Are We Even A Better Team?

[ICMTM]

We're on pace for 24 wins.

We have turned over the roster a bit, we have a new coach, new ownership...a lot of new. We don't have new wins, and we just got less competitive.

Once the roster settles do you think we'll turn it around, or are we sitting on other teams trash?

[SacSanity]

Well one thing is that we have more talent. We lost that punch off the bench now that we start IT. I mean realistically our bench + JT are just trash. Acy and Grey are nice reserved but not offensive players. I think this team will greatly, GREATLY benefit when Landy comes back. Gives us instant offense of the bench (if we for some reason are still starting Trash Thomson). If we land that SF/PF in this upcoming draft, I think we will be alright. I mean this is what I foresee:

C - DCUZ / Grey
PF - JT / Landry (I hope Randle or Parker{with parker we can run 2 SF's} can take JT's spot)
SF - Gay / DWILL
SG - Big Mac / FA/Trade Filler
PG - IT / McCallum

I think we all got exited when we made these trades because we gained talent and got rid of a lot of disliked players but we do still have gaps to fill. The Maloofs left us with a mess. Time will also help our chemistry.

All in all, I believe we are a better team.

[SacTownKings4Life]

Well, we're an extremely top-heavy team. Our starters are literally the ONLY guys on the team who can score, like at all. That's why they had to move Williams to the bench.

And then there's the defense. Its not that this team CAN'T defend, its just that this team is horribly undisciplined on defense. They continuously overreact to dribble penetration to where 4 guys converge on the ball which inevitably leaves a guy WIDE OPEN outside (usually their best shooter). The awareness isn't there when you fail to recognize who NOT to help off of. And it didn't help that Atlanta just couldn't miss from anywhere on the floor. Seems like a lot of teams just get "on fire" from the perimeter when they play us.

[Silver Man]

Like stated above we are too top heavy especially scoring wise. I'm not a fan of Thomas being our starting point guard still think he should be the spark off the bench but we don't have much to put in right of him right now. Still not a fan of Rudy gay at all in any way other than it meant salmons off the team. We just need to be competitive but still consistently lose a lot of games this year to get a solid pick because we are going to get a lot of good options with this draft class.

Basically my thoughts we have a decent starting five, terrible scoring and bad overall bench, need a great draft and add some scoring depth to our bench and a pass first point guard.

[pillwenney]

I think we've done the best we can with the pieces left behind. We're sucking right now, but in a lot of the right ways. The jury is out on Gay, and McLemore sucks for now (but it really does seems like he'll get better. He's just young and raw), but for the first time in years, our best players are actually playing like a team's best players should play. Instead of being merely talented, I would argue Cousins is in fact our best player since at least 04 Peja, if not Webber. That really means something.

But regardless, it was said countless times at the beginning of the year that this season wasn't about wins and losses. It's about establishing a new culture, developing young talent, and improving the D. There are areas to criticize there (the D in particular is a real concern to me right now), but acting like we should be better already is the wrong approach IMO.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. We can't be impatient with this regime just because the last one wrongly told us to be patient with no rewards for so long.

[SacSanity]

I think we've done the best we can with the pieces left behind. We're sucking right now, but in a lot of the right ways. The jury is out on Gay, and McLemore sucks for now (but it really does seems like he'll get better. He's just young and raw), but for the first time in years, our best players are actually playing like a team's best players should play. Instead of being merely talented, I would argue Cousins is in fact our best player since at least 04 Peja, if not Webber. That really means something.

But regardless, it was said countless times at the beginning of the year that this season wasn't about wins and losses. It's about establishing a new culture, developing young talent, and improving the D. There are areas to criticize there (the D in particular is a real concern to me right now), but acting like we should be better already is the wrong approach IMO.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. We can't be impatient with this regime just because the last one wrongly told us to be patient with no rewards for so long.

Can you please elaborate on what you mean by "The jury is out on Gay"? Do you like him? Do you think he is a chucker?

