Willie Cauley-Stein is your newest Sacramento King

[The_Jamal]

I know, right? It's not like he shuts down after 25 minutes or something. And it's not like his stamina hits a plateau and then that's it. He can condition himself where this issue might never pop up. He definitely has the body of someone that can have great conditioning. So he might not even get winded much in the NBA playing 25-30mins.

He talked about it too in the Singular Focus series. Dude added 5 inches on his vert in 2 weeks. Just imagine what he could do in 3 months.

Nobody comes into the league NBA ready conditioning wise. It's an adjustment period for everyone with the longer games and much longer schedule. I for one wouldn't bet against WCS.

 

[TheGOAT1006]

That's the beauty of Calapari's system. Players do not even have to "showcase their skills" to get a spot in the NBA. People know that if you listen to Calapari and do the role that he puts you in well that you will be a high first round pick. Notice how most of the high picks out of Kentucky do well in the NBA? There is a reason for that.

Also, I agree in regards to rebound numbers. He played with Towns, Noel, Embiid and Randle..... What did you expect his rebound numbers to be playing with four very good rebounding bigs?

Never played with Embiid.

Embiid was a Jayhawk

 

[ESP47]

I just hope Willie will not be another player like Whiteside. He needs to develop an offensive game asap, if we want to put him next to DMC. After the Vlade interview I expect WCS to come off the bench, while Rudy plays lots of stretch-4.

Last year Whiteside averaged 12 points, 10 reb and 2.5 blocks in 24 minutes.

I would crap a brick if WCS gave us that.

We had a top 10 offense and bottom 5 defense under Karl last year. We don't need WCS to do anything other than mop up. Anything else on the offensive side is a bonus.

 

[TheGOAT1006]

Last year Whiteside averaged 12 points, 10 reb and 2.5 blocks in 24 minutes.

I would crap a brick if WCS gave us that.

We had a top 10 offense and bottom 5 defense under Karl last year. We don't need WCS to do anything other than mop up. Anything else on the offensive side is a bonus.

Completely agree with you. Too many times we were in games and let them slip away, or had blowouts in the first half only to let them disappear and take a loss.

WCS easily helps in this regard. And if Ben Mclemore can take another leap in his defensive progress, and finally find that consistent knock down stroke. Watch out.

 

[KingsFanGER]

I'm not sure if Willie will pan out as an NBA player, but I like the pick.

Last year Whiteside averaged 12 points, 10 reb and 2.5 blocks in 24 minutes.



We had a top 10 offense and bottom 5 defense under Karl last year. We don't need WCS to do anything other than mop up. Anything else on the offensive side is a bonus.

I know, but what I meant was, that Whiteside took some time to figure it out, most likely because of attitude problems and low BBIQ. I just hope Willie can help right away.

 

[HereWeBoogie]

Kid obviously needs to put in time in the gym and fill out but hes goona be just fine

Well he's already put on 20 pounds since college ended and he said in one of the videos that he improved his vertical by 5" in like a 3 week span. So i think he's gonna be fine

 

[Hoovtrain]

WE COULD NOT.

Nobody could.

His resume was an open ?, and his agent worked to make sure it stayed that way after the top 4 drafters. So, if you've got a guy you DO like, you DO need, you take him, and Mudiay can lose his millions for slipping. If we didn't have anybody we liked, then maybe you take a flyer on the maybe of Mudiay rather than the "don't think this is going to work" of somebody else. But WCS? Been on our radar for YEARS as a strong Cuz fit. Be stupid to pass up on getting a guy you like for getting a giant ?

Vlade made the right call. We could not strike out.

Really?? because i am pretty sure there is game/scouting tape out there to review. I am not talking about him not working out for them. When you say you do not know enough about someone, it indicates to me that you have not done your homework. Not to mention Kings scouts could have been scouting him overseas last year as i am fairly certain he was on folks radars at that time. And again, since apparently i need to reiterate it, i LOVE the WCS pick, ...but if a player who could possibly be better was passed because a team did not know enough about him, that is not ok to me.

