REBUILD TOO SOON?

[Nicky Nix Nook]

Hey this has probably been a topic before but I was looking at our rosters from years back and I cant help but wonder: Did we rebuild too soon??? Take a look:

All these players can still play:

Hedo-allstar candidate
Wallace-great all around player
Bibby-allstar candidate
Jackson-solid backup
Peja-still doing good things for NO
Barnes-starting (or was) for Phoenix
Martin-nuff said
Evans-good role player
Artest-still a very good player
(Rondo/Williams in place of Douby)
Free Agents (some were restricted)
2005:
Dalembert
Redd
Allen
Chandler
2004:
Ginobli
Camby
Nash
2006:
Harrington
B Wallace
Wilcox

Draft picks would have been shuffled a little bit and there were expiring contracts (Webber, etc.) but I put the free agents to show that even if some of our players expired we could have signed 1 or 2 of the players listed.

Bibby/Jackson
Martin/Wallace?
Peja(Artest)/Wallace/Hedo
Webber until retirement/FA from above?
Miller/FA from above?

I know hindsight is 20/20 and that FA and aging players is a problem but maybe we should have held on to some of our players a little longer or at least gotten = value for them in trades.

Look at how long the spurs have been together. Pop has stuck with his guys and it's worked out quite well.

*there's probably some flaw to my logic but I just wanted to put it out there.

[RIPskaterdude]

No...if anything, we rebuilded too late. We got terrible pieces for Webber and Bibby, and have waiting too long to make the move. There's a reason why our attendence is LAST in the NBA right now. Even from 85-2000, we had sellout after sellout...and we had bad teams year after year.

Also, we had to give up Hedo to get Miller, so there's no way both would be on the team. Wallace was picked up because we could only protect 8 players, and we had to protect the 8 players who were apart of this franchise.

[dozencousins]

skaterdude is 100 % right here we rebuilt to late by 1-2 years

as for the webber trade reflecting back it was a terrible deal for us k9 still on the books,skinner dealt after 2 years and corliss was a good role player

as for the bibby trade it was bad also when you reflect on it as it is clear the only reason why the kings did it is because we would have been way over the cap

the worst 2 worst things the kings did player wise in the past 7-8 years is

1. let wallace be available when there was the expantion draft

&

2. when the kings did not resign jim jackson the year after we were eliminated from the western conference finals for a players salary he was not asking for a huge increase but the maloofs were to stingy to pay him in that case !

[Nicky Nix Nook]

No...if anything, we rebuilded too late. We got terrible pieces for Webber and Bibby, and have waiting too long to make the move. There's a reason why our attendence is LAST in the NBA right now. Even from 85-2000, we had sellout after sellout...and we had bad teams year after year.

Also, we had to give up Hedo to get Miller, so there's no way both would be on the team. Wallace was picked up because we could only protect 8 players, and we had to protect the 8 players who were apart of this franchise.

honestly after seeing all the players that could be on our roster? (I understand the Hedo and Miller thing now)

We protected Lawrence Funderburke instead of Gerald Wallace.

A huge part of the attendance problem is the economy.

[Inc]

We traded C-Webb away, we got vets in return to try and compete..
We signed Shareef, not a rebuilding move at all..
We traded for Artest and Bonzi Wells and even offered Bonzi 5-year, $38.5 million (THANK GOD HE TURNED IT DOWN!)
We signed Salmons..
We signed Mikki Moore..
We signed Beno Udrih..

I honestly don't think we were ever trying to rebuild until we traded Bibby away for the expirings/pick.

[pillwenney]

Hey this has probably been a topic before but I was looking at our rosters from years back and I cant help but wonder: Did we rebuild too soon??? Take a look:

All these players can still play:

Hedo-allstar candidate
Wallace-great all around player
Bibby-allstar candidate
Jackson-solid backup
Peja-still doing good things for NO
Barnes-starting (or was) for Phoenix
Martin-nuff said
Evans-good role player
Artest-still a very good player
(Rondo/Williams in place of Douby)
Free Agents (some were restricted)
2005:
Dalembert
Redd
Allen
Chandler
2004:
Ginobli
Camby
Nash
2006:
Harrington
B Wallace
Wilcox

Draft picks would have been shuffled a little bit and there were expiring contracts (Webber, etc.) but I put the free agents to show that even if some of our players expired we could have signed 1 or 2 of the players listed.