[pillwenney]

The jury is out on whether he'll fit in here/be a long term piece/etc. In that respect, the aspect of incorporating a couple new guys is a perfectly valid excuse.

[SacSanity]

Yea, I like him here. This upcoming draft will say a lot about our future

[KingsMilz]

We can't defend as a team as indivduals we are pretty solid (Cuz/JT one on one in the post are pretty decent, Gay/Williams got enough athletic ability/size to match up with any SF/SG) the rotations and attention to detail are a disgrace atm. The pick n roll defence by IT and Cuz they have to fix it's been shocking.

We certainly have a lot of talent just got to wait and see if the talent fits I don't get how we can completely dominate the Mavericks and Houston and loss to the Bobcats/Atlanta like we did. We still though are a low IQ team that's the biggest issue and currently our bench with Jimmer/Outlaw (gone back to old ways that game) is killing us.

As long as Cousins keeps this up and Williams/Gay keep on doing what they are doing than results are not important imo but I would rather this roster than any of the other rosters since we drafted Tyreke.

[enderwilson]

I think we all perceive an improvement with this team, but the question of this thread is that why isn't that perception realized in actual wins? Part of the fix is internally, I think another perception I have been having is that our fellow basement dwellers of the past, haven't been sucking as much as I'd expect them to. What is Pheonix doing that is so right? LA without Kobe was supposed to be garbage. Denver didn't drop off the map without George Karl like I expected, and even Utah can hand it to us and play solid when they have a chip on their shoulder. Hell, the Bobcats have the number one defense in the league right now. What's that all about?

I think the expectation was that once we raised our game as a franchise, the rest of the league would be standing still. The reality is that I think many of the other teams we were directly competitive against also raised their game.

[HUBlackstar83]

You know what they say. Rome wasn''t built in a day. Defense Defense Defense is the problem with this team and you can see the frustration in coach Malone's face every time there's a breakdown. Name one guy on this team that was ever considered a defender, just name one, I can't. These guys are going to have buy into something they've never really been and for both us fans and the coaching staff it's been a very frustrating learning experience.

The just have to keep working at it, and learning to play better team defense, communicate, and make smarter decisions. Like coach said, If I could play defense I would. It's totally up to players. Stop dropping your head and whining after every mistake (cough JT). I always say, don't make excuses, make adjustments.

[SacKingsPejaFan]

The goal is and should be to be good next year. By all accounts, this is one of the best drafts since Lebron's. I don't want to miss out on that. So, one, who cares.

Two, as people have said, Landry being out is huge. The fact that Thornton is all of a sudden playing the worst basketball of his career factors in too. If we have Landry and the old Thornton coming off the bench, then our bench's problems on offense are gone.

Third, two of our core guys--Cousins and Thomas--are getting invaluable experience having the ball in their hands and playing big minutes. It's all about development this year and this is as good as it gets.

Lastly, Oklahoma City went from 23 wins to 50 wins in ONE season's time. They developed their core guys and made a leap. They had Westbrook and Durant in both the 23 win and 50 win season. They drafted Harden in the 50 win season, but you'll remember that he was not a big contributor that year.

[Cruel_Ruin]

The offense is fine. The defense, though, yikes.

We need a significant upgrade in defensive personnel. Need #1 is absolutely a rim protector. No good defensive team lacks a good rim protector. Then we need to upgrade the perimeter defense. Part of it is Ben maturing into a better defender. The other part is Isaiah just simply trying harder and being more focused. I still think we need to look for a 1/2 type of perimeter defender off the bench. Either that or look for a defensive roleplaying PG to start a la Derek Fisher or Mario Chalmers and bring Isaiah off the bench.

Right now there's just no trust. The bigs don't trust the guards to contain the ball. The guards don't trust the bigs to defend the rim. A good defense only emerges when players close out and rotate aggressively knowing that the rotations behind them can cover them when the offensive player gets by. If the third and fourth rotations are unreliable, the first and second rotations are going to be thinking twice. We need more trust as a defensive unit, but we have several players who are dumb and slow when rotating. It kind of collapses the entire system.