 

[ninjabiscuit]

I haven't been this happy about a Kings draft pick since DeMarcus Cousins. Hasn't been close, either.

Same. We might have taken him a little bit high, but the fit is perfect.

 

[Gary]

Never played with Embiid.

Embiid was a Jayhawk

Oh my bad, I was thinking of Randle twice then lol.

 

[ninjabiscuit]

Can't argue that it's a good fit. If Winslow or Mudiay turn out to be stars we'll be kicking our self once again.

Not all of us. IMO you can can't worry about the players you might have drafted. Every year there's someone who underperforms or overperforms...it's just the nature of the beast. If you plan to spend time kicking yourself over that, you're setting yourself up for misery. I can almost guarantee you that someone who went lower than WCS is going to exceed their predicted ability. Oh well.

EDIT: I left some words out.

 

[Section 101]

How do you know he will be sitting on the bench?

From the article

When asked about how he might have posted a triple-double if he played more minutes, Cauley-Stein said, "I was having a sickle cell problem. My chest starts to hurt."

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2013/12/11/2983379/kentuckys-cauley-stein-adding.html#storylink=cpy

 

[Chubbs]

Really?? because i am pretty sure there is game/scouting tape out there to review. I am not talking about him not working out for them. When you say you do not know enough about someone, it indicates to me that you have not done your homework. Not to mention Kings scouts could have been scouting him overseas last year as i am fairly certain he was on folks radars at that time. And again, since apparently i need to reiterate it, i LOVE the WCS pick, ...but if a player who could possibly be better was passed because a team did not know enough about him, that is not ok to me.

I asked someone else this too, do you actually think Vlade is saying to the world he didn't even bother looking at the videos any schmo on the Internet has access to?

You really believe that? That's the premise of this argument?

 

[Section 101]

Nice to see your Mr. Positive. Those articles are from two years ago. Willie has changed a lot in that time. He's a much better player now than he was then. Lest anyone forget, he didn't start playing basketball seriously until his junior year in highschool. He was extremely raw when he got to Kentucky. Calapari raved about his improvement after his freshman year. To the best of my knowledge, his sickle cell problem never came up. I have seen just about every single game that WCS has played since he got to Kentucky. So no one is going to blow smoke up my butt about what he can or can't do.

I think he'll be a better NBA player than a college player. The spacing is better, and bigs can't just camp out in the lane like they do in college. He still has some work to do. Get stronger, and improve his post game a little. But mostly, all he needs to be good at is defending, and I think he has a chance to be one of the best defenders in the NBA, if not someday, the best individual defender in the NBA.

My post had nothing to do with skills. The article specifically said his minutes were limited due to sickle cell acting up during game.

 

[HereWeBoogie]

Well, he is a Center from Kentucky, who wore #15, and had some red flags. Hopefully he turns out as good as the last guy we took like that

Hell, he even kind of looks like DeMarcus

 

[Hoovtrain]

From the article

that was college and the article was from 2013...how do you know he will be on the bench in crunch time next year?

 

[ninjabiscuit]

Jalen Rose is not the ultimate authority on all things basketball.

Jalen Rose is an example of the dumbing down of the average sports fan. The fact that his rambling B.S. is something that the national audience finds entertaining is embarrassing to me as an American.

I would go even further and say that if Jalen doesn't like the pick, I'm thinking we done good.

 

[Section 101]

that was college and the article was from 2013...how do you know he will be on the bench in crunch time next year?

Your missing the point. Fans will be bitching if he his sickle cell flares up in the middle of the game and they are wondering why he's not in.

 

[Hoovtrain]

I asked someone else this too, do you actually think Vlade is saying to the world he didn't even bother looking at the videos any schmo on the Internet has access to?

You really believe that? That's the premise of this argument?

I have no idea, how would i know what Vlade meant? just commenting on what was said. And maybe you should look at what else i referenced....Kings scouts scouting (or not scouting) him overseas last year (pre Vlade).

