Welcome Georgios Papagiannis!

[City of Trees]

Everybody here knows that Cousins is a cancer in the lockeroom..it's time to part ways.

The Drive morning show on 1140 said they would take a deal of Smart, Bradley, and Crowder for Cousins

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We better not and I'm sure DMC won't be traded if he were u trade him at draft and prepare for free agency.

And I'm taking D'Angelo Russell over all those guys. You win in this league with superstars and Russell will be one none of those Boston guys are stars or have that potential


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Cant trade Boogie to LA tho!

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[Jkam31]

The Drive morning show on 1140 said they would take a deal of Smart, Bradley, and Crowder for Cousins

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We better not and I'm sure DMC won't be traded if he were u trade him at draft and prepare for free agency.

And I'm taking D'Angelo Russell over all those guys. You win in this league with superstars and Russell will be one none of those Boston guys are stars or have that potential


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Cant trade Boogie to LA tho!

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This is true but we shouldn't trade DMC period.


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[codydaze]

I mean, it's an empty gym, but...

http://www.nba.com/kings/blog/papagiannis-shows-range

[c3j3h]

I will say that if they do end up trading Boogie then I'll retract all the bad things I said about the draft. But if they think that adding in Papagiannis and Labissiere to last years squad is going to get them to the playoffs and get Boogie to sign an extension with Sacramento, then they are incompetent and should be fired.

[K I N G S]

Everybody here knows that Cousins is a cancer in the lockeroom..it's time to part ways.

The Drive morning show on 1140 said they would take a deal of Smart, Bradley, and Crowder for Cousins

Sent from my SM-J700T using Tapatalk

We better not and I'm sure DMC won't be traded if he were u trade him at draft and prepare for free agency.

And I'm taking D'Angelo Russell over all those guys. You win in this league with superstars and Russell will be one none of those Boston guys are stars or have that potential


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Yeah I don't care much for Boston's assets unless they throw in Nets picks too. You trade a guy like DMC or Jimmy Butler you need to get back some combination of a very high pick/player with star potential. I loved the idea of a trade for Russel/Ingram but that ship appears to have sailed. Lakers are reportedly a sure thing to sign Whiteside.

[Jkam31]

The Drive morning show on 1140 said they would take a deal of Smart, Bradley, and Crowder for Cousins

Sent from my SM-J700T using Tapatalk

We better not and I'm sure DMC won't be traded if he were u trade him at draft and prepare for free agency.

And I'm taking D'Angelo Russell over all those guys. You win in this league with superstars and Russell will be one none of those Boston guys are stars or have that potential


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Yeah I don't care much for Boston's assets unless they throw in Nets picks too. You trade a guy like DMC or Jimmy Butler you need to get back some combination of a very high pick/player with star potential. I loved the idea of a trade for Russel/Ingram but that ship appears to have sailed. Lakers are reportedly a sure thing to sign Whiteside.

Exactly!!! But DMC won't be traded no way he doesn't get along with Joerger and we will get 40+ wins. We got 32 while ranking and hating out coach and out SG problems.





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[Jkam31]

Also nothing pissed me off more than an alleged kings fan wanting to trade Boogie. In am era of jumping ship this dude has been as loyal as they come. Has nothing but good things to day about Sacramento. Can't wait to turn it around with him on the team.


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[c3j3h]

Also nothing pissed me off more than an alleged kings fan wanting to trade Boogie. In am era of jumping ship this dude has been as loyal as they come. Has nothing but good things to day about Sacramento. Can't wait to turn it around with him on the team.


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Sure if you look at basketball decisions from an emotional standpoint, it doesn't make sense to trade him. He's our best player, and he loves Sacramento.

If you look at it from a logical standpoint, however, it becomes clear that they're more than likely going to have to trade him at some point, so they might as well get max value.

[City of Trees]

Also nothing pissed me off more than an alleged kings fan wanting to trade Boogie.

Get thicker skin .


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[LightTheBeam]

I will say that if they do end up trading Boogie then I'll retract all the bad things I said about the draft. But if they think that adding in Papagiannis and Labissiere to last years squad is going to get them to the playoffs and get Boogie to sign an extension with Sacramento, then they are incompetent and should be fired.

So every move we make has to be directly towards making the playoffs? Can't you become better now and in the future? I have no problem with what we did, we could have selected Chriss at 8 but its pretty clear Chriss is one of the most raw players coming out and wouldn't help us at all in the now. Baldwin was another but obviously Vlade decided that we already have our backup point guard in Collison and backup option in Curry and we would rather chase Conley. We can speculate all we want but clearly Vlade has a plan and it is way to early to judge.

If we go out and sign Conley and Courtney Lee while trading Koufos for a future 1st or 2nd, are they still incompetent?

Cousins/PapaGiannis
WCS/Acy/Skal
Gay/Casspi
Courtney Lee/McLemore/Richardson
Conley/Collison/Curry/Cousins

Now if one of the wing/guards fell to us and then we made this move I would agree with you, but they didnt and there was no clear choice so Vlade took a team starved for youth and traded 8/Belinelli to bring in 13/22/28/Bogdan. Id say that is a win pretty easily.

[c3j3h]

I will say that if they do end up trading Boogie then I'll retract all the bad things I said about the draft. But if they think that adding in Papagiannis and Labissiere to last years squad is going to get them to the playoffs and get Boogie to sign an extension with Sacramento, then they are incompetent and should be fired.

So every move we make has to be directly towards making the playoffs? Can't you become better now and in the future? I have no problem with what we did, we could have selected Chriss at 8 but its pretty clear Chriss is one of the most raw players coming out and wouldn't help us at all in the now. Baldwin was another but obviously Vlade decided that we already have our backup point guard in Collison and backup option in Curry and we would rather chase Conley. We can speculate all we want but clearly Vlade has a plan and it is way to early to judge.

If we go out and sign Conley and Courtney Lee while trading Koufos for a future 1st or 2nd, are they still incompetent?

Cousins/PapaGiannis
WCS/Acy/Skal
Gay/Casspi
Courtney Lee/McLemore/Richardson
Conley/Collison/Curry/Cousins

Now if one of the wing/guards fell to us and then we made this move I would agree with you, but they didnt and there was no clear choice so Vlade took a team starved for youth and traded 8/Belinelli to bring in 13/22/28/Bogdan. Id say that is a win pretty easily.

The way I see it, the Kings have 2 options to approach their immediate future, given the DeMarcus Cousins situation: They either plan on re-signing Boogie and building around him long term, or they have to make plans for life without Boogie.

If they plan on keeping him long-term, they have to start making some major progress right now. I cannot see a scenario where the Kings wind up back in the lottery again next year, and Boogie decides to sign another 4-year contract extension to stay in Sacramento. I think it's pretty obvious that DeMarcus wants to win, and even though he loves Sacramento and he loves being the face of the Kings, he loves winning even more. I cannot imagine for the life of me why an elite talent such as Cousins would endure 7 straight losing seasons in a small market, and then sign up for 4 more during the prime of his career. I think it's pretty clear that if the Kings miss the playoffs again, he is not going to stay here, and the Kings will be forced to trade him.

So if they want to keep this guy and build around him, and they need to make the playoffs this year, what exactly did they do on draft day to accomplish this? I agree that Marquese Chriss is a raw prospect, but it's not like Papagiannis, Labissiere, and Richardson are polished or anything. All 3 of those guys are just as raw (albeit less talented imo) as Chriss is. Bogdanovic is obviously not going to help this upcoming season either since he will be playing in Europe. So what gives? How do they expect to improve this team immediately (which again is a requirement to keeping Boogie long-term) by making the moves they made on draft day? I'm failing to see how taking in all of these projects, who probably will not be able to contribute significant minutes this season, is going to immediately make the team better. Unless of course they plan on trading a few of them this summer, but that is obviously yet to be seen.

You mention signing Conley and Courtney Lee would get us over the hump. I completely agree with you! Getting Conley alone would be the best case scenario for the Kings. However, we have about a snowball's chance in hell of actually accomplishing that. Conley is BY FAR the best PG on the market this summer, and it's not even remotely close. He is going to be on the top of EVERY team's list that needs a PG this summer. I don't know how familiar you are with Sacramento's history of landing top Free Agents, but I'll spoil you the pain of research and just let you know that it's not good. At all. Disaster is a better term to describe it. The Kings are drawing pretty close to stone dead to acquiring Mike Conley this summer.

