To all Mikky Moore et al talk:
WCS played under 15 % of his time without KAT or Dakari on the floor. He was
NOT A CENTER for his team this year, he was playing
POWER FORWARD.
Barely any NBA PF/C or true C types played PF in college. In fact the only one I can think of was Andre Drummond, and he looked bad statistically.
Last year when Caulie-Stein was actually playing center, his team was 2nd in entire Division I in
Oreb%(41.9), and decent in
DReb% (70.3).
This season despite all the bigs Kentucky's team
OReb% dropped to 39.5, while
DReb% - to 68.2.
Last season, when Caulie-Stein was allowed to fly all over the court swatting shots like KAT this year (11.5blk%), WCS got 12.3blk% and still had less fouls.
These are stats up to February:
--------DPoss%---OppFG%--created TO%--at the rim%--team DRtg
WCS----25.2--------24.6---------
7.1%------------
25.8----------
69.5
KAT----22.8--------26.9---------2.3%------------34.0-----------73.5
DPoss% - % of possessions, where he was the last defender
OppFG% - pretty obvious
created TO% - percentage of possessions, where he was the last defender, that ended in TOs
at the rim% - pretty obvious
team DRtg - pretty obvious
Kentucky's overall DRtg at the moment was 74.0, best in the nation. Given that WCS and KAT spent most of the time together on the court up to that moment one can easily imagine, how much more important WCS was for his team's defense.
WCS was just an athlete coming to Kentucky, same as his teammate Marcus Lee.
Lee is still an athlete after two years in Kentucky.
Caulie-Stein became the best defensive player by a margin on a best defensive team in the nation after three years in Kentucky. There's 0% chance WCS is Mikky Moore.
Well...they were 2 of the 4 best players on a 57 game winner for this same coach, so you can't totally ignore that if you are trying to bring them in to be 2 of your 4 best players, with a #1 far greater than that 57 team winner had.
Of course on the other hand they have also been maybe the 2 best players on back to back 36 and 30 game winners, so... (before someone snarkily notes it, you have to be careful there as Cuz and Rudy have been the 2 best players on back to back 29 game winners)
Not my guys, but if you could actually end up adding one or both for nothing more than JT/Carl the pick and Stauskas...that's more quality players to our stack. If you keep Collison in fact I say we have 5 quality players, but not perfectly matched and still in terrible need of defensive aces for help. That 57 game winner was a decent (11th in Def Rating) defensive team that decorated its mediocre pack of core players with Koufos, Mozgov, Igoudala, Chandler, Brewer, McGee etc. Enough role players to make it work.
Denver removed their two best by a margin defenders in Iggy and Koufos and turned into pumpkin. Kings actually were same all offense/no defense pumpkin for years, so no, they don't need Lawson and Faried, even if they are very good players, Kings must go after their versions of Iggy and Koufos like Wes and...Koufos. I wrote against acquring Kosta couple of times, but that's because I don't think, Karl will play Cuz and Koufos together, which makes JT and his contract completely worthless, plus Kosta likely wants to start and money, that comes with it. If Karl would be willing to and can make it work offensively, I would be all for acquiring and starting Kosta.
P.S. Karl wanted control of personnel operations, before getting fired, so here are ideas (some speculative) on Karl's views from Denver:
http://www.denverstiffs.com/2013/6/28/4474562/a-long-hot-night-at-pepsi-center
You'd be on solid footing if you thought that way. The Nuggets were long rumored to be frustrated with former coach
George Karl's refusal to play JaVale McGee more than 20 minutes a game.
Koufos put up very solid numbers as a starter last season...and proved to be the reliable, steady middle-man that Karl was looking for.
George Karl was reluctant to play both McGee and Faried together. In fact the few times the two were on the floor together they often ran in to each other, and were chaotic. Karl reasoned that their various skill sets were too similar to leave out on the floor together, and because each player was offensively limited it didn't make too much sense to leave two positions on the court offensively deficient.
I believe the Kings would have to agree to the trade, then make the selection at #6 for Denver. The Kings would then sign the rookie with the intent of trading him and his new salary as part of the salary in the trade. They would then have to wait the mandatory 30 days (or 60 days?) to complete the trade. That way the rookie contract salary would count toward matching salaries.
Much like last year with the Kevin Love-Andrew Wiggins trade. Cleveland had to sign Wiggins first, so his salary would count in the trade, wait the mandatory 30 days and then completed the trade of Kevin Love to Cleveland.
Kings can just as easily trade rights to #6 without signing, except Brick's trade #1 requires salary of the pick, which would bring 30 day rule into force.