Winsome Gerbil wrote:G35 wrote:dho4ever wrote:
Wait... Marc Gasol and Conley is wayy better than Demarcus and Rudy Gay...
Rudy Gay isn't very good.
Is that your opinion or do you have some basis of fact for that. Because by the metrics (which is what we primarily judge Demarcus on) Gay is an above average player.
In four years with the Kings this is Rudy Gay's production:
PPG 19.3
REB 6.0
AST 2.8
STL 1.3
FG% .464
3P% .347
Advanced
PER 18.1
TS% .554
OBPM 1.3
DBPM -0.1
USG 25.3
Those are not the stats of a not very good player. Particularly if you combine them with Cousins. If you only saw those numbers and you projected them next to Demarcus, this is exactly they type of wing player they need in New Orleans. Unfortunately, teams do not make the playoffs using numbers, chemistry, continuity (as you mentioned) are bigger factors than just numbers. Demarcus is a negative in many of those intangibles.......
That's probably why Cousins is annually amongst the league leaders in real plus-minus. Because obviously he magically somehow only has been oppressing those awesome Kings collections of talent when he's off the floor.
Alternately, an unbiased observer might conclude that gee, those Kings teams filled up with nobodies, the great majority of whom are scrubs or out of the league now, just weren't very good without Cousins to lift and carry them.
You are going to extreme's to make a point.
No one is saying that the Kings surrounded Demarcus with an awesome amount of talent. There is plenty of criticism towards the Kings for many of their moves. But Darren Collison, Rudy Gay, Tyreke Evans, Omri Casspi, Isiah Thompson, Hassan Whiteside is not the worst collection of talent in the league.
I think we can come to a compromise, the Kings could have done more/better at putting talent around Demarcus, while Demarcus could have done more as a leader/best player on the team/intangibles to help his teammates excel......