HartfordWhalers wrote:HartfordWhalers ReviewKey Losses:Rajon Rondo
Rondo led the team in minutes, and while not a big loss in terms of I don't think they should have kept him, he is a big loss in terms of the guard rotation looks clearly downgraded with him gone.
Losses:George Karl (HC)
Marco Belinelli
Quincy Acy
Seth Curry
James Anderson
Caron Butler
Eric Moreland
Duje Dukan
Belinelli was awful and that trade was amazing. I will keep saying how much I loved it. Anderson, Moreland and Dukan will be easily forgotten. That Butler was stretched and will eat into cap space for 2 more years is the sort of small decision I hate. And the sort of small decision the Kings keep throwing on top of each other. They could have killed Butler's salary all this year and done everything they did but had too much dead money still from Wayne Ellington being stretched, it is a cycle of beggaring the future at small stakes. I like Acy, but he is the definition of minimal loss.
Seth Curry played under 700 minutes, so while he might have shot 45% from 3 in that time it is still hard to call it a key loss. He also is already 26, which means if you are looking at the team and thinking about a post Cousins world he might not be the best fit. Still, losing him stings a little. I have him as one of the clear bright spots in an otherwise dismal season.
George Karl... I guess now is as good a time as any to get into last offseason, because it needs to be done at some point. Last offseason Vivek reached out to Calipari (per Woj) and when that didn't work, decided to stick by a beleaguered and feuding Karl. It was overly ambitious and with a horrible (if any?) backup plan, and the result was it inevitably backfired, and did so messily. This offseason the Kings cleaned up the Karl part very nicely, so much so that I want to list it as a key loss in a good, addition by subtraction way. I haven't been doing that yet so won't start, but letting Rondo and Karl go was a massively needed step towards functionality.
Draft:#8 traded back
#13 Georgios Papagiannis (traded for)
#22 Malachi Richardson (traded for)
#28 Skal Labissiere (traded for)
#59 Isaiah Cousins
Not sold on Papagiannis that high. He has two big plusses -- big and young. But his track record putting that to use doesn't suggest a lotto pick. Being the 8th ranked player in his international class is discouraging --
http://www.draftexpress.com/rankings/International-1997/ especially when some big international center would be there at #22 if not #28.
Now, Sacramento has spent a lot of picks on failed SG's lately ('14: Stauskas, '13: McLemore, '11: Jimmer) but Denzel Valentine picked one pick afterwards would have made a bunch of sense here as well.
Juan Hernangomez I'm really bullish on, so if you were ignoring position I would have considered him over Papagiannis and set up a long term pf/c core of: Hernangomez/WCS instead of: WCS/Papagiannis. But Wade Baldwin was the interesting pick, combining okay outside shooting with defensive fundamentals at the pg position. I'm not totally sold on Baldwin however his fit is perfect.
Skipping ahead, I like Skal a ton at #28. And if you know Skal was picked, then Richardson is a pick that fills a need and looks like a perfectly 'okay' pick with who was on the board. However, thats using a bit of unfair hindsight. So, I think Skal should have maybe gone at #22. Then who goes at #28? I'm leaning Demetrius Jackson (or Tyler Ullis). Get the pg they didn't take at #13. But if I could have fixed that at #13? Then you can go for maybe a Zubac and get your big project, or Patrick McCaw as a similar player as Richardson. So Baldwin/Skal/McCaw would have been my draft.
Trades:Marco Belinelli to Charlotte Hornets for the rights to Malachi Richardson (22nd)
Marquese Chriss (8th) to Phoenix Suns for a 2020 Detroit Pistons second-rounder and the rights to three players — Georgios Papagiannis (13th), Skal Labissiere (28th) and Bogdan Bogdanovic (27th).
Easy stuff first. The #22 for Marco Belinelli trade was the biggest value steal of the offseason, and just an incredibly move. The Kings -- perhaps the team in the league most in need of shooting and quality vet guards (after all Philly can be more patient) -- just decided to trade one away for a late first round pick. If sirens aren't going off in your head hearing that, they should be. The reason the Kings did the trade was because Belinelli is awful. Or he was last year. Already 30, a poor defender, and basically a situational shooter only; the one thing that he had going for him vanished -- 50% TS% with only 30.6% from 3. Now, there might be less open looks and all that, but for the love of god those numbers were bad and the -4.2 BPM and the -10 on-off are pretty eye catching for a guy in the downswing part of a career. Altogether, I had him as a guy who would cost a late 1st to dump. And I'm not sure I'm not right here, Charlotte once in a while makes a highly questionable decision. And once a year there is a trade like this, or Vasquez to Milwaukee or [censored] that everyone knows was a ripoff the second it happened.