Bibby/Jackson
Martin/Wallace?
Peja(Artest)/Wallace/Hedo
Webber until retirement/FA from above?
Miller/FA from above?

I know hindsight is 20/20 and that FA and aging players is a problem but maybe we should have held on to some of our players a little longer or at least gotten = value for them in trades.

Look at how long the spurs have been together. Pop has stuck with his guys and it's worked out quite well.

*there's probably some flaw to my logic but I just wanted to put it out there.

Wallace was unprotected because the team was looking pretty much purely at how those players affected the roster as it was. Gerald had a couple years to start developing the skills necessary to fit into the team and he didn't.

Hedo, Bobby, and Peja were all traded for other veteran players. And all made relative sense.

No...if anything, we rebuilded too late. We got terrible pieces for Webber and Bibby, and have waiting too long to make the move. There's a reason why our attendence is LAST in the NBA right now. Even from 85-2000, we had sellout after sellout...and we had bad teams year after year.

I'm not sure what you're trying to imply here. If we had gone into a more drastic rebuild earlier, we would have had lower attendance earlier. Probably not as badly--but like others said, that has more to do with the economy than anything.

[cdt3]

You can't look that stuff because Bibby, Webber and Vlade were all given up by their old teams. Salmons put up 4 points a game while playing with AI now averages near 20.
Dallas gave up on Nash and Devin Harris sucked at Dallas for a while and weren't thought to be worth money. There are 30 competitors with free agency after your guys. If you have a good guy you stick it out as long as you can. Just like when you have a great GM like Petrie or Coach like Adelman. If you have some great parts keep them and build around them. JT is one of those guys, we still need a PG and we have a very good core. I think we gave up on Webber and Bibby too soon. But it was giving up on Webber too soon that caused the Kings to stick with Shareef too long after his injuries instead of trading him when he had value. Then we gave up on Bibby too soon after waiting too long to unload Shareef. It is just a crapshoot. Smart people make their own luck like Jordan as a player and Petrie as a GM. Sometimes it doesn't work out but you have to keep gambling.

[Smills91]

Who's cares. Woulda, coulda, shoulda...we should've draft Karl Malone over Joe Kleine, Kevin Johnson over Kenny Smith, Carlos Boozer instead of Dan Dickau, move on and let's deal with where we are and what we have.

[ICMTM]

I don't think the attendance has anything to do with the economy because the arena has been half full for a few seasons now. It hasn't been to this extent, but the people of Sacramento have stopped showing up ever since the arena deal on the ballot.

As far as the Kings themselves they have a 70M salary this season and aren't competitive. I'm not going to say the Kings should have started rebuilding earlier but it was a good 18 months it seemed where the team had NO direction. Nobody knew if we were going to go young, with vets, etc and I think that's what killed us.

[SacKingZZZ]

I don't think the attendance has anything to do with the economy because the arena has been half full for a few seasons now. It hasn't been to this extent, but the people of Sacramento have stopped showing up ever since the arena deal on the ballot.

As far as the Kings themselves they have a 70M salary this season and aren't competitive. I'm not going to say the Kings should have started rebuilding earlier but it was a good 18 months it seemed where the team had NO direction. Nobody knew if we were going to go young, with vets, etc and I think that's what killed us.

And what's killing them now is that they haven't even finished the job.