Courtney Lee is a different story. It would not shock me if we were to bring him in somehow. He reportedly is asking for $14 million, and I could see the Kings being desperate enough to give a 31 year old SG $15 million a year to come play here. But without a legitimate PG to play next to him, it's probably not going to make much of a difference. I seriously doubt that plugging in Courtney Lee and 4 rookies is going to improve the squad by 10 wins next season. Remember, they just won 33 games. They have a ton of work to do. But even then, this is assuming that the Kings will be the only team pursuing Lee, which will almost certainly not be the case.

Needless to say, the road to the playoffs for the Kings is a difficult one. This roster is not even close to competing at this point, and unless they absolutely crush it in Free Agency and on the trade market, they more than likely are facing a scenario where they end up with a fate similar to what they just experienced this past season. And that brings us back to the Boogie trade scenario.

If they aren't able to build that contender this summer, and therefore run it back with essentially the same squad plus our draft day haul, what then? Do they stick it out for a season and give it their all, knowing they're going to come up short? What's the point of that? They would essentially be forfeiting a lottery pick in that scenario, on top of the fact that it would also mark the end of the Boogie Era in Sacramento. Why go through all of that when they can get a head start on that rebuild now? Maximize the assets they have, cash in that trade chip now while they can still get max value on the return, and guarantee that they save themselves from losing a lottery pick next year in what is supposedly going to be a great draft? That seems like the logical thing to do.

However, they almost certainly are not going to do that. They are probably going to make some band-aid maneuvers trying to flip any assets they have for anything they can get. They're going to make wild offers at Free Agents that probably would never come here anyway. They will almost certainly be overpaying someone, probably by quite a bit. And in the end, they will probably come up short anyway, given how tough the Western Conference is and how many more attractive destinations have just as much (if not more) cap space than the Kings have to work with.

It seems like such a grueling exercise for what is essentially such an obvious, practically inevitable result. They're better off getting it over with now, and getting a head start on the next phase.

[LightTheBeam]

I will say that if they do end up trading Boogie then I'll retract all the bad things I said about the draft. But if they think that adding in Papagiannis and Labissiere to last years squad is going to get them to the playoffs and get Boogie to sign an extension with Sacramento, then they are incompetent and should be fired.

So every move we make has to be directly towards making the playoffs? Can't you become better now and in the future? I have no problem with what we did, we could have selected Chriss at 8 but its pretty clear Chriss is one of the most raw players coming out and wouldn't help us at all in the now. Baldwin was another but obviously Vlade decided that we already have our backup point guard in Collison and backup option in Curry and we would rather chase Conley. We can speculate all we want but clearly Vlade has a plan and it is way to early to judge.

If we go out and sign Conley and Courtney Lee while trading Koufos for a future 1st or 2nd, are they still incompetent?

Cousins/PapaGiannis
WCS/Acy/Skal
Gay/Casspi
Courtney Lee/McLemore/Richardson
Conley/Collison/Curry/Cousins

Now if one of the wing/guards fell to us and then we made this move I would agree with you, but they didnt and there was no clear choice so Vlade took a team starved for youth and traded 8/Belinelli to bring in 13/22/28/Bogdan. Id say that is a win pretty easily.

The way I see it, the Kings have 2 options to approach their immediate future, given the DeMarcus Cousins situation: They either plan on re-signing Boogie and building around him long term, or they have to make plans for life without Boogie.

If they plan on keeping him long-term, they have to start making some major progress right now. I cannot see a scenario where the Kings wind up back in the lottery again next year, and Boogie decides to sign another 4-year contract extension to stay in Sacramento. I think it's pretty obvious that DeMarcus wants to win, and even though he loves Sacramento and he loves being the face of the Kings, he loves winning even more. I cannot imagine for the life of me why an elite talent such as Cousins would endure 7 straight losing seasons in a small market, and then sign up for 4 more during the prime of his career. I think it's pretty clear that if the Kings miss the playoffs again, he is not going to stay here, and the Kings will be forced to trade him.

So if they want to keep this guy and build around him, and they need to make the playoffs this year, what exactly did they do on draft day to accomplish this? I agree that Marquese Chriss is a raw prospect, but it's not like Papagiannis, Labissiere, and Richardson are polished or anything. All 3 of those guys are just as raw (albeit less talented imo) as Chriss is. Bogdanovic is obviously not going to help this upcoming season either since he will be playing in Europe. So what gives? How do they expect to improve this team immediately (which again is a requirement to keeping Boogie long-term) by making the moves they made on draft day? I'm failing to see how taking in all of these projects, who probably will not be able to contribute significant minutes this season, is going to immediately make the team better. Unless of course they plan on trading a few of them this summer, but that is obviously yet to be seen.

You mention signing Conley and Courtney Lee would get us over the hump. I completely agree with you! Getting Conley alone would be the best case scenario for the Kings. However, we have about a snowball's chance in hell of actually accomplishing that. Conley is BY FAR the best PG on the market this summer, and it's not even remotely close. He is going to be on the top of EVERY team's list that needs a PG this summer. I don't know how familiar you are with Sacramento's history of landing top Free Agents, but I'll spoil you the pain of research and just let you know that it's not good. At all. Disaster is a better term to describe it. The Kings are drawing pretty close to stone dead to acquiring Mike Conley this summer.

Courtney Lee is a different story. It would not shock me if we were to bring him in somehow. He reportedly is asking for $14 million, and I could see the Kings being desperate enough to give a 31 year old SG $15 million a year to come play here. But without a legitimate PG to play next to him, it's probably not going to make much of a difference. I seriously doubt that plugging in Courtney Lee and 4 rookies is going to improve the squad by 10 wins next season. Remember, they just won 33 games. They have a ton of work to do. But even then, this is assuming that the Kings will be the only team pursuing Lee, which will almost certainly not be the case.

Needless to say, the road to the playoffs for the Kings is a difficult one. This roster is not even close to competing at this point, and unless they absolutely crush it in Free Agency and on the trade market, they more than likely are facing a scenario where they end up with a fate similar to what they just experienced this past season. And that brings us back to the Boogie trade scenario.

If they aren't able to build that contender this summer, and therefore run it back with essentially the same squad plus our draft day haul, what then? Do they stick it out for a season and give it their all, knowing they're going to come up short? What's the point of that? They would essentially be forfeiting a lottery pick in that scenario, on top of the fact that it would also mark the end of the Boogie Era in Sacramento. Why go through all of that when they can get a head start on that rebuild now? Maximize the assets they have, cash in that trade chip now while they can still get max value on the return, and guarantee that they save themselves from losing a lottery pick next year in what is supposedly going to be a great draft? That seems like the logical thing to do.

However, they almost certainly are not going to do that. They are probably going to make some band-aid maneuvers trying to flip any assets they have for anything they can get. They're going to make wild offers at Free Agents that probably would never come here anyway. They will almost certainly be overpaying someone, probably by quite a bit. And in the end, they will probably come up short anyway, given how tough the Western Conference is and how many more attractive destinations have just as much (if not more) cap space than the Kings have to work with.

It seems like such a grueling exercise for what is essentially such an obvious, practically inevitable result. They're better off getting it over with now, and getting a head start on the next phase.

Let me be more clear. I think that Vlade thought none of the drafted players increased our chance at making the playoffs immediately, hence why he split the risk and bought more cap space. He wants to improve immediately using free agency while also getting long term prospects that we did not have. I am certain that Vlade floated the #8 around for immediate help and was rejected just as was reported that every team drafting from 3-9 did. So basically he could have taken Chriss knowing full well that he would not improve our chances today, or bring in multiple guys and grab a long term wing projected to come over next year that is more than capable to begin playing now.

