asked most of their fans right now the majority of them would say they are happy with The Process and would gladly go through those bad years again if it met they would be where they are at now. That front office cheated the hell out of their fans and sold them a bad product for years and it looks like that risk is about to pay massive dividends for them. The arena was at 86% occupancy 3 years ago and was at 96% this year. They also have two of the top eight best selling jerseys in the league which drastically increases their merchandise revenue. It turned out to be a massive win win for everyone. I can't help but think Sacramento would yield similar results.
That's because The Process is what Seventy-sixers fans were sold: that is a very underacknowledged part of the whole thing. Kings fans were not sold on a Process. Divac never really explained his plan; he just said that he had one. And the fandom became split between people who were willing to give Divac the benefit of the doubt, and see how the whole thing plays out, and people who are like, "What the hell, man? Why don't you just do what Philly did?"

Being transparent about what you're doing makes a difference, especially when you have to serve a customer base that's being asked to continue to pay full price for tickets to see a losing product. For everything else that Hinkie did in Philadelphia with the personnel, that I may or may not have philosophical objections to, the part that he doesn't get nearly enough credit for is being transparent with his consumers. For effectively articulating to them, "This is what I'm doing, this is what you should expect to see while this is happening, this is why you should stick around, and continue to give us money, while you wait on this to happen." Divac hasn't done that and, if anything, I think that the real lesson to be learned from The Process is that that is just as important a part of the job as the personnel decisions you make.
 

Kingster

Hall of Famer
This implies not only incompetence and indecisiveness, but also disingenuousness on Vlade's part. I think this point of view comes from a myopic focus on draft position as end all be all of franchise future success. As such, tanking/not-tanking becomes viewed as the only possible decision that a GM would think about during a season and every move is viewed through that prism. To some it is inconceivable that someone would honestly believe that developing young talent at the possible expense of draft position is the right way to go.

That said, I think they expected to lose a lot of games by concentrating on development, but that is not why they did it. If tanking was the ultimate goal, and development a means to conceal it, then they did a bad job on both fronts...
I agree. It does. By the way, I don't hold the disingenuous aspect of Vlade against him. That's a plus. I wouldn't want a GM to be perfectly candid, especially when it comes to the subject of tanking. And sure, I would expect the vacillation was due to a push and pull between various objectives that he had in mind. Typically that is what causes vacillation - straining in opposite directions against multiple objectives. The objective of draft position is very tangible and very real and easily monitored. The other objectives are intangible and not easily monitored. I tend to go with the tangible stuff.
 
They got very lucky that their picks ended up being as productive as they did.
And they still missed on 2-3, not to mention who knows what they have with Fultz so they have a 50% track record.

Also had Embiid and Simmons not been injured they may have played themselves out of the process earlier.
 

VF21

Super Moderator Emeritus
SME
I wish I could agree with you, but karma does seem to be affecting Philadelphia who is about to win the Eastern Conference..
About to win the Eastern Conference? Good to know. I thought they actually had to play the games.

There's an old saw about not counting chickens before they're hatched. The Sixers currently have ONE win in the first round of the playoffs. The chicken that will lay the eggs that will eventually become the chickens you're trying to count hasn't even been hatched yet. ;)
 
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You may be conflating two things here: what Hinkie did was two different things at the same time, both of which were considered unusual from an NBA GM: he implemented a very blatant tanking strategy, but he was also very transparent to his consumers about it. @King Baller's post and @Tetsujin's response appear to be about the transparency part, but your reply suggests that you thought that they were talking about the tanking part.

If Hinkie had done the same things, strategy-wise, but had been as coy about it to consumers as, say, a Geoff Petrie, it would have produced the same results, but Seventy-sixers fans would likely have been much less energized about it.
Your point is a fair and interesting one. Had he been more coy would fans have been less patient with the team? Had he been more coy would he not have been fired under pressure from the commissioner's office? I would agree the strategy and the communication of the strategy are two different items and yes I was replying to the strategy.
 
