Sacramento early offseason in review (HW/bondom34/dbrandon/Slava)

[c3j3h]

Really, Ty Lawson?

Who are the better options out there right now?

It's a 1-year deal. Low risk with some upside. If he returns to even 75% of where he was a couple years ago then this will be great for the Kings, and even if he doesn't it really can't hurt us. I'm fine with it.

[blind prophet]

I can vote now.

C+

Lawson to fill out the depth is nice to see.

Hopefully its for the room exception.

[Sheva7]

Really, Ty Lawson?

Who are the better options out there right now?

It's a 1-year deal. Low risk with some upside. If he returns to even 75% of where he was a couple years ago then this will be great for the Kings, and even if he doesn't it really can't hurt us. I'm fine with it.

Exactly, just two years ago he averaged 15 pts and 10 assists. He hasn't had a major injury or anything so I don't see how there isn't a chance he can return to his past play. Either he becomes a solid backup or he has more off court problems and we cut him, definitely a risk worth taking with who else was available.

[blind prophet]

Really, Ty Lawson?

Who are the better options out there right now?

It's a 1-year deal. Low risk with some upside. If he returns to even 75% of where he was a couple years ago then this will be great for the Kings, and even if he doesn't it really can't hurt us. I'm fine with it.

Exactly, just two years ago he averaged 15 pts and 10 assists. He hasn't had a major injury or anything so I don't see how there isn't a chance he can return to his past play. Either he becomes a solid backup or he has more off court problems and we cut him, definitely a risk worth taking with who else was available.

He's got a legit career opportunity here. May be his last one.

Collison expires, he could be virtually playing for his basketball life this season. Maybe even get paid for many years by the Kings themselves.

[Mystical Apples]

Really, Ty Lawson?

Who are the better options out there right now?

It's a 1-year deal. Low risk with some upside. If he returns to even 75% of where he was a couple years ago then this will be great for the Kings, and even if he doesn't it really can't hurt us. I'm fine with it.

From an on-court perspective it's thin. Chalmers would've been a preferred option depending on readiness. Toney Douglas or picking up a roster cut probably a lateral from Lawson. Otherwise, yeah it's crickets.

[c3j3h]

Really, Ty Lawson?

Who are the better options out there right now?

It's a 1-year deal. Low risk with some upside. If he returns to even 75% of where he was a couple years ago then this will be great for the Kings, and even if he doesn't it really can't hurt us. I'm fine with it.

From an on-court perspective it's thin. Chalmers would've been a preferred option depending on readiness. Toney Douglas or picking up a roster cut probably a lateral from Lawson. Otherwise, yeah it's crickets.

Chalmers may not even be able to play basketball this year...The season starts in 2 months and he's coming off a torn ACL. How is that a better option?

[Mystical Apples]

Who are the better options out there right now?

It's a 1-year deal. Low risk with some upside. If he returns to even 75% of where he was a couple years ago then this will be great for the Kings, and even if he doesn't it really can't hurt us. I'm fine with it.

From an on-court perspective it's thin. Chalmers would've been a preferred option depending on readiness. Toney Douglas or picking up a roster cut probably a lateral from Lawson. Otherwise, yeah it's crickets.

Chalmers may not even be able to play basketball this year...The season starts in 2 months and he's coming off a torn ACL. How is that a better option?

As I mentioned depending on readiness. Sounds like he was cleared, to what degree I don't know.

[c3j3h]

From an on-court perspective it's thin. Chalmers would've been a preferred option depending on readiness. Toney Douglas or picking up a roster cut probably a lateral from Lawson. Otherwise, yeah it's crickets.

Chalmers may not even be able to play basketball this year...The season starts in 2 months and he's coming off a torn ACL. How is that a better option?

As I mentioned depending on readiness. Sounds like he was cleared, to what degree I don't know.

Cleared and ready are two very different things. Wes Matthews played all season and hobbled around until about February...We may need our backup PG to start the first 10-20 games of the season if Collison is suspended. You can't rely on a guy who isn't even healed from an ACL tear to do that.

[LightTheBeam]

1 thing I'd like to address. I often see people say they don't understand what direction the Kings are going in. We signed vets but traded for youth...

Let's put it this way, when the Pelicans traded for Holiday the crowd immediately jumped down their throat saying terrible move they should build for the future etc...

When the Sixers sold all their players the crowd jumped on them that this losing mentality would stick around, they don't even have any real nba players to help the young guys etc..

Why can a team not plan for both? We didn't mortgage the future with any huge long term contracts (looking at Ryan Anderson) and we picked up quality youth after the Sixers trade that really hurt our chances at bringing in youth.