I don't agree that we have no chance for Conley. Id say we have a pretty decent chance and I'm usually pretty tempered in my expectations. looking around the league, who needs a point guard? Nets, Philly, Sacramento, Memphis, Dallas? Really that is about it? One could argue SA but they will likely be attempting to bring help in by the name of Durant and would have to make a few trades if they did want to go after Conley. Of those teams I don't see a better situation than Sacramento, surely not the Nets or Philly. Dallas is a 39 year old star and not much else, they also have a history of missing on free agents. Memphis, well he has played there for years and I think he is headed for a change of scenery, not to mention Gasol is injured and he and Zbo are clearly on the downside of their careers and they have never been players in free agency other than vets. It comes down to San Antonio and honestly I think they go after Pau Gasol and a few other vets while allowing Parker to finish his contract. I cant imagine they clear the space needed and then bench Tony Parker with other holes on the roster. I honestly think we can offer Conley a really good scenario, new arena, California living, his former coach/same style of play, big men to feed the ball to, max money without having to make any moves, and lets not forget a few former players he has played with in Koufos and Gay with Courtney Lee being another top free agent target.

I also think you are underrating our team. Last year we should have been a 40 win team pretty easily. I would go as far as saying replace Karl with Joerger last year and we make the playoffs over Houston or at minimum fighting for that spot. Karl was a serious issue for this team, he hindered any growth we had, played an absolute terrible style not effective to the way DMC plays and had by far the worst rotations ive ever seen. He ruined Gay, made Belinelli a waste, played James Anderson a ridiculous amount of minutes for someone who wont be in the NBA next year, never played Curry, stunted WCS the first half of the season, benched McLemore after 3 minutes into every game, tried to run 2 centers in Cousins and Koufos while trying to run a league high pace and lets not forget told the media that he was basically looking to backdoor the front office by trading DMC behind their backs. The only players he helped were Rondo and arguably Casspi aside from that Karl was a Sh** show.

I think Vlade has a plan, I think we have a better chance at signing Conley than anyone thinks, I think we have a 2g we like ready to come to Sacramento, and I think we will be very improved by arguably having the biggest coaching upgrade of the summer. We also have 30+ million in cap room so I don't think (using your terminology) theres a snowballs chance in hell we go into next season without adding someone. Nobody thought we would get anything done last year and looking back we signed 2 key bench components from real western conference playoff teams and brought in arguably the most sought after unrestricted point guard on the market to a 1 year contract which was brilliant. In hindsight none of these moves really worked out (Belinelli got us Richardson so Im pretty damn happy about that) but that doesn't mean he wasn't active and making calls. We were also a Deandre Jordan signing in Dallas away from getting Wes Matthews as I think if it wasnt for Deandre agreeing to the Mavs deal we would have clearly been able to sign him.

Maybe we watched different games last year but I think our assessment of how far/close this team is to being a playoff team is pretty far off.

[enderwilson]

In the comparison between Marquess Chriss and Georgios Papagiannis +, what are people's general assessment of them as prospects?

While I find the draft interesting, I'm VERY skeptical about forecasting the future success of draft picks. In the history of the draft, the number of highly valued prospects that have flamed out vastly outnumber those that have panned out. Both Marquess and Georgios are raw prospects but predicting whether or not they are going to have a successful NBA career is too difficult.

From my perspective, Papagiannis is a lesser risk given how early he began playing against professional basketball players and the quality of the skills and fundamentals he already seems to possess. Does Chriss' potential actually outweigh his risk?

[c3j3h]

So every move we make has to be directly towards making the playoffs? Can't you become better now and in the future? I have no problem with what we did, we could have selected Chriss at 8 but its pretty clear Chriss is one of the most raw players coming out and wouldn't help us at all in the now. Baldwin was another but obviously Vlade decided that we already have our backup point guard in Collison and backup option in Curry and we would rather chase Conley. We can speculate all we want but clearly Vlade has a plan and it is way to early to judge.

If we go out and sign Conley and Courtney Lee while trading Koufos for a future 1st or 2nd, are they still incompetent?

Cousins/PapaGiannis
WCS/Acy/Skal
Gay/Casspi
Courtney Lee/McLemore/Richardson
Conley/Collison/Curry/Cousins

Now if one of the wing/guards fell to us and then we made this move I would agree with you, but they didnt and there was no clear choice so Vlade took a team starved for youth and traded 8/Belinelli to bring in 13/22/28/Bogdan. Id say that is a win pretty easily.

The way I see it, the Kings have 2 options to approach their immediate future, given the DeMarcus Cousins situation: They either plan on re-signing Boogie and building around him long term, or they have to make plans for life without Boogie.

If they plan on keeping him long-term, they have to start making some major progress right now. I cannot see a scenario where the Kings wind up back in the lottery again next year, and Boogie decides to sign another 4-year contract extension to stay in Sacramento. I think it's pretty obvious that DeMarcus wants to win, and even though he loves Sacramento and he loves being the face of the Kings, he loves winning even more. I cannot imagine for the life of me why an elite talent such as Cousins would endure 7 straight losing seasons in a small market, and then sign up for 4 more during the prime of his career. I think it's pretty clear that if the Kings miss the playoffs again, he is not going to stay here, and the Kings will be forced to trade him.

So if they want to keep this guy and build around him, and they need to make the playoffs this year, what exactly did they do on draft day to accomplish this? I agree that Marquese Chriss is a raw prospect, but it's not like Papagiannis, Labissiere, and Richardson are polished or anything. All 3 of those guys are just as raw (albeit less talented imo) as Chriss is. Bogdanovic is obviously not going to help this upcoming season either since he will be playing in Europe. So what gives? How do they expect to improve this team immediately (which again is a requirement to keeping Boogie long-term) by making the moves they made on draft day? I'm failing to see how taking in all of these projects, who probably will not be able to contribute significant minutes this season, is going to immediately make the team better. Unless of course they plan on trading a few of them this summer, but that is obviously yet to be seen.

You mention signing Conley and Courtney Lee would get us over the hump. I completely agree with you! Getting Conley alone would be the best case scenario for the Kings. However, we have about a snowball's chance in hell of actually accomplishing that. Conley is BY FAR the best PG on the market this summer, and it's not even remotely close. He is going to be on the top of EVERY team's list that needs a PG this summer. I don't know how familiar you are with Sacramento's history of landing top Free Agents, but I'll spoil you the pain of research and just let you know that it's not good. At all. Disaster is a better term to describe it. The Kings are drawing pretty close to stone dead to acquiring Mike Conley this summer.

Courtney Lee is a different story. It would not shock me if we were to bring him in somehow. He reportedly is asking for $14 million, and I could see the Kings being desperate enough to give a 31 year old SG $15 million a year to come play here. But without a legitimate PG to play next to him, it's probably not going to make much of a difference. I seriously doubt that plugging in Courtney Lee and 4 rookies is going to improve the squad by 10 wins next season. Remember, they just won 33 games. They have a ton of work to do. But even then, this is assuming that the Kings will be the only team pursuing Lee, which will almost certainly not be the case.

Needless to say, the road to the playoffs for the Kings is a difficult one. This roster is not even close to competing at this point, and unless they absolutely crush it in Free Agency and on the trade market, they more than likely are facing a scenario where they end up with a fate similar to what they just experienced this past season. And that brings us back to the Boogie trade scenario.

If they aren't able to build that contender this summer, and therefore run it back with essentially the same squad plus our draft day haul, what then? Do they stick it out for a season and give it their all, knowing they're going to come up short? What's the point of that? They would essentially be forfeiting a lottery pick in that scenario, on top of the fact that it would also mark the end of the Boogie Era in Sacramento. Why go through all of that when they can get a head start on that rebuild now? Maximize the assets they have, cash in that trade chip now while they can still get max value on the return, and guarantee that they save themselves from losing a lottery pick next year in what is supposedly going to be a great draft? That seems like the logical thing to do.

However, they almost certainly are not going to do that. They are probably going to make some band-aid maneuvers trying to flip any assets they have for anything they can get. They're going to make wild offers at Free Agents that probably would never come here anyway. They will almost certainly be overpaying someone, probably by quite a bit. And in the end, they will probably come up short anyway, given how tough the Western Conference is and how many more attractive destinations have just as much (if not more) cap space than the Kings have to work with.

It seems like such a grueling exercise for what is essentially such an obvious, practically inevitable result. They're better off getting it over with now, and getting a head start on the next phase.