The Chriss trade? I had batted out all sorts of trades of #8 in the weeks up to the draft, figuring Chriss or Jaylen Brown would drop and both aren't great pairings. Chriss being the much worse. And with him in a tier of just himself, you have to either pick against need or extract value otherwise. Sac did the second. #13, Bogdanovic's rights, and #28 are solid value for a move down. And remember, everyone looked Utah moving up for Trey Burke when they did and gave up the picks that were Shabazz and Dieng. Especially when its a high upside toolsy guy like Chriss (and has another one on the other side like Skal), trades like this will make one side look brilliant and one side look dumb in hindsight depending on if a risky prospect works or not. I'm good with this trade for both sides, but...
1) That doesn't mean I like the pick at #13 (I didn't)
2) It is hard not to see this trade as a directional statement (Team takes a center and a pf that are all super raw, and a guy that is a year away from coming over. Very little help now)
3) It is hard not to read into that in terms of Cousins (No help in the second to last year of Cousins contract and extra redundancy at his positions).
For Sacramento, everything hinges around Cousins (until it doesn't).
And there is an obvious alternative. #12 got Teague/Hill. #8 should have gotten a choice of one of them and filler, or maybe in a deal with Phoenix could have gotten Knight? There were definitely ways to add more talent around Cousins right now, and instead Sacramento's draft was an exercise in going all in on not going all in, but comes one year after going all in. That context is key.
Free Agency:Dave Joerger (Head Coach)
Arron Afflalo 2/$25m (only 1.5m gtd year 2)
Garrett Temple 3/$24m (PO last year)
Anthony Tolliver 2/16m (only 2m gtd year 2)
Matt Barnes 2/$12.5m (PO last year)
Georgios Papagiannis rookie scale
Malachi Richardson rookie scale
Skal Labissiere rookie scale
Claimed Lamar Patterson off waivers
Joerger is a get. Quality hire, good coach. Not really a rebuilding guy in my eye, but a solid guy with a chance to get everyone on the same page team wise. Well done.
Afflalo is not a lock down defender. Afflalo is not a defensive plus. This idea somehow started in Denver and has just stuck on him despite all the evidence to the contrary since then. So, lets start by saying that Afflalo will only help the perimeter defense in the way that he won't be the seize that Beli was. But that is a big change still. And he is a quality good signing, on a great deal that gives the team a ton of flexibility next year. I like this signing a lot, just please don't talk him up as a defensive stud for the love of god.
Then you have Matt Barnes, who last year was assumed to have not much in the tank and then did. The problem I have here is the player option. If you want to preserve cap space for a 2017 free agency run, then you cannot have a Barnes that will be 38 at the end of that season able to opt into 6m of cap room if he isn't worth it then. I come back to, for Sacramento, everything hinges around Cousins (until it doesn't). Does having a 37 to 38 year old Barnes in Cousins last year add anything? And more importantly, does it add anything in the '19 season when Cousins would in theory be re-upped?
I said this last offseason (there review by Pmott3 and Texas Chuck is here
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1401512 and worthwhile to revisit just for the claims that Karl maybe wasn't that much of an issue and that was all media driven)
In terms of what Sac's needs were, I think it was to get a core that could grow with Cousins so it would be peaking when Cousins is nearing free agency in a few years, and doesn't suck. I'm not sure they hit any of that.
If a Rondo who turned 30 mid last year wasn't looking like that, you can imagine I don;t think a turning 37 Barnes looks like it either. And I really like the Afflalo signing, but he is 31 at the start of the season and not signed in 2019. No one is except Temple, which is a real head scratcher. If you are preserving to allow a Cousins + other max player(s) in '19, then why jam up a full 8m on Garett Temple? He isn't well known, but also is already 30 right now.
Tolliver I would have been fine for that money and contract structure for Minnesota. For Sacramento given their needs and overabundance of big man depth? It is a head scratcher.
So, what would I have done different? I see three options for Sacramento:
1) Bring in stop gap vets to help you get better vets next summer or if you are crazy in '19 simultaneously
2) Bring in young vets to be peaking when Cousins hits free agency to make re-signing then as attractive as possible for him (What I was arguing for last year when there were more on the market see Portland for instance)
3) Go full on youth (and trade Cousins)
Afflalo, Temple, Barnes, Tolliver are all stop gaps, but Barnes and Tolliver having contracts past this season is an issue, and Tolliver got a bunch gtd for year 2 for a guy that looks to be a horrible fit.
