Who is the most important piece to sign from Summer League team?

C

Chasing9

Prospect
I am not super informed on the Kings, so I would hope that Moreland is already signed? Regardless, I believe the most important piece for the Kings to sign is Deandre Liggins. I am huge Liggins fan, he is a poor man's Tony Allen. He can handle, shoot, drive and pass decently. But, the Kings NEED defensive and with WCS (who had an amazing game today) and Liggins, the Kings would have a solid young core of excellent defenders.

He has the potential to an amazing shutdown defender for whatever team he signs to (and he will absolutely get signed). He can guard the 1,2 and many 3s due to his impressive wingspan and athleticism. I believe once he matures and gets an opportunity he could be a future all defensive team player. Only problem would be his off the court issues and maturity.

I am interested in who you guys think the most important pieces to sign are.
 
There are three players playing for the SL team that are already under contract - Cauley-Stein, Moreland and Anderson. I think that's all that should be on the active roster.

I wouldn't mind Stockton, Hawkins and Liggins (if he is willing to) playing for the Bighorns next season and ready for an emergency call up.
 
Moreland and Stockton I believe have non-guaranteed contracts

WCS and Anderson are signed

Maybe Hawkins will get a camp invite, Maybe a non-guar camp contract for Liggins to at least tie him up?

Until Vlade is done signing other players and we are into training camp can not tell who may stick

The more important question is what unsigned Summer League talent from all the teams should be signed right now?
For Seth Curry looks like Pelicans are doing just that as we twidlle our thumbs
 
I don't think Liggins is enough of a shutdown defender, he's ok. I'd rather them sign Dukan and develop him. I think he can be effective from 3 point range. Very quick release, not terribly athletic but also not unathletic. Maybe a poor mans Korver.
 
Stockton looked ok in the NBA at the end of last season but we were playing the Lakers who are turrible. No way he makes this Kings team imo. Get Andre Miller in here as the 3rd PG. He'll probably play more minutes than expected because.... yeah lol.
 
Watched the tape delay of the last game....there are just many more options out there than David Stockton if you wanted to take a flyer on a guy and I just don't think you take a flyer on a guy so physically small....just too many limits.

I'd rather give Hawkins a camp invite and evaluate him....kid can shoot
Dukan could develop as a stretch 4
I watched Liggins again and I can see him finding a spot in the league as a end of bench guy
 
Agree with dude12 regarding Duje Dukan. As a 3 or 4-year player on championship team (Wisconsin) with a dominant big man, he would make a good 3 backup to bring along in D-League to see if he can handle the NBA next level. Good ball handling, best 3-pt shooter on summer league team, no dumb plays, seems in control most/all the time.

Liggins would need to see at training camp where he might fit. Same for Hawkins as he missed all of summer league. ed. Also Liggins played with Cousins at Kentucky!!!

Stockton was clearly best pure PG on team and with some more muscle could be a 3rd PG. As Vlade keeps saying they need another PG.

So, at this point in time, Kings roster:
4 bigs, Cuz/Koufos/WCS/Moreland
2 SF, Gay and Omri
4SG, Anderson/McLemore/Butler/Belinelli
3PG, Rondo/DC/Stockton(?)

Anderson & Butler can fill in at the 3 for small ball and Gay the stretch 4.
 
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What about guys on the other teams? I will never get over the Jazz signing Wes Matthews after he had been on the Kings SL squad in 2009.
 
Just interesting info on weight distribution on the team!

Heavy Bigs - DMC (270), Koufos (265)
Mid Big - WCS (245)
Light Big - Moreland (214) ... I'm skeptical about whether or not this is updated
Heavy wings - Gay (230), Omri (225), Butler (228)
Mid wing - Anderson (215)
Light wings - McLemore (194), Belinelli (195)
Point - Rondo (185), DC (161)
 
dude12 said:
Watched the tape delay of the last game....there are just many more options out there than David Stockton if you wanted to take a flyer on a guy and I just don't think you take a flyer on a guy so physically small....just too many limits.

I'd rather give Hawkins a camp invite and evaluate him....kid can shoot
Dukan could develop as a stretch 4
I watched Liggins again and I can see him finding a spot in the league as a end of bench guy
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Too bad we didn't get a look at Hawkins. I think he would have more upside as a scoring pg, kinda like a poor mans mo Williams.