Let me be more clear. I think that Vlade thought none of the drafted players increased our chance at making the playoffs immediately, hence why he split the risk and bought more cap space. He wants to improve immediately using free agency while also getting long term prospects that we did not have. I am certain that Vlade floated the #8 around for immediate help and was rejected just as was reported that every team drafting from 3-9 did. So basically he could have taken Chriss knowing full well that he would not improve our chances today, or bring in multiple guys and grab a long term wing projected to come over next year that is more than capable to begin playing now.

I don't agree that we have no chance for Conley. Id say we have a pretty decent chance and I'm usually pretty tempered in my expectations. looking around the league, who needs a point guard? Nets, Philly, Sacramento, Memphis, Dallas? Really that is about it? One could argue SA but they will likely be attempting to bring help in by the name of Durant and would have to make a few trades if they did want to go after Conley. Of those teams I don't see a better situation than Sacramento, surely not the Nets or Philly. Dallas is a 39 year old star and not much else, they also have a history of missing on free agents. Memphis, well he has played there for years and I think he is headed for a change of scenery, not to mention Gasol is injured and he and Zbo are clearly on the downside of their careers and they have never been players in free agency other than vets. It comes down to San Antonio and honestly I think they go after Pau Gasol and a few other vets while allowing Parker to finish his contract. I cant imagine they clear the space needed and then bench Tony Parker with other holes on the roster. I honestly think we can offer Conley a really good scenario, new arena, California living, his former coach/same style of play, big men to feed the ball to, max money without having to make any moves, and lets not forget a few former players he has played with in Koufos and Gay with Courtney Lee being another top free agent target.

I also think you are underrating our team. Last year we should have been a 40 win team pretty easily. I would go as far as saying replace Karl with Joerger last year and we make the playoffs over Houston or at minimum fighting for that spot. Karl was a serious issue for this team, he hindered any growth we had, played an absolute terrible style not effective to the way DMC plays and had by far the worst rotations ive ever seen. He ruined Gay, made Belinelli a waste, played James Anderson a ridiculous amount of minutes for someone who wont be in the NBA next year, never played Curry, stunted WCS the first half of the season, benched McLemore after 3 minutes into every game, tried to run 2 centers in Cousins and Koufos while trying to run a league high pace and lets not forget told the media that he was basically looking to backdoor the front office by trading DMC behind their backs. The only players he helped were Rondo and arguably Casspi aside from that Karl was a Sh** show.

I think Vlade has a plan, I think we have a better chance at signing Conley than anyone thinks, I think we have a 2g we like ready to come to Sacramento, and I think we will be very improved by arguably having the biggest coaching upgrade of the summer. We also have 30+ million in cap room so I don't think (using your terminology) theres a snowballs chance in hell we go into next season without adding someone. Nobody thought we would get anything done last year and looking back we signed 2 key bench components from real western conference playoff teams and brought in arguably the most sought after unrestricted point guard on the market to a 1 year contract which was brilliant. In hindsight none of these moves really worked out (Belinelli got us Richardson so Im pretty damn happy about that) but that doesn't mean he wasn't active and making calls. We were also a Deandre Jordan signing in Dallas away from getting Wes Matthews as I think if it wasnt for Deandre agreeing to the Mavs deal we would have clearly been able to sign him.

Maybe we watched different games last year but I think our assessment of how far/close this team is to being a playoff team is pretty far off.

Well I can appreciate your optimism, but I think you're being overly optimistic here.

As far as Conley is concerned, I would be willing to make a wager of some kind with you that he will not be signing with Sacramento. I think your restriction of his "realistic" market to San Antonio and Sacramento is optimistic, at best. I think San Antonio would absolutely bench Tony Parker for Conley in a heartbeat, and they are probably not signing Durant anyway considering they have a SF and PF locked up as it is. I think there are WAY more teams in much more attractive situations that will be throwing a lot of money at Conley.

While I do agree that Karl blew for the Kings this year, I think that you are severely over estimating his effect on the team if you think that swapping him with Joerger would have produced 8 more wins with no other changes to the roster. Rondo was generally bad, we had the worst SG rotation in the NBA, our best defender was a rookie. The roster was just plain bad. That team was not better than Houston or Utah, and we just barely beat out Denver in the standings (and it took a seriously hot run in the last 11 games to overtake a team that was not trying to win).

Courtney Lee has not said a word about wanting to come to Sacramento. He has an established relationship with Joerger, which could certainly play into his decision, but Sacramento is still very much a deserted wasteland as far as the free agent market is concerned. Look no further than last summer, when we brought in a HOF coach and were spurned by both Danny Green AND Wes Matthews to take less money to play elsewhere.

I too think Vlade has a plan. I have just seen zero evidence that it is a good one. I hope I'm wrong. But this idea that Vlade is going to fix everything through free agency should've been put to rest last summer. It seems like he squandered a pretty big opportunity to improve the team immediately on draft day, and instead threw all of his eggs in the free agency basket.

[LightTheBeam]

.

As far as Conley is concerned, I would be willing to make a wager of some kind with you that he will not be signing with Sacramento. I think your restriction of his "realistic" market to San Antonio and Sacramento is optimistic, at best. I think San Antonio would absolutely bench Tony Parker for Conley in a heartbeat, and they are probably not signing Durant anyway considering they have a SF and PF locked up as it is. I think there are WAY more teams in much more attractive situations that will be throwing a lot of money at Conley.
.

Now that I'm looking Houston may very well be an option. That being said I don't see Conley as a great fit for a team with Harden and MDA. Would you care to share these other teams that you think will be going after him?

Lakers - Russell
Clippers - Paul
Suns - Knight and Bledsoe
Warriors - Curry

Wolves - Dunn and Rubio
Nuggets- Mudiay
Thunder- Westbrook
Portland- Lillard
Jazz - Exum and Hill

Pelicans - Jrue

So in the west that leaves sac, Dallas, Houston, Memphis, spurs

Raps- Lowry
Celtics - Thomas and Smart
Knicks - rose

Cavs- Irving
Pacers - Teague
Pistons - Jackson

Heat - dragic
Hawks - Dennis Schroder
Hornets - Kemba
Wizards - Wall
Magic - Peyton

76ers, Nets, and I suppose the Bulls and bucks.

So that leaves 9 teams that could possible use his services

I'd take Nets Sixers out of the conversation immediately.

Spurs - Tony Parker plus need up front and minimal cap space leads me to believe they aren't going to make this change yet.
Mavs - not much to build around but I'll put them as an option
Rockets - Beverly Harden and MDA lead me to believe this is a bad option for Conley . They were also a huge mess last year and regressed.
Memphis- Old declining team just fired coach and are pretty much left with old injured Gasol as the only other building block
Bulls - I guess they could potentially be a player but I haven't much heard them talk about it and it's still up for debate if they are rebuilding.
Bucks - Giannis plays point forward so seems like they want to target a Bradley, delevadova type player to play point.
Kings

Ranking these in order of most attractive I actually have us as #2 behind the spurs. Did I miss anyone?

The way I see it we can provide him a situation similar to the one he had success in Memphis. Cousins has potential if he isn't already better than Gasol ever was. We will likely run a very similar system that he has been running in Memphis. I see it as a change of pace but much of the same and a place he can get paid the max but fall into a role that works for him.

[c3j3h]

.

As far as Conley is concerned, I would be willing to make a wager of some kind with you that he will not be signing with Sacramento. I think your restriction of his "realistic" market to San Antonio and Sacramento is optimistic, at best. I think San Antonio would absolutely bench Tony Parker for Conley in a heartbeat, and they are probably not signing Durant anyway considering they have a SF and PF locked up as it is. I think there are WAY more teams in much more attractive situations that will be throwing a lot of money at Conley.
.

Now that I'm looking Houston may very well be an option. That being said I don't see Conley as a great fit for a team with Harden and MDA. Would you care to share these other teams that you think will be going after him?