I love what we did, nobody is banging on the door to come to sacramento. I get the names are not sexy, they don't stick out or look like huge impact players I get that. The thing they all do is fit a need. Temple as a defender, afflalo can score and play 2g better than anyone we had, Tolliver as a stretch 4, Barnes as a veteran winner who can change the culture. Clear cut needs, again not the best players but it's nice to see we have roles for the players we targeted and what seems like a strategy for how we will play.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using RealGM mobile app

Because they aren't committing to anything. They don't have a clear unified goal. They're just hedging their bets. It's like they know they're going to lose Boogie, and are therefore taking some precautions in that direction, but aren't committing to it. They know they have to compete to keep him, so they took some precautionary steps towards that (Afflalo/Barnes etc.), but they didn't commit to that either.

I hate to use a television show to make a point, but Mike from Breaking Bad had a great piece of advice that Vlade and co should take right now: NO HALF MEASURES! What the Kings are doing right now are 2 separate half measures, neither of which fit together at all. What they need to do is commit to one thing and pursue it to the fullest. They're currently committed to not being committed to anything. That's limbo. Not a good place to be.

I disagree. It isn't like we had stars wanting to come to sacramento and didn't try to put a competitive team. Cousins just turned 26 it isn't like he's Melos age. We put a somewhat competitive roster on the table, we will likely keep having to sub out parts like we have been. In 2-3 years we could be looking at Skal, Richardson and Bogdan as huge parts of the team.

For instance let's say we traded that 8th pick for Teague or Hill. Are we really that much better? Is anyone talking about that team seriously? Maybe we increase a few more wins but we dimish any chance we have to put a serious team around Cousins in the future.

We aren't free agent players, we need to stop fooling ourselves. The only way that we will ever put a contender on the court is through the draft and trades. I understand the thought of wanting to put a team together with relatively similar ages but the Kings never had that luxury. The Maloof were a joke, the first 2 years with Pete D was beyond terrible. I like what vlade has done and he's slowly but surely cleaning up the roster and front office.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using RealGM mobile app

[pacers33granger]

FWIW Lawson was fine in the locker room for Indy by all accounts and had no qualms about being a backup. He was just fairly poor overall on the court, though our weak offense and generally weak bench didn't help him. Hopefully a full offseason of work will change that.

[LightTheBeam]

Voting stands at 2-2.

As for whether Sacramento's team is balanced, I think a lot more than me have made a case that it might not be in the team's review: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1473280

If you really think (almost) everyone is wrong on that, its a great place to move the debate further and not sidetrack here too far.

I just want to make sure I understand this correctly. You have our depth chart as

Cousins/WCS/Koufos/Papa
Gay/Casspi/Tolliver/Skal
Afflalo/Barnes
Temple/Mcelmore/Richardson
Collison/Lawson

Well at least thats the position you see them best at is that right?

[HartfordWhalers]

Voting stands at 2-2.

As for whether Sacramento's team is balanced, I think a lot more than me have made a case that it might not be in the team's review: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1473280

If you really think (almost) everyone is wrong on that, its a great place to move the debate further and not sidetrack here too far.

I just want to make sure I understand this correctly. You have our depth chart as

Cousins/WCS/Koufos/Papa
Gay/Casspi/Tolliver/Skal
Afflalo/Barnes
Temple/Mcelmore/Richardson
Collison/Lawson

Well at least thats the position you see them best at is that right?

Thanks for picking the right topic!

[Texas Chuck]

Voting stands at 2-2.

As for whether Sacramento's team is balanced, I think a lot more than me have made a case that it might not be in the team's review: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1473280

If you really think (almost) everyone is wrong on that, its a great place to move the debate further and not sidetrack here too far.

I just want to make sure I understand this correctly. You have our depth chart as

Cousins/WCS/Koufos/Papa
Gay/Casspi/Tolliver/Skal
Afflalo/Barnes
Temple/Mcelmore/Richardson
Collison/Lawson

Well at least thats the position you see them best at is that right?

I think it should look like this:

Boogie/WCS/Koufos/Papa
Gay/WCS/Casspi/Tolliver/Skal
Barnes/Casspi/Gay
Afflalo/Ben/Richardson
Collison/Temple/Lawson

Which again is why a Gay or Koufos deal for a guard makes so much sense.

[HartfordWhalers]

In terms of WCS at the 4, that has been a horrible pairing for Cousins. The data says it, unless you throw away 2/3rds of the data and only keep 2 lineups of data with Rondo. But that would be such an absurd thing to do, that no one would be that silly and I refuse to believe otherwise.

