All I want for Christmas is a coherent plan

Dear Santa, I can explain…

Where are we going and what’s the plan, that’s what I want to know from Geoff Petrie.  Mostly this question pertains to the offense, but I might explore defense a little too in this post.  We all know GP like skilled players that can do a lot of things.  I’d like to know for sure this is going somewhere though, that we’re building a roster to support a system or philosophy that is established for the long term. 

Here are my thoughts on some of the possibilities:

The Princeton Offense

This is based on ball movement and mostly 5 guys being able to make reads and decisions.  This is the antithesis of the “normal” NBA.

Spencer – Certainly this seems to fit his skill set, he’s a good shooter, developing into a good passer, makes questionable decisions, but he’s 20, and the good part is he is making a decision.  Certainly, you can see him in this system

JT – A big maybe, he hasn’t had a lot of chances to make decisions yet, but it certainly could work

Donte Greene – Too early to tell, he seems to be a good teammate though, if that translates to unselfishness on the court, it could work

Kevin – I love the Princeton for Kevin.  Its goal is to give the offensive player a slight advantage, that’s perfect for Kevin who translates that slight advantage into clean looks or free throws extremely well.

Beno – You’d think Beno’s game would translate effectively into this offense.

Salmons – I love Salmons’ game as much as anyone on this site, but its hard to imagine him playing in this offense

I will add here, if the Princeton is the direction we are going, Petrie must go get Luol Deng if he’s available, even with his big contract.  Deng is not a good shooter, but he is a good decision maker and is very good at finishing, he would be a great fit in this system.

Also, go get Eddie Jordan, he's the guy for this system.

Utah’s Pick and Roll

Relevant because Kenny Natt was an assistant in Utah for so long.

Starting with the primary ball handler and screener how would you make this work for the Kings?

I’m starting with Beno/Spencer playing the primary role.  Combine them with a strong side scorer (Salmons), weak-side shooter (Kevin) and weak-side big guy (JT).  Beno has a lot of work to do getting better, but he’s a good enough shooter to make it work.  Hawes is a good enough passer and decision maker I think, the question would be can he score consistently enough.  JT would be a beast in this situation.  His guy will be the main helper on either a Beno drive or Spencer roll, freeing JT to crash the board, which we know he is extremely good at already.  You can replace Bobby Brown for Beno anywhere in the above paragraph if you like.

I can see this working, but have a couple of reservations:

1) I don’t know if Beno or Hawes will be good enough at it

2) It doesn’t take enough advantage of our two best scorers Kevin and Salmons.

---

I don’t know enough about other offenses to have even a semi-competent ability to describe them, one question to ask is, what are our strengths?  Where do we want our shots to come from?

Our strengths as I see them are:

Kevin shooting and Kevin anytime he has a slight advantage over his defender in open space.  Kevin’s game only suffers in traffic, because if you are going to nit-pick with him its ballhandling.  I don’t like Kevin just squaring up his guy and going, I think Salmons is better at that.

Spencer shooting open jumpers or posting up off other action.  Spencer isn’t ready to just take the ball in the post and destroy guys; someday maybe.  I do like seeing him receive the ball down low after setting a screen or after movement,  something where the nature of the position you got leads to what kind of shot you should take or helps you make the correct decision.

Salmons driving and isolations.  I like Salmons with :10 on the shot clock, squaring up his guy and going of anyone on the Kings.

All we know really about Donte and Bobby Brown so far is they can shoot it.  Bobby Brown has exceeded any reasonable expectations to date, and I have no complaints with Donte.

What does Beno do well?  He makes decent decisions and shoots reasonably well.  Beno is an open question in my mind.

We know JT is already a very good offensive rebounder.  These last couple weeks notwithstanding, he can finish around the rim.  His mid-range jumpshot is nice, frankly his tools are amazing.  A summer spent with Kings trainers adding 10 pounds of muscle is going to do wonders for him next year.  On offense, I want him to concentrate on being the guy that kills you with hustle and on the board if you leave him.  We’ll see what else he grows into.

How does all that become an offense?

Defensive notes:

Any team with Kevin Martin and Beno as its starting backcourt needs a very above average defensive small forward.

I like Bobby Brown on defense more than Beno.  I’ll take quickness and cutting off dribble penetration and suffer with Bobby Brown being posted up because he’s short. 

I do think Shock and Hawes be an average or maybe slightly above duo in the league.  If we want to be really good defensively, they need to work at it, Kevin needs to lock guys up and Beno needs to come off the bench.