Lakers - Russell
Clippers - Paul
Suns - Knight and Bledsoe
Warriors - Curry

Wolves - Dunn and Rubio
Nuggets- Mudiay
Thunder- Westbrook
Portland- Lillard
Jazz - Exum and Hill

Pelicans - Jrue

So in the west that leaves sac, Dallas, Houston, Memphis, spurs

Raps- Lowry
Celtics - Thomas and Smart
Knicks - rose

Cavs- Irving
Pacers - Teague
Pistons - Jackson

Heat - dragic
Hawks - Dennis Schroder
Hornets - Kemba
Wizards - Wall
Magic - Peyton

76ers, Nets, and I suppose the Bulls and bucks.

So that leaves 9 teams that could possible use his services

I'd take Nets Sixers out of the conversation immediately.

Spurs - Tony Parker plus need up front and minimal cap space leads me to believe they aren't going to make this change yet.
Mavs - not much to build around but I'll put them as an option
Rockets - Beverly Harden and MDA lead me to believe this is a bad option for Conley . They were also a huge mess last year and regressed.
Memphis- Old declining team just fired coach and are pretty much left with old injured Gasol as the only other building block
Bulls - I guess they could potentially be a player but I haven't much heard them talk about it and it's still up for debate if they are rebuilding.
Bucks - Giannis plays point forward so seems like they want to target a Bradley, delevadova type player to play point.
Kings

Ranking these in order of most attractive I actually have us as #2 behind the spurs. Did I miss anyone?

The way I see it we can provide him a situation similar to the one he had success in Memphis. Cousins has potential if he isn't already better than Gasol ever was. We will likely run a very similar system that he has been running in Memphis. I see it as a change of pace but much of the same and a place he can get paid the max but fall into a role that works for him.

Ok I'll play along. In addition to the teams you listed, there are a few more that could be looking to upgrade.

Depending on what the Lakers do this summer, I could definitely see them throwing an offer at Conley. There have been rumors that they are not completely satisfied with Russell, plus he can play off ball as a SG. They also have a **** of cap space.

The Suns have had rumors swirling around about them potentially trading Knight or Bledsoe. If Bledsoe in particular gets moved, you can expect them to be in play.

I could see the Nuggets potentially making an offer. Yes Mudiay is supposedly their PG of the future, but he didn't exactly have a great rookie year. You never know.

The Pelicans are absolutely in play as well. Conley is arguably just as good, if not better than Jrue. Holiday is also on a now expiring contract.

I don't think the Knicks should be absolutely counted out, although they should be heavily discounted. Rose is on an expiring contract. I could see them potentially having Rose transition into a 6th man role. Not likely however.

Elfrid Payton has struggled quite a bit in Orlando. He even lost his starting job at one point this past season. I think it's a stretch at best to say that Payton is locked in as the Magic starting PG of the future. They absolutely could be in play for Conley this summer.

I also don't think it's fair to completely discount Indiana and Utah. They did just pull off a PG swap this past week, but George Hill and Jeff Teague are both expiring contracts. Conley is arguably a better PG than either of them. They could very easily be flipped again to make room for Conley. Conley is also originally from Indianapolis so that could make a return to Indiana possible for him.

You also have to take the home town factor into account with Memphis. Conley has played his entire career there. He still is close with his teammates he has been battling with for years. Yes, Joerger is his former coach, but only for the past 3 seasons, and by all accounts they didn't exactly have a great relationship. Maybe they did? Who knows. But Memphis cannot be discounted entirely.

Finally, we have to take into account the fact that this is going to be the craziest free agency summer of all time. There is a ton of money flying around. There will be crazy contracts offered. There will be wild trades made. Nobody knows what these rosters are going to look like a week or 2 from now. Anything can happen.

I still think he ends up with San Antonio. That's the most logical place for him to go, and he certainly makes more sense for the Spurs than Pau Gasol does (Pau is going to be 36!!!). But to say that the Kings are the clear #2 here is, again, more than a little optimistic. I would be ecstatic if Conley chose Sacramento, but again I would bet against it.

[Kings2013]

I will say that if they do end up trading Boogie then I'll retract all the bad things I said about the draft. But if they think that adding in Papagiannis and Labissiere to last years squad is going to get them to the playoffs and get Boogie to sign an extension with Sacramento, then they are incompetent and should be fired.

So every move we make has to be directly towards making the playoffs? Can't you become better now and in the future? I have no problem with what we did, we could have selected Chriss at 8 but its pretty clear Chriss is one of the most raw players coming out and wouldn't help us at all in the now. Baldwin was another but obviously Vlade decided that we already have our backup point guard in Collison and backup option in Curry and we would rather chase Conley. We can speculate all we want but clearly Vlade has a plan and it is way to early to judge.

If we go out and sign Conley and Courtney Lee while trading Koufos for a future 1st or 2nd, are they still incompetent?

Cousins/PapaGiannis
WCS/Acy/Skal
Gay/Casspi
Courtney Lee/McLemore/Richardson
Conley/Collison/Curry/Cousins

Now if one of the wing/guards fell to us and then we made this move I would agree with you, but they didnt and there was no clear choice so Vlade took a team starved for youth and traded 8/Belinelli to bring in 13/22/28/Bogdan. Id say that is a win pretty easily.

The way I see it, the Kings have 2 options to approach their immediate future, given the DeMarcus Cousins situation: They either plan on re-signing Boogie and building around him long term, or they have to make plans for life without Boogie.

If they plan on keeping him long-term, they have to start making some major progress right now. I cannot see a scenario where the Kings wind up back in the lottery again next year, and Boogie decides to sign another 4-year contract extension to stay in Sacramento. I think it's pretty obvious that DeMarcus wants to win, and even though he loves Sacramento and he loves being the face of the Kings, he loves winning even more. I cannot imagine for the life of me why an elite talent such as Cousins would endure 7 straight losing seasons in a small market, and then sign up for 4 more during the prime of his career. I think it's pretty clear that if the Kings miss the playoffs again, he is not going to stay here, and the Kings will be forced to trade him.

So if they want to keep this guy and build around him, and they need to make the playoffs this year, what exactly did they do on draft day to accomplish this? I agree that Marquese Chriss is a raw prospect, but it's not like Papagiannis, Labissiere, and Richardson are polished or anything. All 3 of those guys are just as raw (albeit less talented imo) as Chriss is. Bogdanovic is obviously not going to help this upcoming season either since he will be playing in Europe. So what gives? How do they expect to improve this team immediately (which again is a requirement to keeping Boogie long-term) by making the moves they made on draft day? I'm failing to see how taking in all of these projects, who probably will not be able to contribute significant minutes this season, is going to immediately make the team better. Unless of course they plan on trading a few of them this summer, but that is obviously yet to be seen.

You mention signing Conley and Courtney Lee would get us over the hump. I completely agree with you! Getting Conley alone would be the best case scenario for the Kings. However, we have about a snowball's chance in hell of actually accomplishing that. Conley is BY FAR the best PG on the market this summer, and it's not even remotely close. He is going to be on the top of EVERY team's list that needs a PG this summer. I don't know how familiar you are with Sacramento's history of landing top Free Agents, but I'll spoil you the pain of research and just let you know that it's not good. At all. Disaster is a better term to describe it. The Kings are drawing pretty close to stone dead to acquiring Mike Conley this summer.

Courtney Lee is a different story. It would not shock me if we were to bring him in somehow. He reportedly is asking for $14 million, and I could see the Kings being desperate enough to give a 31 year old SG $15 million a year to come play here. But without a legitimate PG to play next to him, it's probably not going to make much of a difference. I seriously doubt that plugging in Courtney Lee and 4 rookies is going to improve the squad by 10 wins next season. Remember, they just won 33 games. They have a ton of work to do. But even then, this is assuming that the Kings will be the only team pursuing Lee, which will almost certainly not be the case.

Needless to say, the road to the playoffs for the Kings is a difficult one. This roster is not even close to competing at this point, and unless they absolutely crush it in Free Agency and on the trade market, they more than likely are facing a scenario where they end up with a fate similar to what they just experienced this past season. And that brings us back to the Boogie trade scenario.

If they aren't able to build that contender this summer, and therefore run it back with essentially the same squad plus our draft day haul, what then? Do they stick it out for a season and give it their all, knowing they're going to come up short? What's the point of that? They would essentially be forfeiting a lottery pick in that scenario, on top of the fact that it would also mark the end of the Boogie Era in Sacramento. Why go through all of that when they can get a head start on that rebuild now? Maximize the assets they have, cash in that trade chip now while they can still get max value on the return, and guarantee that they save themselves from losing a lottery pick next year in what is supposedly going to be a great draft? That seems like the logical thing to do.

