Jazzfan1971 and FloppyMoose's Offseason Preview - Kings

Post #1 » by **jazzfan1971** » Fri Aug 22, 2014 5:39 am

Sacramento Kings

Projected Roster
------------------------

PG - Darren Collison, Ray McCallum, Jason Terry
SG - Ben McLemore, Nik Stauskas, Wayne Ellington
SF - Rudy Gay, Eric Moreland
PF - Carl Landry, Derrick Williams, Reggie Evans
C - DeMarcus Cousins, Jason Thompson, Jeremy Tyler

Trading Block: The Kings are very specific about who they will trade. Everyone BUT their young talent and draft picks can be had. But their future upside is off limits.

Position Battle: Power forward is very murky right now. It's possible that they bring in a player not currently on the roster such as a Josh Smith to man the position. Until then I really can't say which player will see the bulk of the minutes at PF. I could see any of Landry, Williams, or Thompson getting the start. SG is also going to be a battle with two young players in McLemore and Stauskas competing for the starting role.

Mystery Man: Darren Collison. The Kings think Collison fits their team better than the departing Thomas. And they better hope he does because they aren't saving much money to have the privilege of using Collison over Thomas. Reminds me a bit of when the Jazz let Wesley Matthews go to sign Raja Bell for slightly less. A disaster in other words.

Floppymusings:
I'm going to come out and say it: The Kings should trade Cousins for picks/youth and move on. Cousins is a huge talent and can be totally unstoppable when he chooses to be. He chooses to be about twice a year. That isn't going to change. The number of other teams that haven't figured this out is shrinking. Kings should move on while there is still a buyer.

Jazzfansramblings:
One man's trash is another man's treasure.

There are three main ways to get talent in the NBA. You either draft it, sign it, or trade for it. All have their shortcomings.

Drafting talent is hard to do. The draft is a bit of a crapshoot as you are trying to project future talent of players with increasingly less and less data to work from as the talent pool is increasingly younger and more global. Yet another downside is that you have to be a bad team to draft the best players; at least over the long haul.

Signing talent has it's drawbacks as well. You generally have to overpay to sign a free agent, and unless you are a marquee team your odds of being able to sign a star player are very low. On the plus side you generally know what you are getting unlike with drafting rookies.

Trading for talent has the drawback that you generally have to send out value to get value back. Yeah, you can go get a Kevin Love, but, it's going to cost you two recent #1 draft picks. It's hard to add NET talent via trade. It can be done in a variety of ways, but, it's not easy.

Sacramento needs talent like most NBA teams. They are in a position where they want to improve quickly to have a quality product on the floor to showcase their new arena in 2016. This dictate to get better fast makes the draft a poor source of talent as in general you need to be bad to use the draft effectively and more importantly it's not that reliable of a method. They also are not a marquee free agent destination so it's unlikely that they'll be able to sign a star player. Lastly, trading value for value in trades isn't going to get them anywhere. So, they've chosen an alternate path -- A contrarian path.

A contrarian seeks to invest in assets when those assets are undervalued by the market as a whole. It's a fair bit about psychology and Sacramento believes it applies as well to the NBA market as it does the stock market. So they are targeting to invest in players whom the league has undervalued for whatever reason. Mostly it's about being overpaid, but, it could easily be about injuries or off court behavior or simply a player that is being utilized poorly by another team and that is driving down his value.

In short, Sacramento is seeking to add players that other teams are seeking to avoid. It's the ultimate buy low strategy. When most teams are running away from players like Rudy Gay or Josh Smith the Kings are running towards them. (I imagine that Larry Sanders will be next on their list of targets) It's a strategy that's worked fairly well for guys like Warren Buffet but we'll have to see how it works for Sacramento. IF they can use this strategy to make the playoffs in 2016 in the wild and wooly West I'll be impressed. I do like their thinking outside the box and I'll be following their success (or failure) with some interest.

Projected record - 22/60

Post #2 » by **bondom34** » Fri Aug 22, 2014 5:46 am

This is the first one I've commented on, but there's 0 way they should trade Cousins.

Post #3 » by **jazzfan1971** » Fri Aug 22, 2014 5:54 am

Sactown916 sent me this in a PM

Derrick Williams is primarily a 3, but can play the 4. Moreland is strictly a 4.

Just thought I'd share.

suntzuballin · Post #4 » by **suntzuballin** » Fri Aug 22, 2014 6:11 am

who are other players teams are running away from....josh smith,larry sanders,brandon jennings??

RIPskaterdude · Post #5 » by **RIPskaterdude** » Fri Aug 22, 2014 6:15 am

I will personally bet you that, pending injures, the Kings WILL win more than 22 games this year. Absolutely will not be worse than last years team. Carl Landry will not be their starting PF, as he does not make any sense with Cousins, and to say that Cousins is unstoppable only "twice a year" is an insult and just plain ignorant. I honestly feel like you only watched 4 games of the Kings this year and then thought, hey, why not?

El Turco · Post #6 » by **El Turco** » Fri Aug 22, 2014 6:23 am

RIPskaterdude wrote:I will personally bet you that, pending injures, the Kings WILL win more than 22 games this year. Absolutely will not be worse than last years team. Carl Landry will not be their starting PF, as he does not make any sense with Cousins, and to say that Cousins is unstoppable only "twice a year" is an insult and just plain ignorant. I honestly feel like you only watched 4 games of the Kings this year and then thought, hey, why not?

hmm agree with some of the things you said

Post #7 » by **jazzfan1971** » Fri Aug 22, 2014 6:32 am

RIPskaterdude wrote:Carl Landry will not be their starting PF, as he does not make any sense with Cousins

I don't really disagree with you. As I mentioned the PF position if very much in flux. The reason I put Landry there is that one of the Moderators of the Kings forum, Wolfay, had him starting when I asked folks to help me with lineups.