 

[hrdboild]

Just for the hell of it, what if we took Mudiay, and he doesn't become an all star. What if he never becomes a good shooter. What if he just another good athlete who never quite reachs what everyone thought he could be. That's just as possible as his becoming an all star. As a matter of fact, history tells us that it more likely. The kid played 12 games in china, and suddenly he's the next Rose, or Paul or whomever. You blame Vlade for saying that he couldn't get him in for a workout, and there wasn't much info out there on him in the way of film, and so I'm going to draft someone that I feel confident about. Why, because you think Mudiay is going to be a star? Really? I wonder if you would have felt the same way if the Kings had drafted Turner.

Let's not pretend this is anything more than what it is. You have a list of players you like and some you don't just like I do. If the Kings had passed on the top 3 guys on your list and instead picked someone you had ranked around 15 you would be appropriately upset too. I put as much time and effort into watching these prospects as anybody. I don't trust what anyone else says about them, I trust what I see. People tell me Cauley-Stein is the best defender in the draft, I think he's a mobile big who's going to get pushed around near the basket by players half his size. People tell me he's the next Tyson Chandler (88.9 Win Shares over 14 seasons and counting), I think he's going to have a career closer to Brian Grant (54.5 Win Shares over 12 seasons). Is that a complete disaster? No. He wasn't on my "don't draft" list. I do think it was a massive reach at #6 and not as perfect of a fit as most seem to believe.

Also, I can tell you exactly who I wanted in the last 10 drafts:

2006: Rajon Rondo 2007: Al Thornton 2008: Marreese Speights 2009: Brandon Jennings 2010: DeMarcus Cousins 2011: Brandon Knight 2012: Harrison Barnes or Andre Drummund (tie) 2013: Ben McLemore 2014: Elfrid Payton 2015: Stanley Johnson or Emmanuel Mudiay (tie)

Here are the actual picks:

2006: Quincy Douby 2007: Spencer Hawes 2008: Jason Thompson 2009: Tyreke Evans 2010: DeMarcus Cousins 2011: Jimmer Fredette 2012: Thomas Robinson 2013: Ben McLemore 2014: Nik Stauskas 2015: Willie Cauley-Stein

With the exception of one big miss (Al Thornton) and the two picks we have in common, every single one of the guys I wanted us to draft has posted a higher WS/48 to this point in their career than the players we actually drafted in those spots. So when I say that I trust my eyes not what anyone else thinks, I say that with some confidence because I've disagreed with a lot of our picks in the past with good reason. In this draft I think you go Myles Turner if you want the C with the highest upside. If you want a wing player who can defend, Stanley Johnson has two-way star written all over him. If you want a PG, Emmanuel Mudiay could be not just a good one but a great one. The SGs are a tier below, but Devin Booker has a lot of talent and so does Kelly Oubre. If you have to take a PF, Bobby Portis is the one you want. Every single one of those guys was still on the board at #6 and we picked somebody else.

I also don't buy the "not enough out there" on Mudiay argument. He played 12 games in China which is one more than Kyrie Irving played at Duke. Every single one of those games was televised which means every NBA front office has a copy of them. I posted links to two of them here on this forum because somebody uploaded them to Youtube. Gilles posted 2 more. You can also watch all three of the big HS All-Star games. That's 7 complete games available on Youtube for free to anyone. If you can't tell enough about a player to feel safe drafting them after watching 7 complete games in the last year than you probably shouldn't be a scout.

What I said yesterday was more of a heat of the moment thing than anything else. Was the draft a complete disaster? No. Cauley-Stein is a player that will help us. But I still think we made a mistake here that's going to haunt us for some time. Andre Drummond would look pretty nice in our frontline right now. Brandon Knight or Elfrid Payton would look nice in our backcourt. If Stanley Johnson is anything close to the player I think he is, all 7 teams that passed on him will be shaking their heads in 5 years.

 

[ninjabiscuit]

Rich Bucher also bashed WCS.

Great news!

I can't believe he is paid to say things.

 

[Hoovtrain]

Your missing the point. Fans will be bitching if he his sickle cell flares up in the middle of the game and they are wondering why he's not in.

no i didn't. you said fans would be bitching WHEN he is sitting on the bench in crunch time next year and i asked you how you knew he would be on the bench next year due to a flare up.... so do you have an answer or not?