However, they almost certainly are not going to do that. They are probably going to make some band-aid maneuvers trying to flip any assets they have for anything they can get. They're going to make wild offers at Free Agents that probably would never come here anyway. They will almost certainly be overpaying someone, probably by quite a bit. And in the end, they will probably come up short anyway, given how tough the Western Conference is and how many more attractive destinations have just as much (if not more) cap space than the Kings have to work with.

It seems like such a grueling exercise for what is essentially such an obvious, practically inevitable result. They're better off getting it over with now, and getting a head start on the next phase.

A couple of things I would personally have differences with here. First, I don't think your getting max value for him. I think his rep is in the toilet now for being a "malcontent" and teams would be trying to get him for .70 on the dollar. It's a league that's built on talent but GMs still have to consider their jobs, and it would be highly questionable on their parts of DMC didn't work out. Due to the tire fire of last season, the team quitting on Karl, and the histrionics it was a bad look for DMC to the point where 50% of his own fanbase now wants him out, that is his market.

Second, as RipPizza mentioned, the ill fit of KArl cannot be understated. DMC didn't like him nor did a lot of the team and the team quit playing for him. Now you replaced him with a coach who fits the player and did well with little in Memphis. Vlade is going to have another year to get fits around him, and DMC has repeatedly said he wants to retire in Sac. He has lost a lot of weight already and looks fierce and ready to go

You give it the first half of next year to see if it goes well IMO and see if he can get a better public image going.

[c3j3h]

So every move we make has to be directly towards making the playoffs? Can't you become better now and in the future? I have no problem with what we did, we could have selected Chriss at 8 but its pretty clear Chriss is one of the most raw players coming out and wouldn't help us at all in the now. Baldwin was another but obviously Vlade decided that we already have our backup point guard in Collison and backup option in Curry and we would rather chase Conley. We can speculate all we want but clearly Vlade has a plan and it is way to early to judge.

If we go out and sign Conley and Courtney Lee while trading Koufos for a future 1st or 2nd, are they still incompetent?

Cousins/PapaGiannis
WCS/Acy/Skal
Gay/Casspi
Courtney Lee/McLemore/Richardson
Conley/Collison/Curry/Cousins

Now if one of the wing/guards fell to us and then we made this move I would agree with you, but they didnt and there was no clear choice so Vlade took a team starved for youth and traded 8/Belinelli to bring in 13/22/28/Bogdan. Id say that is a win pretty easily.

The way I see it, the Kings have 2 options to approach their immediate future, given the DeMarcus Cousins situation: They either plan on re-signing Boogie and building around him long term, or they have to make plans for life without Boogie.

If they plan on keeping him long-term, they have to start making some major progress right now. I cannot see a scenario where the Kings wind up back in the lottery again next year, and Boogie decides to sign another 4-year contract extension to stay in Sacramento. I think it's pretty obvious that DeMarcus wants to win, and even though he loves Sacramento and he loves being the face of the Kings, he loves winning even more. I cannot imagine for the life of me why an elite talent such as Cousins would endure 7 straight losing seasons in a small market, and then sign up for 4 more during the prime of his career. I think it's pretty clear that if the Kings miss the playoffs again, he is not going to stay here, and the Kings will be forced to trade him.

So if they want to keep this guy and build around him, and they need to make the playoffs this year, what exactly did they do on draft day to accomplish this? I agree that Marquese Chriss is a raw prospect, but it's not like Papagiannis, Labissiere, and Richardson are polished or anything. All 3 of those guys are just as raw (albeit less talented imo) as Chriss is. Bogdanovic is obviously not going to help this upcoming season either since he will be playing in Europe. So what gives? How do they expect to improve this team immediately (which again is a requirement to keeping Boogie long-term) by making the moves they made on draft day? I'm failing to see how taking in all of these projects, who probably will not be able to contribute significant minutes this season, is going to immediately make the team better. Unless of course they plan on trading a few of them this summer, but that is obviously yet to be seen.

You mention signing Conley and Courtney Lee would get us over the hump. I completely agree with you! Getting Conley alone would be the best case scenario for the Kings. However, we have about a snowball's chance in hell of actually accomplishing that. Conley is BY FAR the best PG on the market this summer, and it's not even remotely close. He is going to be on the top of EVERY team's list that needs a PG this summer. I don't know how familiar you are with Sacramento's history of landing top Free Agents, but I'll spoil you the pain of research and just let you know that it's not good. At all. Disaster is a better term to describe it. The Kings are drawing pretty close to stone dead to acquiring Mike Conley this summer.

Courtney Lee is a different story. It would not shock me if we were to bring him in somehow. He reportedly is asking for $14 million, and I could see the Kings being desperate enough to give a 31 year old SG $15 million a year to come play here. But without a legitimate PG to play next to him, it's probably not going to make much of a difference. I seriously doubt that plugging in Courtney Lee and 4 rookies is going to improve the squad by 10 wins next season. Remember, they just won 33 games. They have a ton of work to do. But even then, this is assuming that the Kings will be the only team pursuing Lee, which will almost certainly not be the case.

Needless to say, the road to the playoffs for the Kings is a difficult one. This roster is not even close to competing at this point, and unless they absolutely crush it in Free Agency and on the trade market, they more than likely are facing a scenario where they end up with a fate similar to what they just experienced this past season. And that brings us back to the Boogie trade scenario.

If they aren't able to build that contender this summer, and therefore run it back with essentially the same squad plus our draft day haul, what then? Do they stick it out for a season and give it their all, knowing they're going to come up short? What's the point of that? They would essentially be forfeiting a lottery pick in that scenario, on top of the fact that it would also mark the end of the Boogie Era in Sacramento. Why go through all of that when they can get a head start on that rebuild now? Maximize the assets they have, cash in that trade chip now while they can still get max value on the return, and guarantee that they save themselves from losing a lottery pick next year in what is supposedly going to be a great draft? That seems like the logical thing to do.

However, they almost certainly are not going to do that. They are probably going to make some band-aid maneuvers trying to flip any assets they have for anything they can get. They're going to make wild offers at Free Agents that probably would never come here anyway. They will almost certainly be overpaying someone, probably by quite a bit. And in the end, they will probably come up short anyway, given how tough the Western Conference is and how many more attractive destinations have just as much (if not more) cap space than the Kings have to work with.

It seems like such a grueling exercise for what is essentially such an obvious, practically inevitable result. They're better off getting it over with now, and getting a head start on the next phase.

A couple of things I would personally have differences with here. First, I don't think your getting max value for him. I think his rep is in the toilet now for being a "malcontent" and teams would be trying to get him for .70 on the dollar. It's a league that's built on talent but GMs still have to consider their jobs, and it would be highly questionable on their parts of DMC didn't work out. Due to the tire fire of last season, the team quitting on Karl, and the histrionics it was a bad look for DMC to the point where 50% of his own fanbase now wants him out, that is his market.

Second, as RipPizza mentioned, the ill fit of KArl cannot be understated. DMC didn't like him nor did a lot of the team and the team quit playing for him. Now you replaced him with a coach who fits the player and did well with little in Memphis. Vlade is going to have another year to get fits around him, and DMC has repeatedly said he wants to retire in Sac. He has lost a lot of weight already and looks fierce and ready to go

You give it the first half of next year to see if it goes well IMO and see if he can get a better public image going.

If I may retort: I disagree with your contention that his reputation is in the toilet. Quite the contrary! I think his reputation is possibly better than it has ever been.

1. The whole world knows about the Karl situation at this point. They know about him overstepping his bounds and trying to trade Boogie behind the backs of the organization. They know that he basically quit on trying to coach the team before the season ever really started. I think most NBA fans see Karl for the snake he is.

2. The dysfunction of the franchise as a whole is well known. Vivek and Vlade are much more widely ostracized for their missteps and shortcomings. It's basically a meme at this point. I don't think anybody in their right mind blames all of this, or even most of it, on Cousins at this point. He is clearly not the only problem.