No other Kings fans were kind enough to post a lineup that included the PF position so I went with that.

RIPskaterdude · Post #8 » by **RIPskaterdude** » Fri Aug 22, 2014 6:45 am

Well I'm not sure why he would think that. If anything, I would look at the depth chart like this

PG - Darren Collison, Ray McCallum
SG - Ben McLemore, Nik Stauskas, Wayne Ellington, Jason Terry (cut/traded before season starts)
SF - Rudy Gay, Derrick Williams
PF - Reggie Evans, Carl Landry, Eric Moreland
C - DeMarcus Cousins, Jason Thompson, Jeremy Tyler (D-League)

Post #9 » by **jazzfan1971** » Fri Aug 22, 2014 7:26 am

I'm a little surprised that Reggie Evans is even in the league anymore let alone potentially starting for someon.

RIPskaterdude · Post #10 » by **RIPskaterdude** » Fri Aug 22, 2014 7:28 am

That's how we ended the season, so as of right now, I would assume it will remain the same until further moves are made

Post #11 » by **jazzfan1971** » Fri Aug 22, 2014 7:59 am

suntzuballin wrote:who are other players teams are running away from....josh smith,larry sanders,brandon jennings??

Hmmm. How about: Javale, JR Smith, Deron Williams?

Gus Fring · Post #12 » by **Gus Fring** » Fri Aug 22, 2014 8:18 am

Bucks, Magic, T-wolves better than Kings? Cousins should be traded even though you say they need young talent? Idk guys...

Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

Monky15 · Post #13 » by **Monky15** » Fri Aug 22, 2014 8:43 am

I'm looking forward to seeing if Moreland can be a contributor this year. He could end up being a better Reggie Evans.

cammac · Post #14 » by **cammac** » Fri Aug 22, 2014 9:16 am

So, they've chosen an alternate path -- A contrarian path

Well agree with you in the market the contrarian path works but not in basketball.

The reasons player like Rudy Gay, Bargnani last year were available is that they are broken.
Bargnani was a contributor in the NYKs failure and is now ongoing for another year with Raptors getting NYKS 2016 1st.
Gay yes played better in SAC than in Toronto but the before and after records were the same in SAC while Toronto went on a .600 % clip after. Net result Rudy 19 million and Toronto net Vasquez, Patterson resigned and depth contributors, Luo. Williams, Lucas Nogueira in Salmons trade and Hayes a expiring.

This philosophy is more reclamation than contrarian past examples are Bynum & Oden and future ones are possible such as Smith, Jennings, Hibbert, Rose, Williams and Brooke Lopez usually lead to catastrophic results for the buyer.

blind prophet · Post #15 » by **blind prophet** » Fri Aug 22, 2014 6:17 pm

Most of us thought it would take Vivek 2 years or so to see some direction.

Pretty much you can count on Cousins long term, Jarl Thompandry's nightmare contracts, and Stauskas probably to be here for awhile.

Everything else is up in the air. Personally I hope they keep Rudy long term, or replace with another 15 million dollar talent.

This season does not matter much, I just hope they somehow improve our contract clutter long term.

With minimal changes, 30 wins is realistic if Cousins and Rudy have good years and Stauskas is a man of merit.

A great season would be 33 wins, under 30 a disappointment.

Left Side Drive · Post #16 » by **Left Side Drive** » Fri Aug 22, 2014 6:19 pm

That roster is worse than I thought after looking at the depth chart.

blind prophet · Post #17 » by **blind prophet** » Fri Aug 22, 2014 6:24 pm

RIPskaterdude wrote:Well I'm not sure why he would think that. If anything, I would look at the depth chart like this

PG - Darren Collison, Ray McCallum
SG - Ben McLemore, Nik Stauskas, Wayne Ellington, Jason Terry (cut/traded before season starts)
SF - Rudy Gay, Derrick Williams
PF - Reggie Evans, Carl Landry, Eric Moreland
C - DeMarcus Cousins, Jason Thompson, Jeremy Tyler (D-League)

Pretty much this with Stauskas and Mclemore swapped roles for me. Terry will probably be kept till the deadline for some kind of deal, may as well grab a mop and squeegee and clean up the locker rooms.

Sim will probably get a call up and play a couple of mins if there is a late season injury.

NBA Fan 1234 · Post #18 » by **NBA Fan 1234** » Fri Aug 22, 2014 6:29 pm

The Kings were 19-21 when Thomas, Gay, and Cousins played. Thomas doesn't come back, but they replace him with Collison and the rest of the young players will probably improve...yet, over the course of 82 games, they only win 3 more games? I don't see how that makes sense, unless you think Thomas was a HUGE piece of their success.

Jeff23 · Post #19 » by **Jeff23** » Fri Aug 22, 2014 6:36 pm

22 games? IMO they win around 30-33 games this year. Also the Jazz let wesley matthews go because Portland signed him to a big offer sheet after his rookie-season. The Jazz didnt match because it would have really hurt them salary-cap wise.

I really dont like these Off-season preview stuff from you guys. IMO you guys just state your sometimes biased opinions, there is no analysis behind it.

Post #20 » by **jazzfan1971** » Fri Aug 22, 2014 6:40 pm

Wins have to come from somewhere, it's a zero sum game.

Go ahead and predict the win totals for all 30 teams and get back to me if you still think it's unreasonable. My point is, you could have 30 teams ALL get better and not one of them win a single more game than last year.