In general WCS has not been able to score outside of right next to the hoop. Now, you can argue that it doesn't matter because they cross match on offense. But the resulting stretching of Cousins away from the hoop has been bad for his efficiency (over a 2 point TS% drop). And Cousins efficiency is going to matter a lot more than WCS's when you look ta their usages. So, I would ask first and foremost where Cousins is maximized, and thats beating up on less mobile centers versus being guarded by pf's on the perimeter with a center able to help off WCS if he drives that far in.

Defensively it hasn't been good with WCS at pf either. While he might have the physical tools to be a versatile defender and guard outside and inside, the results have been the opposite. WCS actually ended up with the single worst defensive rating for the Kings -- http://stats.nba.com/team/#!/1610612758/players/advanced/?sort=DEF_RATING&dir=1
If you don't like that, you can go to DRPM and adjust for the players on the court to still find him quite negative, or goto the player tracking data and see he a slight negative even on his own man least of all on the team effect.

So, either the NBA game was very overwhelming for him in general, or playing at pf was an adjustment that wasn't smooth and natural (or both).

If you don't have Cousins or anyone else on the roster to position around, then I think just about everyone would look at his game and say he should be playing center. When he was scouted pre-draft, the take on him was he was a center, and in the NBA he would be a center. Heck, NBA.com still lists him as a center and not even a c/pf, even after playing so much with other centers last year.

So yeah, WCS is naturally a center, and I don;t even think it is debatable at this time. He has had only 1 year in the league so maybe he can change that, but at 23 already I have my doubts.

[LightTheBeam]

Voting stands at 2-2.

As for whether Sacramento's team is balanced, I think a lot more than me have made a case that it might not be in the team's review: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1473280

If you really think (almost) everyone is wrong on that, its a great place to move the debate further and not sidetrack here too far.

I just want to make sure I understand this correctly. You have our depth chart as

Cousins/WCS/Koufos/Papa
Gay/Casspi/Tolliver/Skal
Afflalo/Barnes
Temple/Mcelmore/Richardson
Collison/Lawson

Well at least thats the position you see them best at is that right?

Thanks for picking the right topic!

So is that accurate or?

I think the problem is that people keep trying to label players as a specific position but in todays NBA it just doesn't work like that.

C - Cousins/Koufos/Papa
C/PF - WCS
PF - Tolliver/Skal
SF/PF - Rudy/Casspi
SF - Barnes
SG/SF - Afflalo/Richardson
SG - McLemore
PG/SG - Temple
PG - Collison/Lawson/Cousins

It never hurts to have players who can play multiple positions.

Another way to look at it would be

Bigs - Cousins/Koufus/WCS/Papa/Tolliver/Skal

Wings - Gay/Casspi/McLemore/Afflalo/Barnes/Mclemore/Richardson

Guards (capable of ball handling) - Collison/Lawson/Temple/Cousins

It's like so many people say these days "well hes more of a shooting guard" the guys a basketball player let him play.

[Mystical Apples]

The WCS conundrum is rebounding and a history of stagnated offensive skill development. Force feeding him as a PF ignores that basic fact.

Ideally SAC slides him to center next to a skilled 4 and length at the 2/3.

Read on Twitter

[HartfordWhalers]

In terms of Rudy Gay, I think he should just be traded. Let me be clear, playing Rudy at the 4 is a better fit than an out of position center. But that doesn't change that Rudy should still be traded.

Whether the more extreme comments in http://www.sactownroyalty.com/2016/7/26/12283364/sacramento-kings-rudy-gay-frustration have been partially walked back or not, its clear its not a great place. And keeping the chemistry good after years of bad chemistry would seem imperative at this juncture.

But more than that, Rudy Gay isn't a great fit on the Kings and is an expiring contract who doesn't sound like he wants to be back. Thats when you trade a player if ever.

Here are some fun potential Kings sf stats:

Matt Barnes
32.2% 3 point shooter in general.
33.8% When catch and shoot
29.1% When wide open (6+ feet)

Rudy Gay
34% 3 point shooter in general.
33.5% When catch and shoot
34.3% When wide open (6+ feet)

Garrett Temple:
34.6% 3 point shooter in general.
35.2% When catch and shoot
39.3% When wide open (6+ feet)

Anthony Tolliver (okay this one is a pf)
36.0% 3 point shooter in general.
36.5% When catch and shoot
42.5% When wide open (6+ feet)

Afflalo
38.2% 3 point shooter in general.
36.6% When catch and shoot
42.0% When wide open (6+ feet)

Casspi
40.9% 3 point shooter in general.
38.6% When catch and shoot
42.5% When wide open (6+ feet)

Compared to the other options (Okay minus Barnes), it would seem clear that Rudy Gay cannot capitalize on the easy high efficiency shots that playing with Cousins should generate.