So, going route 1 you could have done:
Afflalo, Jeff Green (1 year using Temple and Tollier's 16m, and then Brandon Jennings for 1 year on the MLE (Barnes 6m). It would be a better team, and have more flexibility. Or Afflalo, Gerald Henderson (9m), Sergio Rodriquez (6.8m) and then Sullinger with the MLE. Or split the MLE on Tim Frazier (took 4m over 2 years for NOP, and Jarrett Jack (signed for the min at Atlanta) or Felton (min LAC).
I like Afflalo as the signing. But they needed to spend 6m on a pg. They needed to not lock into Barnes and Temple. Maybe above is too ambitious, having Sac get players at contracts the other teams did. So, switch and just take Henderson at 12m even, and then you still get a backup pg and have the full MLE, or can just use the full MLE after the idea in additional thoughts.
The other routes were harder to come up with a brilliant plan -- time is ticking fast and hoping Solomon Hill is good enough that COusins views him as a second banana in 2 years feels overly ambitious. It might not have been so bad if there weren't teams like the Nets were already making those big rfa offers and still striking out. Harkless with his contract situation and Portland's line near the tax, I wonder if you could have swiped him away with a 13.5m starting salary and then declining (4years/50m) instead of the 4/40 increasing he took.
I might hate saying it, but I would have offered Waiters a 6m + TO with the full MLE and seen if he would bite. And even a 6m no team option like Sullinger took in Toronto just because if it works out and he wants to stay, that is more valuable than if Barnes is so so for 1 more year.
Current Depth Chart: (as usual this is a rough draft taken from bbinsiders)PG: Darren Collison
SG: Arron Afflalo, Garrett Temple, Ben McLemore, Lamar Patterson, Malachi Richardson
SF: Rudy Gay, Matt Barnes
PF: DeMarcus Cousins, Omri Casspi, Anthony Tolliver, Skal Labissiere
C: Willie Cauley-Stein, Kosta Koufos, Georgios Papagiannis
Casspi should shift down to sf, and otherwise its just a mess still.
Needs: A long term reason for Cousins to stay beyond his current contract. PG is a mess. Rudy Gay should be traded for the betterment of the team most likely.
Additional Thoughts:Renegotiation and extension. Cousins becomes eligible on 9/30/16, although the Kings spent that money so its a moot point.
However, they could have offered him: $22,116,750 / $23,775,506 / $25,434,263
to replace his: $16,957,900 / $18,063,850 / free agent
Even with the cap at 110m in that third year, Cousins max would be ~31m under the current cap, so he would come out over 5m ahead. And get 5m a year more for the first 2 years (money now is better than money later), with an extra 36m in guaranteed salary in case anything ever happens. I would have been pushing on him hard to see if he would have considered it, even if that meant no Tolliver and Barnes.
Projected Win/Loss: 28-54 When you win 1 in 3 you get 27 and a third of a win.
Off-Season Grade: D+ There were things that get a B+/B easy -- the amazing Belli trade, Joerger, Skal at #28, moving down from #8 when the fit was bad, Afflalo.
There were things that I disliked to varying degrees -- Papagiannis at #13, not addressing more needs in the draft, 2nd year for Barnes, fit of Tolliver, 3 full guaranteed years for Temple. If you just took all that and ignored any context, it might be a
B-.
But there is a big directional question over Sacramento. There is a giant pg issue that must be addressed. There is a (possibly, it might all be media driven as they like to make fun of the Kings and not take their jobs or credibility serious) disgruntled Rudy Gay who says he didn;t even check to see who Sacramento added to its roster. The franchise is 10 years without a playoff experience, and has one of the best big men in the league tweeting:
Everything needs to be geared around the actual situation, it doesn't happen in a void. And I think the situation is made worse with Cousins having just spent the Olympics playing with the best (that went) players in the league. We see players switch teams later with bonds formed at these international competitions (and All Star games) playing a big part with where they end up.
Last year I thought Sacramento needed to add some young core players around Cousins (and draft Mudiay). This year they went for young players in the draft, but not ones that inspire that they will build around Cousins instead of backing him and one of the other players up. And vets that feel more stop gap than future core, but cut into future room and leave a gaping hole at pg. Directionally it might not be floundering as bad as last season, but it still feels to be ignoring the big issues as time becomes more urgent, and for that I want to give a D.
Also, I like to suggest a trade for every team in these so here is mine for Sacramento:
Cousins to the Celtics for everything you can get in terms of picks and youth. Cousins needs to be traded next offseason unless you get Lowry to sign on and carry the weight with him. You can weight till then and see if you get a difference maker, but the smart move might be to trade Cousins this trade deadline instead. I've been arguing for what feels like years now that Sacramento doesn't need to and shouldn't trade Cousins. I've passed that point, they just boxed themselves out of a good keeping him plan at this point imo.
(EDIT - I will be *very* interested to see how the voting turns out on this one.)