Yes they might. But you leaving out part of his argument. He stated, 'host of issues ....' implying multiple reasons not just the moral high ground. The other issue he specifically mentioned was the paying customer. You conventionally ignored them.

The paying customer may be no more than collateral damage to you, but a tanking team is not what they were sold. The fact that there is a 100% mortality rate for humans not all of the current customers will be around. The customer comes first. I'm not willing to shortchange them today for my benefit tomorrow. I'm not corporate america and I'm not going to act like them.
I think that really depends on the make-up of your customer base. As a paying customer with season tickets, I am happy to sacrifice wins in the near term to a better chance at a long term. Other's may feel the same. I will agree " in Sacramento" the majority of fans are not willing to sacrifice the short term for the long term. Which get's back to whichever way this goes, Sac fans are mostly fully aligned with the front office. Sac fans would not have supported Hinkie like Philly fans did.
 
I think that is what the Kings decision making has come down to: Morality.

I think the Kings feel it is outright immoral to purposely tank, therefore cheating their consumer or paying customer.

Obviously Phoenix, Memphis, Dallas, and the rest of the tankers didn't feel that way. Those teams blatantly tanked the last 40+ games.

Well, it is what it is, so I'm hoping karma somehow plays into the lottery ping pong balls come May 15th. ;)
Well I hope so too.
 
The thing I've always argued against tanking is that teams have managed to rebuild without doing it. Small market teams have done it like Denver and Utah. So I've never really been one of those fans wanting us to lose when I've been watching the game. Hands up I did later question why we were hellbent on beating the Grizzlies and Lakers in those two close contests, but in the heat of the moment I was cheering them on and was elated when we won.

Too many people these days are obsessed with tanking because they believe it is the solution and if the 76ers go deep in the play offs I suspect more will want their team to follow the same process. But tanking doesn't have a good success rate and most teams that do tend not to end up in a final within five years, or at all. A lot of teams get stuck in a rut or end up in mediocrity and we have certainly been one of those teams since our play off days ended.

For me, the best thing this team can do is try to highlight potential franchise changing talent without relying on high draft picks. This year we can get a good player at seven. We already have some decent young talent. So invest in them and bet on them developing into a good young team. Try and find ways to improve the roster without resorting to tanking. Try and find ways to build a positive team culture as well because the teams that rebuild well tend to do that early on, they set the tone. We generally haven't done that, and when combined with some questionable drafting it is no wonder we've been stuck in a rut.

I hope we can see this team back on the winning route soon. We've no reason to be bad next year due to having no first round pick. So let's hope we can have some good quality Kings basketball to cheer on!
Yes and no.... one way or another you need to acquire top 3 picks. That is exactly what Geoff did when he acquired Weber and Bibby. It is what Houston did when they acquired Harden.

You mention Portland but they were 3 games from missing the playoffs altogether. You have lots of really good young teams coming up and Portland's window is near to closing.
 
I think that really depends on the make-up of your customer base. As a paying customer with season tickets, I am happy to sacrifice wins in the near term to a better chance at a long term. Other's may feel the same. I will agree " in Sacramento" the majority of fans are not willing to sacrifice the short term for the long term. Which get's back to whichever way this goes, Sac fans are mostly fully aligned with the front office. Sac fans would not have supported Hinkie like Philly fans did.
I honestly don't know the mindset of the Sacramento paying customer. I left the Sacramento area almost twenty-two years ago, North Highlands' resident. Most on this board that indicate that they have tickets seems to be in anti-intentionally lose category. Personally I put the paying customer over the fans like me, who watch from home (commuting would be a problem).
 
I honestly don't know the mindset of the Sacramento paying customer. I left the Sacramento area almost twenty-two years ago, North Highlands' resident. Most on this board that indicate that they have tickets seems to be in anti-intentionally lose category. Personally I put the paying customer over the fans like me, who watch from home (commuting would be a problem).
I was a ticket holder but I am no longer because why bother with a team that will perpetually be in the lottery.
 