Gay's big strength is that he can generate his own scoring, but unless he is being used as the bench scoring punch (which would be ideal), then it is a skill set that isn't getting maximized. As to whether he is a 3 or a 4 more naturally, I think he is in that sweet spot that depends entirely on rosters of both teams playing.

How much worse would Sacramento be if instead of Gay playing at the 4 they used Casspi and Tolliver? Instead of Gay playing at the 3 they used Casspi, Afflalo, and even Temple?

I see a very small fall off if that, and meanwhile whatever they get from a Gay trade could strengthen something else. And again I circle back to that Rudy Gay isn't a great fit on the Kings and is an expiring contract who doesn't sound like he wants to be back. Thats when you trade a player if ever.

[codydaze]

The WCS conundrum is rebounding and a history of stagnated offensive skill development. Force feeding him as a PF ignores that basic fact.

Ideally SAC slides him to center next to a skilled 4 and length at the 2/3.

Read on Twitter

The thing is that WCS isn't that great of a rebounder. He relies on his athleticism and doesn't use his body, often getting beat for position on the glass. He works with Cousins though, and you can call him the 4 if you want. It's all semantics really. He's never going to be used as an offensive threat, he's purely hustle plays and second chance opportunities when it comes to the offensive end of the floor. He works well with Cousins because he's long, athletic and can guard multiple positions and be a good weak side shot blocker, something we've needed with Boogie for a long time. The numbers in that chart can be deceiving because his PF minutes are probably slotted with Koufos who he doesn't fit very well with. Having Tolliver will probably decrease the amount of time WCS and Koufos are on the floor together so that should help his productivity itself.

[HartfordWhalers]

So is that accurate or?

I think the problem is that people keep trying to label players as a specific position but in todays NBA it just doesn't work like that.
C/PF - WCS
PG/SG - Temple

Yeah, No. Absolutely not. I feel like I wrote up a post on it too:

In terms of WCS at the 4, that has been a horrible pairing for Cousins. The data says it, unless you throw away 2/3rds of the data and only keep 2 lineups of data with Rondo. But that would be such an absurd thing to do, that no one would be that silly and I refuse to believe otherwise.

In general WCS has not been able to score outside of right next to the hoop. Now, you can argue that it doesn't matter because they cross match on offense. But the resulting stretching of Cousins away from the hoop has been bad for his efficiency (over a 2 point TS% drop). And Cousins efficiency is going to matter a lot more than WCS's when you look ta their usages. So, I would ask first and foremost where Cousins is maximized, and thats beating up on less mobile centers versus being guarded by pf's on the perimeter with a center able to help off WCS if he drives that far in.

Defensively it hasn't been good with WCS at pf either. While he might have the physical tools to be a versatile defender and guard outside and inside, the results have been the opposite. WCS actually ended up with the single worst defensive rating for the Kings -- http://stats.nba.com/team/#!/1610612758/players/advanced/?sort=DEF_RATING&dir=1
If you don't like that, you can go to DRPM and adjust for the players on the court to still find him quite negative, or goto the player tracking data and see he a slight negative even on his own man least of all on the team effect.

So, either the NBA game was very overwhelming for him in general, or playing at pf was an adjustment that wasn't smooth and natural (or both).

If you don't have Cousins or anyone else on the roster to position around, then I think just about everyone would look at his game and say he should be playing center. When he was scouted pre-draft, the take on him was he was a center, and in the NBA he would be a center. Heck, NBA.com still lists him as a center and not even a c/pf, even after playing so much with other centers last year.

So yeah, WCS is naturally a center, and I don;t even think it is debatable at this time. He has had only 1 year in the league so maybe he can change that, but at 23 already I have my doubts.

And the quote above with the good position bad position breakdown is good as well.


Besides that, I would have big questions about Temple's ability to play pg. In contrast, he actually did play some sf.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/t/templga01.html

Minutes distribution last year:
PG: 1%
SG: 54%
SF: 42%
PF: 3%

At the end of the day, just because a team needs a player to be a pf (or pg) doesn't make them actually have that skill set that they don't.

[LightTheBeam]

In terms of WCS at the 4, that has been a horrible pairing for Cousins. The data says it, unless you throw away 2/3rds of the data and only keep 2 lineups of data with Rondo. But that would be such an absurd thing to do, that no one would be that silly and I refuse to believe otherwise.