Maybe Hawkins get a camp invite to get a better look.
 
ShastaKingsFan said:
Unreal. o_O If they didn't sign a player like Matthews after Summer League, why even show up to the event in the first place?
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Well, it's not like Matthews really tore the Summer League up - 10.3 ppg (79th in summer league) on .346 shooting (5th worst among top 100 scorers), zero assists, zero blocks, four rebounds and four steals. Maybe he just didn't stand out.
 
I think Liggins should be the guy we sign. Ben has had too many mental lapses on defense last season. Bellinelli is a poor defender. Gay and Casspi are big SF's, who will have some trouble to stay in front of some wing players. And I can't stand watching Klay Thompson tearing us up again and again.
Liggins plays pretty good defense, has the needed size and athleticism to guard PG/SG/SF and knows his role on offense. His court vision seems to be decent (in my opinion better than Stockton), he is a good cutter and can finish in transition and around the basket and his shooting form is not broken or Allen/Rondo like.
Invite this guy to the training camp and work on his corner 3. If he is able to hit that at above 30% he is a valuable rotation player for our roster.
 
King Baller said:
What about guys on the other teams? I will never get over the Jazz signing Wes Matthews after he had been on the Kings SL squad in 2009.
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Yeah, in hindsight, it looks like a huge mistake, but we didn't have hindsight at the time. I remember being very impressed with Mathews, but it came down to having a roster spot available for him. We had Kevin Martin on the roster, and we drafted Tyreke Evans in the 2009 draft. We were still stuck with Kenny Thomas. Add in, that at the time, no one knew how good Mathews was going to be. Personally, I would have found a place for him, but I can certainly understand the argument for not signing him. Sometimes its, what appear to be little decisions that come back to haunt you.
 
KingsFanGER said:
I think Liggins should be the guy we sign. Ben has had too many mental lapses on defense last season. Bellinelli is a poor defender. Gay and Casspi are big SF's, who will have some trouble to stay in front of some wing players. And I can't stand watching Klay Thompson tearing us up again and again.
Liggins plays pretty good defense, has the needed size and athleticism to guard PG/SG/SF and knows his role on offense. His court vision seems to be decent (in my opinion better than Stockton), he is a good cutter and can finish in transition and around the basket and his shooting form is not broken or Allen/Rondo like.
Invite this guy to the training camp and work on his corner 3. If he is able to hit that at above 30% he is a valuable rotation player for our roster.
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I disagree on Liggins. He's just a poor shooter, and it's not as though he's a rookie. He's been out of college for four years and that's after three years of college at Kentucky. He did shoot the ball well from the three his junior year of college, but since then, it just hasn't happened for him. He's a good, but not a great defender. If signed, I doubt he would ever see any playing time. At this point, I think you want to fill out the rest of the roster with one of two things. Either sign a young player that you think possibly has a future in the league because of his skill set, like a Dukan, or sign a solid veteran player that you won't feel uncomfortable putting on the floor for a few minutes.

Dukan is a good shooter. Whether that's enough alone to gain a roster spot is debatable. But Liggins doesn't bring anything special to the table. If he was a lock down defender, I'd think differently.
 
bajaden said:
I disagree on Liggins. He's just a poor shooter, and it's not as though he's a rookie. He's been out of college for four years and that's after three years of college at Kentucky. He did shoot the ball well from the three his junior year of college, but since then, it just hasn't happened for him. He's a good, but not a great defender. If signed, I doubt he would ever see any playing time. At this point, I think you want to fill out the rest of the roster with one of two things. Either sign a young player that you think possibly has a future in the league because of his skill set, like a Dukan, or sign a solid veteran player that you won't feel uncomfortable putting on the floor for a few minutes.