Yes and no.... one way or another you need to acquire top 3 picks. That is exactly what Geoff did when he acquired Weber and Bibby. It is what Houston did when they acquired Harden.

You mention Portland but they were 3 games from missing the playoffs altogether. You have lots of really good young teams coming up and Portland's window is near to closing.
And how did they acquire those players? Also, which top 3 picks did Houston have since 2007?
 

Kingster

Hall of Famer
That's how it looks from one side of the aisle. The other side of the aisle sees it differently, and it might go something like this:

"What's most frustrating is that one side is actually concerned with properly developing players and establishing a culture of winning which is ultimately what puts butts in seats, and the other side simply wants to keep chasing after a pie-in-the-sky player that may end up being a bust anyway particularly if thrust into a locker room with a culture of losing."

I don't imagine you would much agree with that statement - no more than they would agree with your characterization, particularly your description of the other side as shouting that everything is better than ever, which seems to me a strange characterization of a side which is at least trying to be optimistic.

And for balance, let me give you my view from somewhere in the middle:

"What's most frustrating is that both sides have good arguments, but the side that most likely has the better argument all things considered has fallen into relentless, often toxic negativity rather than agreeing to disagree and somehow not realizing that this insistence on negativity causes the other side to stick their fingers in their ears and has actually forced them to carve out spaces on the board where they can do strange things like enjoy the team winning without being told that their enjoyment is wrong."

The ability of these two sides to live together seems to be very close to nil right now, but I really don't think it has to be that way. And while the pro-tank crowd might not like to hear it, it seems to me that the onus is on them to tone down the rhetoric if they want reconciliation. It's possible to be friends with someone who shares the same goals as you (the Kings becoming a winning franchise) but disagrees with you on the best way to do it without persistently turning it into an argument, and an unfriendly one at that. My take, for what it is worth, is that it is the pro-tank side that is most responsible for persistently turning it into an argument.

And the bottom line is that from here on out, for a full eighteen months we need to play the draft hand we've been dealt. Maybe we did a bad job at shuffling and cutting, maybe it's partially our own fault what draft hand we have, but the bottom line is that we are not going to play a single game for the next eighteen months where losing the game could possibly mean anything good for the franchise. For eighteen months, there is literally NO TANKING. TANKING IS OVER. And what this means, if anybody has read this far, is that there is really no good reason to turn anything into an argument about tanking for eighteen months. What's done is done, and for the next eighteen months what's to be done is drafting, signing free agents, making trades, developing players, and hoping that the Kings win every game possible. There is no tanking. We don't need to argue about tanking. And we've got eighteen months to try to get along. Let's make the best of it.
I agree with those two separate bolded statements, but not with the "maybe." and the "perhaps." Enough with "maybe." The young core of this Kings team was easily crappy enough this year to be in a top 5 ping pong ball slot. Without question, in my view. The ping pong ball outcome was largely in control of management. It wasn't ping pong balls or luck that put them in this position. It was their own personnel decisions and their strategy or lack thereof. They tried to split hairs on the veteran chemistry influence/draft position objectives and they failed on the draft ping pong ball side of the equation. Period. End of story. As far as whether they succeeded on chemistry enhancement veteran influence side of the equation, that is not nearly so clear cut. There is no number, as you of all people can appreciate, associated with that element in the equation.

This is what I say:

We did a bad job at shuffling and cutting. It is our own fault what ping pong position we have. That is my opinion. The other aspect you mention is factual: We have no draft pick for next year. Because of it we will not be arguing over Kings' tanking. The latter part is self-evident and I can agree with you on. Ironically, it was Kings' management that caused us to be in a position in which we do not have a #1 pick next year!
 

Capt. Factorial

trifolium contra tempestatem subrigere certum est
Staff member
I agree with those two separate bolded statements, but not with the "maybe." and the "perhaps." Enough with "maybe."

...