[ICMTM]

I ask the question because while we are seeing changes we are not seeing results. Are we taking two steps back before we are taking three steps forward, or do you think we just don't have it?

As far as Landry is concerned I don't feel he is the difference maker some are hoping for.

[KingsMilz]

I ask the question because while we are seeing changes we are not seeing results. Are we taking two steps back before we are taking three steps forward, or do you think we just don't have it?

As far as Landry is concerned I don't feel he is the difference maker some are hoping for.

While Landry is a good player there was no thought or need to sign him and no need to do it on a 4 year deal, by adding Williams it makes the deal even worse.

[SacTownKings4Life]

I ask the question because while we are seeing changes we are not seeing results. Are we taking two steps back before we are taking three steps forward, or do you think we just don't have it?

As far as Landry is concerned I don't feel he is the difference maker some are hoping for.

While Landry is a good player there was no thought or need to sign him and no need to do it on a 4 year deal, by adding Williams it makes the deal even worse.

I think the question is, would we have added Williams if Landry had actually been healthy to begin with? I suppose we could always use Landry as part of a package later on down the line, like we did with Moute and Vasquez.

[SacKingZZZ]

Still work to do but at least this team is certainly more talented than before. Right now they need to build in the areas around Gay and Cuz with glue players, defensive players, shooters, etc. That and they simply need time and experience as a unit, and in some cases individually.

[SacKingZZZ]

The offense is fine. The defense, though, yikes.

We need a significant upgrade in defensive personnel. Need #1 is absolutely a rim protector. No good defensive team lacks a good rim protector. Then we need to upgrade the perimeter defense. Part of it is Ben maturing into a better defender. The other part is Isaiah just simply trying harder and being more focused. I still think we need to look for a 1/2 type of perimeter defender off the bench. Either that or look for a defensive roleplaying PG to start a la Derek Fisher or Mario Chalmers and bring Isaiah off the bench.

Right now there's just no trust. The bigs don't trust the guards to contain the ball. The guards don't trust the bigs to defend the rim. A good defense only emerges when players close out and rotate aggressively knowing that the rotations behind them can cover them when the offensive player gets by. If the third and fourth rotations are unreliable, the first and second rotations are going to be thinking twice. We need more trust as a defensive unit, but we have several players who are dumb and slow when rotating. It kind of collapses the entire system.

This is still a case where the offense is a key part of why the defense sucks though. When a guard crashes to the hoop, misses, and in turn leaves the entire team out of position because they are going for an offensive rebound teams will get easy baskets. When teams get easy baskets they will just dump all over you at some point during the contest.

Defensively there are major flaws as you mentioned. My biggest concern is this teams over helping in the paint. I thought it was bad in previous years but holy **** it's gone nuclear. As mentioned in the game thread, even in the Rockets game they left guys wide open almost the whole game, they just didn't hit their shots that night. I really want to see a ton of switching when they have Outlaw, Gay, and Williams in there together, which they are starting to do, but on the pick and roll they are hedging almost into a half assed double and it's killing this team inside. Then when the player guarding the short 3 comes into the paint to help it's a guaranteed open look every time. That's coaching right there. Time to shore up that pick and roll D. They don't have any real great or good defensive personnel to help make up for it and the closest to thing to it that they had they traded away. I want to see the hedge man play more off the guard until that guard starts drilling shots behind that screen. Oh, that and if you are a guard don't let yourself get decimated by a screen every time for craps sake.

[City of Trees]

I'm a Chicago Bears fan and Sac Kings fan. Both teams Defense sucks!

[Jeffster15]

I'm a Chicago Bears fan and Sac Kings fan. Both teams Defense sucks!

I can top that, try the Kings and the Dallas Cowboys haha.