In general WCS has not been able to score outside of right next to the hoop. Now, you can argue that it doesn't matter because they cross match on offense. But the resulting stretching of Cousins away from the hoop has been bad for his efficiency (over a 2 point TS% drop). And Cousins efficiency is going to matter a lot more than WCS's when you look ta their usages. So, I would ask first and foremost where Cousins is maximized, and thats beating up on less mobile centers versus being guarded by pf's on the perimeter with a center able to help off WCS if he drives that far in.

Defensively it hasn't been good with WCS at pf either. While he might have the physical tools to be a versatile defender and guard outside and inside, the results have been the opposite. WCS actually ended up with the single worst defensive rating for the Kings -- http://stats.nba.com/team/#!/1610612758/players/advanced/?sort=DEF_RATING&dir=1
If you don't like that, you can go to DRPM and adjust for the players on the court to still find him quite negative, or goto the player tracking data and see he a slight negative even on his own man least of all on the team effect.

So, either the NBA game was very overwhelming for him in general, or playing at pf was an adjustment that wasn't smooth and natural (or both).

If you don't have Cousins or anyone else on the roster to position around, then I think just about everyone would look at his game and say he should be playing center. When he was scouted pre-draft, the take on him was he was a center, and in the NBA he would be a center. Heck, NBA.com still lists him as a center and not even a c/pf, even after playing so much with other centers last year.

So yeah, WCS is naturally a center, and I don;t even think it is debatable at this time. He has had only 1 year in the league so maybe he can change that, but at 23 already I have my doubts.

Fair points. Here's how I see it.

1. It's been 1 year, I'm not willing to judge the story based off one chapter. As you said wcs was a negative regardless with Cousins or not. We saw what the potential was at times (which is why I showed the statistics that 2 of our most efficient lineups last year included the 2 of them) not because that's the end all be all, but because if you see potential in something you should see it through.

2. Karl is gone. There's no more of this run up and down the court, have the highest pace in the league, quick shots and playing defense all game exhausting Cousins and WCS. Now we have a coach whose MO is to slow the pace and play grit and grind ball. We also have a coach who while most said Jeff green should play power forward he barely used him there. He's a 2 big men old school kind of coach. Everyone can go small like you are suggesting but we know we will never be able to match the Cavs, warriors and to a more realistic standard teams like Portland going small.

3. We are certainly not the only team that wants to play big. Utah is considered the hot team around realgm right now, they are going to be starting 2 big men that are both best around the hoop and both likely classified as modern day nba centers. In fact Cousins is by far more skilled than either of those guys at stepping away from the hoop without a doubt.

So again I guess my major take away from this is that long term you may be right. As of right now we are 1 year into the experiment and considering how different our coach/game plan will be this year it's basically starting from year 1 again. Why not see what we have before blowing it up?

In regards to Gay. I understand he's an expiring but I think you are really underestimating what he brings to this team. His first 2 years he was very efficient and was a reliable second scorer. The combination of Collison/Gay/Cousins was incredible together with Mclemore and Thompson. The way us Kings fan see it is now we are getting back to a coaching style wr had with Malone by going to Joerger, afflalo and WCS are infinitely better than McLemore and Thompson. For that reason we want to keep Rudy around. I also think Rondo was the worst thing to happen to Rudy. By starting Rondo over Collison it killed our spacing and Rudy's room to operate. He's not a spot up shooter you are right. He's a guy who can create his own shot when it's needed. I've said before I agree I wish Casspi would start over him and then let Rudy come in and control the bench. That won't happen but I disagree with the way our roster is set up that trading Rudy for Gordon would be beneficial.

You mentioned earlier that having Richardson and Bogdan on the team shouldn't impact us wanting to make a trade because Bogdan doesn't even play for the Kings yet and Richardson was a pick in the 20's. I say that its silly to make long term moves for injury prone players when we cant afford those moves and are excited about our young future. When the Kings decided not to pursue Gordon this summer I was extremely happy, this Kings team more than anything needs consistency and fit around Cousins. Not knowing if a player will even play due to health concerns while being on the hook for 50 million dollars would be a disaster.

Just to clear up, I don't see Koufos as a long term piece but think he's needed to start the season because Joerger can trust him and we haven't seen what this unit can do together. I don't understand the Papagiannis pick but I'm sure vlade saw something. I see our long term rotation up front as Cousins/Skal/WCS who I think compliment each other well. Aside from that the only other long term piece I'm sold on is Bogdan, hence why I'm okay upgrading small forward long term, point guard long term but I would rather do what we did with Afflalo on a 1 year deal with the thought of Bogdan and Richardson taking over than again bringing in an injury prone player at 50+ million over the next 4 years.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using RealGM mobile app