Dukan is a good shooter. Whether that's enough alone to gain a roster spot is debatable. But Liggins doesn't bring anything special to the table. If he was a lock down defender, I'd think differently.
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I don't think you will find a lockdown defender for the wing positions this far in FA or via trades. So basically we rely totally on Ben to improve in this area. Liggins is not a rookie. He knows how to play defense and is far superior to Bellinelli in that area. His shot may be poor right now, but when Gooden can learn how to shoot 3's in his mid 30's, I would think Liggins is not entirely hopeless in that regard (he doesn't need to evolve into a great shooter)
The main problem I see with our roster is that we aren't able to defend the 2 and 3 spot at a high level (without risking Gay getting into foul trouble quickly or matching up WCS against a SF or Rondo/DC against a much bigger guard). With DC, Ben, Gay, Casspi, Bellinelli, Butler and DMC we have shooting out of every position, if needed. The major weakness of our team was the perimeter defense last season. We got beaten by the jumpshot time and time again.
Of course a stretch 4 type guy like Dukan may be nice to add, but he is somewhat redundant to Gay and Casspi. So I wouldn't consider another stretch 4 a big need.
And I'm aware, that Liggins is not a great option.
But he fills a pressing need for our roster and I don't see many options out there.
 
KingsFanGER said:
I don't think you will find a lockdown defender for the wing positions this far in FA or via trades. So basically we rely totally on Ben to improve in this area. Liggins is not a rookie. He knows how to play defense and is far superior to Bellinelli in that area. His shot may be poor right now, but when Gooden can learn how to shoot 3's in his mid 30's, I would think Liggins is not entirely hopeless in that regard (he doesn't need to evolve into a great shooter)
The main problem I see with our roster is that we aren't able to defend the 2 and 3 spot at a high level (without risking Gay getting into foul trouble quickly or matching up WCS against a SF or Rondo/DC against a much bigger guard). With DC, Ben, Gay, Casspi, Bellinelli, Butler and DMC we have shooting out of every position, if needed. The major weakness of our team was the perimeter defense last season. We got beaten by the jumpshot time and time again.
Of course a stretch 4 type guy like Dukan may be nice to add, but he is somewhat redundant to Gay and Casspi. So I wouldn't consider another stretch 4 a big need.
And I'm aware, that Liggins is not a great option.
But he fills a pressing need for our roster and I don't see many options out there.
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I know it's popular to say that Belinelli is a poor defender, but if you go to 82 games and look up his defensive stat he comes in at 99.7, compared to McLemore's 102.0, which isn't that bad a stat either. Now I admit that part of his good stat is partly because the Spurs play very good team defense. But that can also bode well for the Kings. I mean you can say he's a poor defender, but the stats don't bear that out. For what that's worth.

I agree that finding a lock down defender at SG at this stage of the game would be as much luck as anything else. But if the team can learn to play good team defense, I don't think it will be a pressing issue. WCS is going to make a bigger difference than some might think. There will be less penetration when he's on the floor, and teams will find the pick and roll less successful. In the grand scheme of things, I don't think anyone like Liggins will matter very much. I'd rather go after someone like Aaron Craft, who can be a lock down defender at the PG position. However, he's not that good at anything else.
 
bajaden said:
I know it's popular to say that Belinelli is a poor defender, but if you go to 82 games and look up his defensive stat he comes in at 99.7, compared to McLemore's 102.0, which isn't that bad a stat either. Now I admit that part of his good stat is partly because the Spurs play very good team defense. But that can also bode well for the Kings. I mean you can say he's a poor defender, but the stats don't bear that out. For what that's worth.

I agree that finding a lock down defender at SG at this stage of the game would be as much luck as anything else. But if the team can learn to play good team defense, I don't think it will be a pressing issue. WCS is going to make a bigger difference than some might think. There will be less penetration when he's on the floor, and teams will find the pick and roll less successful. In the grand scheme of things, I don't think anyone like Liggins will matter very much. I'd rather go after someone like Aaron Craft, who can be a lock down defender at the PG position. However, he's not that good at anything else.
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That's why I'm always suspicious when it comes to stats ;)
I admit, that I'm not nearly as high as the majority here about the addition of Bellinelli, mainly because I think he is a bad defender, even if the stats don't show it. But I also think that JT got falsely labeled as a good defender, although the stats of our starting 5 said the opposite. Maybe my eyetest is flat out wrong. Maybe it's right. We will see.
I agree with you on your view on team defense. The Kings can improve in that area.
But I'm still worried, that the Kings have no elite defensive role player for the SG/SF position. Team defense can make up for some deficites, but at some point you need to be able to slow down someone 1vs1. And almost every playoff team had some kind of wing defender last season (Ariza, Allen, Barnes, Iggy, Leonard, Shumpert, Crowder, Porter, Butler and so on). We have Gay and Ben. Gay needs to carry the scoring load and Ben is unreliable.
But after all I guess there is no such thing as the perfect roster. :oops:
 