[cdt3]

The US economic slump has been going on officially close to 2 years. In Sac we have been losing values on homes prices for 3 years now which has now hurt the the season ticket holders. I think that ticket slump has kept the Maloofs from making any other moves because they are losing big right now. That is why it is important to keep the seats full even in rebuilding so they can make moves with the expirings. But the Maloofs getting rid of Theus and bringing back Coach Carril to run the Princeton tells me they know they have to let Petrie do his job and get out of the way. Theus wasn't a good fit only because the personnel were picked by Petrie were not for the Triangle and it would take more several drafts to rebuild and learn the new offense. They will let Petrie pick the coach and have him run everything this will probably be our last lottery. So I think the Maloofs want to stay in Sac and are serious about winning still.

[cdt3]

I would have kept Funderburk also, I loved that guy.

[deNIEd]

I dunno how you could argue that we rebuilt too soon, if anything we rebuilt too late. (unless someone like Lebron 2.0 comes out 2 years from now)

The idea that a Bibby/Miller/Peja trio could succeed, was probably the worst call on Petrie's part. Three guys who play zero defense and none are go-to players. (You could say Bibby is a go-to player, but any team that gives Bibby the ball in the final seconds won't be going anywhere. Before, we had Webber and Vlade to go to first, Bibby often took the shot, but Webber was our go-to player.)

Now suppose we never traded for Artest (the mistake we made), instead if we rebuilt right there and then.

Bibby was coming off a 21/5.5 season and still had great value and was still considered a premier PG in the league. Miller, Bonzi, Peja, Shareef all had value in which they would have netted an expiring at the very least, most likely a 1st as well. Even Kenny was probably still tradeble at the time, as he just came off a 9/7.5 season (at least for a shorter contract)

If we blew up the team right there and then, I would feel confident in saying that, in 06-07 season, we would have ended up w/ one of the worst records (Martin wasn't amazing yet), and would likely have 2-3 picks that year.

We would have ended up a better team in 07-08, but still likely around where we were last year. But a team that would be nearing the playoffs this year.

(Hindsight is 20/20)
PG: A. Brooks/B. Brown
SG: K. Martin/Q. Douby
SF: T. Young/F. Garcia
PF: J. Thompson/
C : S. Hawes/

=/

[King Baller]

Fellas the season after CWebb got hurt in the playoffs the team played great. The Bigs were Miller and Vlade. People were saying Peja was a strong candidate for MVP. When Webber came back he was a shadow of his former self and his contract was HUGE. I watched those games and CWebb was atrocious post-injury, many times Peja wold be open and CWebb would turn and shoot his 15 footer. Pre-injury, CWebb was the Kings best player.

What I'm saying is every indicaton was that the Kings core group could still compete with some tweaking. I think when BJax and Christie broke down physically it hurt the team as much as anything. Vlade and Adelman were the glue that held that squad together.

The Kings are rebuilding. Bibby and Artest were traded for the market value.

KB

[Nicky Nix Nook]

What I'm saying is every indicaton was that the Kings core group could still compete with some tweaking.

is someone agreeing with me?

[Inc]

You are trying to say we started rebuilding WAYYY back then, which we were never trying to. Geoff was always trying to compete when he did all those signing/trades.

We just recently started to rebuild when we traded Bibby away IMO

[SacKingZZZ]

You are trying to say we started rebuilding WAYYY back then, which we were never trying to. Geoff was always trying to compete when he did all those signing/trades.

We just recently started to rebuild when we traded Bibby away IMO

Well, that was the first move we made that remotely resembled a full on "dump". Pretty ugly one too.

[KF10]

Yeah, I was pretty much furious when we traded Bibby for "that" package. There was even reports that GMs around the league saying that we should have gotten a better deal than that.

[SacKingZZZ]

Yeah, I was pretty much furious when we traded Bibby for "that" package. There was even reports that GMs around the league saying that we should have gotten a better deal than that.

I really didn't mind the package, I do mind the fact that the main piece we got NEVER got a real shot to play here. I still think we should play Shelden, showcase him if you will, before it's too late. He could scratch the surface of a double-double if given the minutes.

[deNIEd]

I didn't mind the package, but I felt that, for the package we got (clearly to clear capspace) it should have triggered Miller's departure as well.