This is what I say:

We did a bad job at shuffling and cutting. It is our own fault what ping pong position we have. That is my opinion.
You're certainly welcome to your own opinion, and I hope that nothing I said made you believe I thought you weren't.

For my own part I'd like to reserve my ability to use "maybes". While I don't disagree that the team could have lost more games if they tried, I think there were yet some extenuating circumstances that resulted in more wins than one might otherwise expect. To pick a couple of simple examples: 1) We were faced with a Houston team in the final game of the season who cared literally zero about winning the game and fielded a lineup so makeshift that a player they gave 34 minutes to didn't even have his name on his jersey. We just couldn't match that level of apathy. Had we faced instead, say, the Nuggets or the Timberwolves, that game would much more likely have been a loss. That's one draft position, right there, where we got beat by the vicissitudes of the schedule and not ourselves. 2) Our young core hit an inordinate number of clutch shots to win games. Somebody posted the numbers about a week ago, and they were staggering. We beat our "pythagorean" by four wins (as did the Bulls). That's a lot of luck going against our ping pong position. At the same time, the top five teams came in under their pythagorean by an average of three wins each. That's a lot more luck going against our ping pong position.

That's the sort of thing I have in mind when I use maybes when I assign blame here.
 

Kingster

Hall of Famer
You're certainly welcome to your own opinion, and I hope that nothing I said made you believe I thought you weren't.

For my own part I'd like to reserve my ability to use "maybes". While I don't disagree that the team could have lost more games if they tried, I think there were yet some extenuating circumstances that resulted in more wins than one might otherwise expect. To pick a couple of simple examples: 1) We were faced with a Houston team in the final game of the season who cared literally zero about winning the game and fielded a lineup so makeshift that a player they gave 34 minutes to didn't even have his name on his jersey. We just couldn't match that level of apathy. Had we faced instead, say, the Nuggets or the Timberwolves, that game would much more likely have been a loss. That's one draft position, right there, where we got beat by the vicissitudes of the schedule and not ourselves. 2) Our young core hit an inordinate number of clutch shots to win games. Somebody posted the numbers about a week ago, and they were staggering. We beat our "pythagorean" by four wins (as did the Bulls). That's a lot of luck going against our ping pong position. At the same time, the top five teams came in under their pythagorean by an average of three wins each. That's a lot more luck going against our ping pong position.

That's the sort of thing I have in mind when I use maybes when I assign blame here.
Any plan or estimate has to allow for error. If the plan, or strategy, has a razor-thin margin for allowance of error, that's the fault of the planner or strategist. At least that's my opinion. You can't look at one or two games, especially the last Houston game. If the GM is down to one last game for his plan to be successfully executed, he's done a terrible job of planning as far as I am concerned.
 
You're certainly welcome to your own opinion, and I hope that nothing I said made you believe I thought you weren't.

For my own part I'd like to reserve my ability to use "maybes". While I don't disagree that the team could have lost more games if they tried, I think there were yet some extenuating circumstances that resulted in more wins than one might otherwise expect. To pick a couple of simple examples: 1) We were faced with a Houston team in the final game of the season who cared literally zero about winning the game and fielded a lineup so makeshift that a player they gave 34 minutes to didn't even have his name on his jersey. We just couldn't match that level of apathy. Had we faced instead, say, the Nuggets or the Timberwolves, that game would much more likely have been a loss. That's one draft position, right there, where we got beat by the vicissitudes of the schedule and not ourselves. 2) Our young core hit an inordinate number of clutch shots to win games. Somebody posted the numbers about a week ago, and they were staggering. We beat our "pythagorean" by four wins (as did the Bulls). That's a lot of luck going against our ping pong position. At the same time, the top five teams came in under their pythagorean by an average of three wins each. That's a lot more luck going against our ping pong position.

That's the sort of thing I have in mind when I use maybes when I assign blame here.
Your numbers are correct but is it possible those teams were under their Pythagorean because their clutch players were off the floor while we insisted on playing Bogs and Fox at the end of games.