I want to give Reggie time. I want to preach patience. I want everyone to understand that I'm not thrilled that the Kings got blown out and lost the game in 1 qtr, with Paul Millsap hardly doing diddly shit. (Interesting premise some SLC Dunk posters had about re-signing Millsap instead of Boozer.) I suggest you read it over, along with the article that spurred the talk. But if that doesn't juice you, this quote should:

For now, Jazz management might consider dubbing Millsap the "Bargain from the Bayou." This season he is only making $797,581, which is the NBA equivalent of a Fortune 500 CEO earning about $10 an hour.

Either way, I just want to get the disclaimer out that I don't blame Reggie for anything, except what I want to talk about with regards to a certain "fatal flaw". I want to make this clear, as I'm still in Reggie's corner, and do not want this to be taken as anything else except a vote of un-confidence with regards to Spider Head.

The NBA's best teams tend to have something in common. And it's not usually defense, although that usually plays a part of it too. (I think that's overrated, and when I come up with time in the future, I want to write about this. Hopefully by Xmas I'll have something up.) They all play inside & out. Houston does it, although not always effectively as Grunge Dave will point out. We all know LA does it, and largely with multiple options at that. (You don't lose a single game through 14 games for a reason. You're really really good.) Orlando plays inside out, and while they don't always have effective guard play, or more accurately elite Guard play, what they do have is inside & out options. Which brings me to the Kings. They don't have inside options when Martin is out of the game, and Salmons isn't taking the ball to the rack. They just don't, for whatever reason, and the problem last night in the 3rd (read TZ's play by play, it's so enlightening, and I didn't watch the game, although going through the play by play of last night's game would have told me more than I would have cared to know by watching it), greatly highlighted a major issue. However, it almost seems forgotten that the Kings had to get back in the game by the 2nd qtr. That is equally worth noting, although focusing on the awful 3rd qtr is a great start, as TZ already did, not to mention going through the horror of watching those plays multiple times, I think it's worth remembering how the Kings got back into the game as well.

4:11 Spencer Hawes enters the game for Mikki Moore (Kings are down 19-16 at this point)--also Bobby Brown enters for Beno Udrih

For most of the next 12 mins, essentially the Kings treaded water, reaching a low of being down 8 pts at the 9:22 mark of the 2nd qtr, but then after an offensive rebound by B-Jax, Salmons made a 3 bringing the Kings to 35-30 at the 8:47 mark. The Kings then push the deficit down to 3, and then the Jazz push it back to 5. They do this a couple of times for the rest of the 2nd qtr, until about a 1:10 left in the 2nd qtr, the Kings get within 4. Salmons hits a J, and then makes a layup with 24 secs left, and Deron Williams misses a 25 ft shot at the buzzer. What am I getting at? The Kings in the 3rd qtr, as TZ pointed out so well, didn't get within 10 feet of the basket. That makes it hard to get inside and A, get FT's as TZ pointed out, and B, make it hard for Utah, an average defensive team, to not space the court. The Kings and Jazz are both offensive teams that do their best work on that end. What's the difference between the 2? The Jazz work to run their sets better, and it results in far better shots. (Also having Millsap and Boozer inside doesn't hurt matters. Neither does having Deron Williams. But I've regressed as I've done for the billionth time.) The point is that the KIngs need to pair inside players with players who play outside, and if Reggie isn't willing to do that, I don't care who is coaching this team, they won't get shit at a sewer giveaway. This team's effort was poor, and as B-Jax said in the interview that made the Bee today, this team doesn't need leadership. He said it best:

"Nobody should question our leadership," Jackson said. "You should question our effort when we step out on the court, but don't question our leadership. Our leadership is fine. … "

Bobby had a better quote that didn't make the print copy of the paper, but got posted on the blog (how much better has the Bee's coverage been with that?) afterwards. I thought it was more telling. Here it is:

"Everybody uses the excuse, 'We ain't healthy, we ain't full strength,' but what's healthy got to do with effort?" Jackson began as he got dressed. "What's healthy got to do with playing defense? We shoot the ball, and everybody wants to (expletive) shoot it and not get back on defense. Nobody wants to take a foul and everybody wants to take a jumpshot. It ain't about leadership. It's about effort and having pride in yourself as an individual and as a basketball player."

I agree with everyone one of Bobby's words, and if there is nothing else Bobby has done, he's shown these young guys what it takes to win games in this league. You have to WIN them. You cannot rely on your talent (Brad Miller I'm talking to you!) to let you win games. Especially on the road vs a team missing one half of it's all-star tandem in Boozer, and especially when his replacement, Paul MIllsap, did not have a strong game. The Kings flat laid down on the road, and Reggie be damned, which he's making himself into a martyr every time he starts Moore out of stubborn pride to boot, not to mention making me wonder how much he really wants a job where the ownership thinks that the young players can lead you to a playoff spot, but whatever, and what's worse, only Bobby Jackson (of the veterans I suppose) realizes why this is a long term problem. Not only that, but it's creating an equally worrisome problem by creating a negative value to Moore/Miller's trade value , and thus Reggie is making it seem more difficult for anyone to want either of these 2 at this point. Miller needs something (Read that link: Clearly Theus is not pleased with Miller before the Utah outing, and I don't think he's going to be any happier after the Utah game, although I didn't see anything that spoke directly about Miller in the game recap or Blog entries) that only the bench guys seem to have on this front line: heart. If this picture doesn't tell the story, you aren't watching this team very carefully, or often.

via th157.photobucket.com

The Kings are not good enough to win games solely on their talent anymore. Brad Miller needs to step up and realize this, but I fear because he is one of the biggest bitch boy's in all of the NBA, another is Mike Bibby, whom we all know around here that I'm not fond of, is that he can't let go of the fact he isn't on a championship team. I'm almost at the point where I think it would be a detriment to not trade Miller. If he keeps playing the way he did last night, I'm so there.

I believe Reggie has made a mistake by re-insertng MIkki Moore in the starting lineup. He wants to start veterans to make it tougher on the rookie's to help them develop a winning atttiude. But, I fail to see how a rookie develop's a winning attitude when the veterans on this team show such a piss poor attitude that this team is losing games anyway. If Reggie doesn't realize that this team is best when he mixes & matches the young players with the veterans, to the detriment of Mikki Moore and Brad Miller's numbers, whom I don't give a rats ass about anyway, then he's failing this team as a coach. Worse, is the precedent it sets for what happens if Moore is traded before he's put on the bench. PT needs to be rewarded for effort, and for how you fit into this team's objectives, and right now, Moore doesn't fit into any of them. Yes, this team is hurt, but it's not playing up to it's capability when Moore is on the floor because he has no inside presence. This is equally true of Miller, but unlike Moore, he can help this team create offense when playing well. (Which he didn't last night, but whatever.) The point is if Reggie continues with this knuckleheaded notion that how he pairs players isn't more important than whom he starts, John Whisenant will take this team over on an interim basis. And to be quite honest, with the hiring of Jason Levien, I'm starting to wonder if that isn't a bad idea. Because at this point, any coach who pairs Miller and Moore as a frontcourt tandem, particularly with 2 young eager options who are more effective on the whole for a team with no athleticism on the front line, or that isn't over 23 years old I suppose, then that coach needs to find employment somewhere else. Reggie, this has gone on long enough. Stop it.