madskillz8 wrote:kalenclayton wrote:madskillz8 wrote:They are keeping Cooley and Sampson but waiving a 20 yo. center that they picked at 13th. Who showed that he has a good mid range shot, offensive rebounding, good floater and passing in very limited minutes. They prefer playing more Koufos and Zbo. Really???
Wait... you are saying Papa was
good at those things? I would say ok at best. He’s huge, which was his best skill (not even a skill). He was ok at rebounding. Everything else looked completely unnatural. Maybe he will be ok, but he wasn’t good and was never put in a position to get better. It wasn’t happening in Sac. He should’ve never been drafted by the Kings.
13th draft pick at that year is another thing.
I have watched many games after the trade that PapaG had some minutes. Even though he's raw, he did very well in limited minutes. 7'2 bigs with shooting touch doesnt grow on trees: just check his highlights.
I agree that the 2016 is another thing. That draft was pretty awful. I still didn’t agree with 2 of the picks. After we traded 8, I wanted Denzel Valentine, Wade Baldwin, Malik Beasley, or Timothe Luwawu at 13. Then we got floored with the Papa pick. I was mad, but I wanted to see what would happen. Then we picked up the 22nd pick and I was certain we were getting Luwawu or Dejounte Murray. I was a little peeved at the Malachi pick, but in time I liked it. I loved he Skal pick and thought it could be the steal of the draft.
Papa seems like a likeable guy. I just don’t like his on court play. I agree that huge guys that can potentially have soft touch don’t grow on trees. You refer to his highlights as the reason he is good at certain things. I watch almost every single Kings game and every time I’ve seen Papa, I’ve been left with a feeling of disappointment. I’ve only seen one stretch where he actually did some positive things in a row. That happened to be the most recent Kings - Pelicans game. He came in and played a decent-good 6 minute stretch. He set some good screens and passed the ball to the correct spots a few times. That was the first time in two years for a good stretch. The first!
Papa doesn’t have good b-ball IQ. Sure that can be fixed over time, but he just doesn’t do the right things. He also has made tons of mistakes that high schoolers don’t make. He just doesn’t really get it. He could be taught these things, but know that he will be a bigger project that people are believing right now. He could be a decent player in like 3-4 years, but there was no way the Kings were going to be that team. He was drafted by the wrong team. The Kings were not in a position to mentor Papa. Vlade made a mistake with that and Even the most loyal of Kings fans were left confused with a feeling of dread. I am one of them.
I hope Papa gets good and I hope he lands in a good situation. He was just never going to get it in Sac when they are currently in their first real year of rebuilding. He needs a lot more attention.