bajaden said:
WCS is going to make a bigger difference than some might think. There will be less penetration when he's on the floor, and teams will find the pick and roll less successful. In the grand scheme of things, I don't think anyone like Liggins will matter very much. I'd rather go after someone like Aaron Craft, who can be a lock down defender at the PG position. However, he's not that good at anything else.
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Agreed, last season when Cousins went to the bench the paint was open for the other team. Now with WCS, Koufos and Moreland available commanding the paint should be a stength for the Kings
 
bajaden said:
I know it's popular to say that Belinelli is a poor defender, but if you go to 82 games and look up his defensive stat he comes in at 99.7, compared to McLemore's 102.0, which isn't that bad a stat either. Now I admit that part of his good stat is partly because the Spurs play very good team defense. But that can also bode well for the Kings. I mean you can say he's a poor defender, but the stats don't bear that out. For what that's worth.
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The stats does show he is a poor defender...
Per NBA.com:
Players shot 2.9% better than usual on him, which is the worst mark out of any Spurs rotation player.

His Defensive rating is 105.1, which once again is the worst mark out of any Spurs rotation players- the Spurs as a team have a much better rating at 99.6.
His defensive reting is one of the reasons he has the worst net rating out of any Spurs rotation player at 0.1 (8th on the team in offensive rating).

To complete the comparison- Players shot only 0.1% better on Ben (a far better mark than Belinelli's 2.9%), on a far worse defensive team, making him 3rd best at this stat in our team after Cousins and Gay (tied with DC).
And regarding defensive rating Ben's 104.5 is slightly better than Belinelli's, better than the team in general (106.5) and ranks third on our team after Cousins and DC.

And if you like real plus-minus, Ben's DRPM ranks him 18th in the league among SG's with a positive 0.71.
While Marco is among the league worst at 92 (out of 100) with an horrible -3.12.

So in that case the stats seems to agree with the popular belief that Belinelli is a poor defender...
And there is also this guy:

 
lawlman91 said:
Just interesting info on weight distribution on the team!

Heavy Bigs - DMC (270), Koufos (265)
Mid Big - WCS (245)
Light Big - Moreland (214) ... I'm skeptical about whether or not this is updated
Heavy wings - Gay (230), Omri (225), Butler (228)
Mid wing - Anderson (215)
Light wings - McLemore (194), Belinelli (195)
Point - Rondo (185), DC (161)
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I'm not sure Casspi's numbers are updated as well...
He was listed with the same 225 when he first came to the league from Israel 6 years ago.
My eye test tells me he gained some (10 pounds? 20? more?) muscle-mass while scrapping for 3 teams in the league...
 
To answer the OP - with the acquisition of Seth Curry and Duje Dukan, I think we've done what we needed to do. As Vlade recently tweeted, Vivek can go ahead and shave.
 
VF21 said:
To answer the OP - with the acquisition of Seth Curry and Duje Dukan, I think we've done what we needed to do. As Vlade recently tweeted, Vivek can go ahead and shave.
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If I was Vlade, I'm waiving Stockton and throwing both Stockton and Dukan (waive him too if he has more than just a camp deal) in the D-league. That gives us one more spot to sign a player (*cough* Miller *cough*)

Edit: Sounds like Dukan's 1st year is guaranteed. I don't like that contract handed out by Vlade. Technically, we could still waive his guaranteed deal and still bring Miller in on a veteran minimum or use the room exception (since it sounds like the Mbah signing caused Casspi's deal to no longer be used as the room exception), but if you're trying to bring back Miller, why give a guaranteed deal to another player? Seems more and more likely that Miller is not coming back.
 
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I think if the Kings let Moreland go, he will most certainly be picked up by another team and likely cause the Kings to regret it. Do I think he'll be a superstar? Not likely. I do believe he is someone who can start in the NBA or in the very least be an above average back up.
 
Pretty sure Moreland isn't going anywhere. David Stockton, on the other hand? We've already given his number to Rajon. That should be the handwriting on the wall. ;)
 
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