3. Despite team and organizational dysfunction, Boogie's performance has been better than ever. He's coming off a season where he averaged 27 points and 11.5 rebounds per game. He made the All Star game for the 2nd year in a row. He's one of the headliners of this summer's Olympic team, after winning a gold medal in the FIBA games already. He was named 2nd team All-NBA despite being on a team that hasn't won more than 33 games in his 6 year career, and he was ROBBED of what should've easily been a 1st team spot. He's inarguably the best Center on Earth.

On top of all of that, he has 2 years left on a great contract by the new salary cap standards. His $17 million owed this season makes up a measly 18% of the salary cap, for a guy that should arguably be the best player on a playoff contender. He's an absolute monster in the paint, is an effective defender. Most of his attitude problems on the court can be attributed to frustration from losing. Oh, and he's only going to be 26 years old this upcoming season.

If they wait until next year, do you really think his trade value will go up?!? How?!? Why?!? The only way they trade him at that point is if they are absolutely sure they won't be able to re-sign him, which means that they tried and failed yet again to make the playoffs. Do you think a 7th year missing the playoffs, with his 7th different NBA coach, is somehow going to make him look better? Do you think having one fewer year left on his contract will make him more appealing as trade bait than he is now? I certainly don't.

If you think the Kings can only get 70 cents on the dollar for him now (which i completely disagree with by the way) then wait until you see the offers that roll in (or more than likely don't roll in) when his contract becomes an expiring contract after yet another losing season on a team that is constructed specifically to benefit him...

[LightTheBeam]

The way I see it, the Kings have 2 options to approach their immediate future, given the DeMarcus Cousins situation: They either plan on re-signing Boogie and building around him long term, or they have to make plans for life without Boogie.

If they plan on keeping him long-term, they have to start making some major progress right now. I cannot see a scenario where the Kings wind up back in the lottery again next year, and Boogie decides to sign another 4-year contract extension to stay in Sacramento. I think it's pretty obvious that DeMarcus wants to win, and even though he loves Sacramento and he loves being the face of the Kings, he loves winning even more. I cannot imagine for the life of me why an elite talent such as Cousins would endure 7 straight losing seasons in a small market, and then sign up for 4 more during the prime of his career. I think it's pretty clear that if the Kings miss the playoffs again, he is not going to stay here, and the Kings will be forced to trade him.

So if they want to keep this guy and build around him, and they need to make the playoffs this year, what exactly did they do on draft day to accomplish this? I agree that Marquese Chriss is a raw prospect, but it's not like Papagiannis, Labissiere, and Richardson are polished or anything. All 3 of those guys are just as raw (albeit less talented imo) as Chriss is. Bogdanovic is obviously not going to help this upcoming season either since he will be playing in Europe. So what gives? How do they expect to improve this team immediately (which again is a requirement to keeping Boogie long-term) by making the moves they made on draft day? I'm failing to see how taking in all of these projects, who probably will not be able to contribute significant minutes this season, is going to immediately make the team better. Unless of course they plan on trading a few of them this summer, but that is obviously yet to be seen.

You mention signing Conley and Courtney Lee would get us over the hump. I completely agree with you! Getting Conley alone would be the best case scenario for the Kings. However, we have about a snowball's chance in hell of actually accomplishing that. Conley is BY FAR the best PG on the market this summer, and it's not even remotely close. He is going to be on the top of EVERY team's list that needs a PG this summer. I don't know how familiar you are with Sacramento's history of landing top Free Agents, but I'll spoil you the pain of research and just let you know that it's not good. At all. Disaster is a better term to describe it. The Kings are drawing pretty close to stone dead to acquiring Mike Conley this summer.

Courtney Lee is a different story. It would not shock me if we were to bring him in somehow. He reportedly is asking for $14 million, and I could see the Kings being desperate enough to give a 31 year old SG $15 million a year to come play here. But without a legitimate PG to play next to him, it's probably not going to make much of a difference. I seriously doubt that plugging in Courtney Lee and 4 rookies is going to improve the squad by 10 wins next season. Remember, they just won 33 games. They have a ton of work to do. But even then, this is assuming that the Kings will be the only team pursuing Lee, which will almost certainly not be the case.

Needless to say, the road to the playoffs for the Kings is a difficult one. This roster is not even close to competing at this point, and unless they absolutely crush it in Free Agency and on the trade market, they more than likely are facing a scenario where they end up with a fate similar to what they just experienced this past season. And that brings us back to the Boogie trade scenario.

If they aren't able to build that contender this summer, and therefore run it back with essentially the same squad plus our draft day haul, what then? Do they stick it out for a season and give it their all, knowing they're going to come up short? What's the point of that? They would essentially be forfeiting a lottery pick in that scenario, on top of the fact that it would also mark the end of the Boogie Era in Sacramento. Why go through all of that when they can get a head start on that rebuild now? Maximize the assets they have, cash in that trade chip now while they can still get max value on the return, and guarantee that they save themselves from losing a lottery pick next year in what is supposedly going to be a great draft? That seems like the logical thing to do.

However, they almost certainly are not going to do that. They are probably going to make some band-aid maneuvers trying to flip any assets they have for anything they can get. They're going to make wild offers at Free Agents that probably would never come here anyway. They will almost certainly be overpaying someone, probably by quite a bit. And in the end, they will probably come up short anyway, given how tough the Western Conference is and how many more attractive destinations have just as much (if not more) cap space than the Kings have to work with.

It seems like such a grueling exercise for what is essentially such an obvious, practically inevitable result. They're better off getting it over with now, and getting a head start on the next phase.

A couple of things I would personally have differences with here. First, I don't think your getting max value for him. I think his rep is in the toilet now for being a "malcontent" and teams would be trying to get him for .70 on the dollar. It's a league that's built on talent but GMs still have to consider their jobs, and it would be highly questionable on their parts of DMC didn't work out. Due to the tire fire of last season, the team quitting on Karl, and the histrionics it was a bad look for DMC to the point where 50% of his own fanbase now wants him out, that is his market.

Second, as RipPizza mentioned, the ill fit of KArl cannot be understated. DMC didn't like him nor did a lot of the team and the team quit playing for him. Now you replaced him with a coach who fits the player and did well with little in Memphis. Vlade is going to have another year to get fits around him, and DMC has repeatedly said he wants to retire in Sac. He has lost a lot of weight already and looks fierce and ready to go

You give it the first half of next year to see if it goes well IMO and see if he can get a better public image going.

If I may retort: I disagree with your contention that his reputation is in the toilet. Quite the contrary! I think his reputation is possibly better than it has ever been.

1. The whole world knows about the Karl situation at this point. They know about him overstepping his bounds and trying to trade Boogie behind the backs of the organization. They know that he basically quit on trying to coach the team before the season ever really started. I think most NBA fans see Karl for the snake he is.

2. The dysfunction of the franchise as a whole is well known. Vivek and Vlade are much more widely ostracized for their missteps and shortcomings. It's basically a meme at this point. I don't think anybody in their right mind blames all of this, or even most of it, on Cousins at this point. He is clearly not the only problem.

3. Despite team and organizational dysfunction, Boogie's performance has been better than ever. He's coming off a season where he averaged 27 points and 11.5 rebounds per game. He made the All Star game for the 2nd year in a row. He's one of the headliners of this summer's Olympic team, after winning a gold medal in the FIBA games already. He was named 2nd team All-NBA despite being on a team that hasn't won more than 33 games in his 6 year career, and he was ROBBED of what should've easily been a 1st team spot. He's inarguably the best Center on Earth.

On top of all of that, he has 2 years left on a great contract by the new salary cap standards. His $17 million owed this season makes up a measly 18% of the salary cap, for a guy that should arguably be the best player on a playoff contender. He's an absolute monster in the paint, is an effective defender. Most of his attitude problems on the court can be attributed to frustration from losing. Oh, and he's only going to be 26 years old this upcoming season.

If they wait until next year, do you really think his trade value will go up?!? How?!? Why?!? The only way they trade him at that point is if they are absolutely sure they won't be able to re-sign him, which means that they tried and failed yet again to make the playoffs. Do you think a 7th year missing the playoffs, with his 7th different NBA coach, is somehow going to make him look better? Do you think having one fewer year left on his contract will make him more appealing as trade bait than he is now? I certainly don't.