 

[Padrino]

Really?? because i am pretty sure there is game/scouting tape out there to review. I am not talking about him not working out for them. When you say you do not know enough about someone, it indicates to me that you have not done your homework. Not to mention Kings scouts could have been scouting him overseas last year as i am fairly certain he was on folks radars at that time. And again, since apparently i need to reiterate it, i LOVE the WCS pick, ...but if a player who could possibly be better was passed because a team did not know enough about him, that is not ok to me.

when vlade says he doesn't know enough about him, i don't think he means that he didn't do his research. i think he means that there's a dearth of research available on emmanuel mudiay, and that it was simply too difficult to even know enough about him. mudiay played in high school. he played in a handful of games in china. he didn't workout for the kings. he didn't interview with the kings. sure, there's a bit of game/scouting tape to review, but i'd hardly call that a sufficient amount of information with which to make a legitimately informed selection. the kings are on the clock with demarcus cousins; they need to add talent that they can count on to produce. if you're a team like denver that's about to embark on a full-scale rebuild, then there's every reason to snatch mudiay when he falls to you at 7. but vlade determined that it wasn't worth the risk, and i agree with his pick 100%...

beyond that, i'm rather amazed at the criticism i'm seeing in this thread, with so much talk around the nba about the evolution of the game, with so much talk about the need for incoming nba talents to be able to guard multiple positions, and with so much talk across the last ten years about how badly the kings need to improve their defense. then the kings finally make a move that aligns with their defensive needs and also happens to align with contemporary nba trends, and the fans still remain unsatisfied. willie cauley-stein is exactly the kind of complementary big man that we've been clamoring for since demarcus cousins was drafted. he's a legitimate rim protector with draymond green-level flexibility on defense, and while cauley-stein can't stretch the floor like draymond green, it certainly wasn't green's outside shooting that made him valuable to the warriors throughout the playoffs (he shot 26% from three during the postseason). the otherworldly gifts of stephen curry and the warriors' defensive versatility propelled them to a championship...

the point is, the kings just got considerably more versatile on the defensive side of the ball, and i'd say that's much more valuable to this team at this time than the hope-and-a-prayer strategy of drafting a guy like emmanuel mudiay to see if he develops into something special in a few years. now, i like mudiay a lot. it's surely not forgotten in my posting history that i was a huge tyreke evans fan, and i see a lot of evans in mudiay's body and in his game. but i also see the same jump shooting deficiencies that have plagued evans' career and have plagued kings' shooters for just as long. this team doesn't need their PF to stretch the floor necessarily, but they do need their guards to be able to shoot the ball with some measure of consistency. mudiay is a long ways away from being able to provide that consistency from beyond the arc...

 

[Peter_Gibbons]

For those who are bummed out that we selected WCS instead of Mudiay, think about this.

WCS is said by some to be the best defensive player in the last 20 years. All experts agree that he is a rare defensive talent that is 7 feet tall and moves like an athletic 2 guard. He also comes into the league already knowing how to defend. Many athletic bigs have no clue about the skill and strategic end of defense when they come in as a rookie. If Karl or whoever coaches the team can use WCS efficiently and have a good team defense to match, our defense will improve by leaps and bounds.

Mudiay may or may not be a great player. But why did the top 4 teams that he worked out of didn't draft him? Did they see something? There is always going to be more athletic 6'5" guards in the draft. But a player with WCS's combination of size, athleticism and defensive skills/IQ doesn't come around that often.

 

[Prince_XY]

Your missing the point. Fans will be bitching if he his sickle cell flares up in the middle of the game and they are wondering why he's not in.

Very good point. I myself had WCS number one on my list for the Kings #6. Knowing what I know now regarding this sickle cell disease, I have second thoughts about him and now prefer we passed on him and should have taken Mudiay.