If you think the Kings can only get 70 cents on the dollar for him now (which i completely disagree with by the way) then wait until you see the offers that roll in (or more than likely don't roll in) when his contract becomes an expiring contract after yet another losing season on a team that is constructed specifically to benefit him...

IMO much of your argument is why we should keep him. Best center in the league. Arguably a top 10 talent. He's the guy you spend 5 years looking for in the draft. He's never been put in a good situation. This year going in with the moves we have already made at the coaching spot will easily be the best opportunity he has had. Don't forget at one point last year we were 45 games in at .500 ball trending upwards, the rest is history.

I see absolutely no reason to trade Cousins until we see what kind of difference Joerger makes. By all accounts Joerger isn't a rebuilding coach, he isn't a fast pace coach, he was brought in specifically to work with Cousins and I'd like to see that though.

[Kings2013]

The way I see it, the Kings have 2 options to approach their immediate future, given the DeMarcus Cousins situation: They either plan on re-signing Boogie and building around him long term, or they have to make plans for life without Boogie.

If they plan on keeping him long-term, they have to start making some major progress right now. I cannot see a scenario where the Kings wind up back in the lottery again next year, and Boogie decides to sign another 4-year contract extension to stay in Sacramento. I think it's pretty obvious that DeMarcus wants to win, and even though he loves Sacramento and he loves being the face of the Kings, he loves winning even more. I cannot imagine for the life of me why an elite talent such as Cousins would endure 7 straight losing seasons in a small market, and then sign up for 4 more during the prime of his career. I think it's pretty clear that if the Kings miss the playoffs again, he is not going to stay here, and the Kings will be forced to trade him.

So if they want to keep this guy and build around him, and they need to make the playoffs this year, what exactly did they do on draft day to accomplish this? I agree that Marquese Chriss is a raw prospect, but it's not like Papagiannis, Labissiere, and Richardson are polished or anything. All 3 of those guys are just as raw (albeit less talented imo) as Chriss is. Bogdanovic is obviously not going to help this upcoming season either since he will be playing in Europe. So what gives? How do they expect to improve this team immediately (which again is a requirement to keeping Boogie long-term) by making the moves they made on draft day? I'm failing to see how taking in all of these projects, who probably will not be able to contribute significant minutes this season, is going to immediately make the team better. Unless of course they plan on trading a few of them this summer, but that is obviously yet to be seen.

You mention signing Conley and Courtney Lee would get us over the hump. I completely agree with you! Getting Conley alone would be the best case scenario for the Kings. However, we have about a snowball's chance in hell of actually accomplishing that. Conley is BY FAR the best PG on the market this summer, and it's not even remotely close. He is going to be on the top of EVERY team's list that needs a PG this summer. I don't know how familiar you are with Sacramento's history of landing top Free Agents, but I'll spoil you the pain of research and just let you know that it's not good. At all. Disaster is a better term to describe it. The Kings are drawing pretty close to stone dead to acquiring Mike Conley this summer.

Courtney Lee is a different story. It would not shock me if we were to bring him in somehow. He reportedly is asking for $14 million, and I could see the Kings being desperate enough to give a 31 year old SG $15 million a year to come play here. But without a legitimate PG to play next to him, it's probably not going to make much of a difference. I seriously doubt that plugging in Courtney Lee and 4 rookies is going to improve the squad by 10 wins next season. Remember, they just won 33 games. They have a ton of work to do. But even then, this is assuming that the Kings will be the only team pursuing Lee, which will almost certainly not be the case.

Needless to say, the road to the playoffs for the Kings is a difficult one. This roster is not even close to competing at this point, and unless they absolutely crush it in Free Agency and on the trade market, they more than likely are facing a scenario where they end up with a fate similar to what they just experienced this past season. And that brings us back to the Boogie trade scenario.

If they aren't able to build that contender this summer, and therefore run it back with essentially the same squad plus our draft day haul, what then? Do they stick it out for a season and give it their all, knowing they're going to come up short? What's the point of that? They would essentially be forfeiting a lottery pick in that scenario, on top of the fact that it would also mark the end of the Boogie Era in Sacramento. Why go through all of that when they can get a head start on that rebuild now? Maximize the assets they have, cash in that trade chip now while they can still get max value on the return, and guarantee that they save themselves from losing a lottery pick next year in what is supposedly going to be a great draft? That seems like the logical thing to do.

However, they almost certainly are not going to do that. They are probably going to make some band-aid maneuvers trying to flip any assets they have for anything they can get. They're going to make wild offers at Free Agents that probably would never come here anyway. They will almost certainly be overpaying someone, probably by quite a bit. And in the end, they will probably come up short anyway, given how tough the Western Conference is and how many more attractive destinations have just as much (if not more) cap space than the Kings have to work with.

It seems like such a grueling exercise for what is essentially such an obvious, practically inevitable result. They're better off getting it over with now, and getting a head start on the next phase.

A couple of things I would personally have differences with here. First, I don't think your getting max value for him. I think his rep is in the toilet now for being a "malcontent" and teams would be trying to get him for .70 on the dollar. It's a league that's built on talent but GMs still have to consider their jobs, and it would be highly questionable on their parts of DMC didn't work out. Due to the tire fire of last season, the team quitting on Karl, and the histrionics it was a bad look for DMC to the point where 50% of his own fanbase now wants him out, that is his market.

Second, as RipPizza mentioned, the ill fit of KArl cannot be understated. DMC didn't like him nor did a lot of the team and the team quit playing for him. Now you replaced him with a coach who fits the player and did well with little in Memphis. Vlade is going to have another year to get fits around him, and DMC has repeatedly said he wants to retire in Sac. He has lost a lot of weight already and looks fierce and ready to go

You give it the first half of next year to see if it goes well IMO and see if he can get a better public image going.

If I may retort: I disagree with your contention that his reputation is in the toilet. Quite the contrary! I think his reputation is possibly better than it has ever been.

1. The whole world knows about the Karl situation at this point. They know about him overstepping his bounds and trying to trade Boogie behind the backs of the organization. They know that he basically quit on trying to coach the team before the season ever really started. I think most NBA fans see Karl for the snake he is.

2. The dysfunction of the franchise as a whole is well known. Vivek and Vlade are much more widely ostracized for their missteps and shortcomings. It's basically a meme at this point. I don't think anybody in their right mind blames all of this, or even most of it, on Cousins at this point. He is clearly not the only problem.

3. Despite team and organizational dysfunction, Boogie's performance has been better than ever. He's coming off a season where he averaged 27 points and 11.5 rebounds per game. He made the All Star game for the 2nd year in a row. He's one of the headliners of this summer's Olympic team, after winning a gold medal in the FIBA games already. He was named 2nd team All-NBA despite being on a team that hasn't won more than 33 games in his 6 year career, and he was ROBBED of what should've easily been a 1st team spot. He's inarguably the best Center on Earth.

On top of all of that, he has 2 years left on a great contract by the new salary cap standards. His $17 million owed this season makes up a measly 18% of the salary cap, for a guy that should arguably be the best player on a playoff contender. He's an absolute monster in the paint, is an effective defender. Most of his attitude problems on the court can be attributed to frustration from losing. Oh, and he's only going to be 26 years old this upcoming season.

If they wait until next year, do you really think his trade value will go up?!? How?!? Why?!? The only way they trade him at that point is if they are absolutely sure they won't be able to re-sign him, which means that they tried and failed yet again to make the playoffs. Do you think a 7th year missing the playoffs, with his 7th different NBA coach, is somehow going to make him look better? Do you think having one fewer year left on his contract will make him more appealing as trade bait than he is now? I certainly don't.

If you think the Kings can only get 70 cents on the dollar for him now (which i completely disagree with by the way) then wait until you see the offers that roll in (or more than likely don't roll in) when his contract becomes an expiring contract after yet another losing season on a team that is constructed specifically to benefit him...

Half a year.. This deadline when we see if it and Joerger will work. I don't see the difference in two years remaining as opposed to a year and a half remaining