 

[HereWeBoogie]

Having a guy like WCS will make the entire defense better. Guards can get up on their guys, knowing if they get blown by, we have a rim protector, not as much helping off open shooters anymore, he can switch screens and still guard the wing players, etc

And of course, he could help DeMarcus play longer without picking up fouls.
Assuming of course George smallball Karl actually plays them together

 

[ninjabiscuit]

Since the draft I have been watching some stuff of WCS and he seems like a guy who will be easier to cheer for with his energy. He reminded me a bit of a MUCH MORE athletic (more versatile defender obviously) Robin Lopez with the energy/hair and size. Lopez has developed a decent mid range (from about the foul line) jumper which hopefully WCS can as well.

I love that you casually slipped the word "hair" in there.

 

[Section 101]

no i didn't. you said fans would be bitching WHEN he is sitting on the bench in crunch time next year and i asked you how you knew he would be on the bench next year due to a flare up.... so do you have an answer or not?

I just want people to understand that we drafted a guy who will most likely be limited to 20-25 max minutes for his career. He's going to have times where he will be on the bench during the games and will be inactive for games throughout the season due to the sickle cell trait flaring up. College season is not comparable to the NBA and he didn't play big minutes in college.

 

[Hoovtrain]

when vlade says he doesn't know enough about him, i don't think he means that he didn't do his research. i think he means that there's a dearth of research available on emmanuel mudiay, and that it was simply too difficult to even know enough about him. mudiay played in high school. he played in a handful of games in china. he didn't workout for the kings. he didn't interview with the kings. sure, there's a bit of game/scouting tape to review, but i'd hardly call that a sufficient amount of information with which to make a legitimately informed selection. the kings are on the clock with demarcus cousins; they need to add talent that they can count on to produce. if you're a team like denver that's about to embark on a full-scale rebuild, then there's every reason to snatch mudiay when he falls to you at 7. but vlade determined that it wasn't worth the risk, and i agree with his pick 100%...

beyond that, i'm rather amazed at the criticism i'm seeing in this thread, with so much talk around the nba about the evolution of the game, with so much talk about the need for incoming nba talents to be able to guard multiple positions, and with so much talk across the last ten years about how badly the kings need to improve their defense. then the kings finally make a move that aligns with their defensive needs and also happens to align with contemporary nba trends, and the fans still remain unsatisfied. willie cauley-stein is exactly the kind of complementary big man that we've been clamoring for since demarcus cousins was drafted. he's a legitimate rim protector with draymond green-level flexibility on defense, and while cauley-stein can't stretch the floor like draymond green, it certainly wasn't green's outside shooting that made him valuable to the warriors throughout the playoffs (he shot 26% from three during the postseason). the otherworldly gifts of stephen curry and the warriors' defensive versatility propelled them to a championship...

the point is, the kings just got considerably more versatile on the defensive side of the ball, and i'd say that's much more valuable to this team at this time than the hope-and-a-prayer strategy of drafting a guy like emmanuel mudiay to see if he develops into something special in a few years. now, i like mudiay a lot. it's surely not forgotten in my posting history that i was a huge tyreke evans fan, and i see a lot of evans in mudiay's body and in his game. but i also see the same jump shooting deficiencies that have plagued evans' career and have plagued kings' shooters for just as long. this team doesn't need their PF to stretch the floor necessarily, but they do need their guards to be able to shoot the ball with some measure of consistency. mudiay is a long ways away from being able to provide that consistency from beyond the arc...

Don't get me wrong...I'm a huge fan of the pick...it was the wording of why Mudiay was not drafted that bothered me

 

[ninjabiscuit]

You've all decided already that I'm wrong before watching either player play a single game even though these kinds of decisions haunt teams all the time.

Haven't you done the exact same thing?

 

[LPKingsFan]

I just want people to understand that we drafted a guy who will most likely be limited to 20-25 max minutes for his career. He's going to have times where he will be on the bench during the games and will be inactive for games throughout the season due to the sickle cell trait flaring up. College season is not comparable to the NBA and he didn't play big minutes in college.

Any cap on his limits must have been news to coach Cal: http://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/willie-cauley-stein-1/gamelog/

Will his condition flare up at an inopportune time? Maybe. Is there any indication that he "will most likely be limited to 20-25 max minutes for his career"? Surely not so far.