Lord of the Kings: The Ivory Towers

I want to echo some of the things I've been hearing in comments and extrapolate a little about the issue of our Ivory Towers, and how that relates to Theus, Rotation, and ultimately why I'm unhappy with Theus currently. That said I too think he should keep his job AS LONG AS THE PLAYERS PLAY FOR HIM, which could arguably not be happening already.

First we need to come to a common ground about who should play at what possition, and yes this relies on everyone being healthy.

Udrih/Brown/Jackson

Martin/Garcia

Salmons/Garcia/Greene

Moore/Thompson

Miller/Hawes

This breakdown alone should emphasize the flaw in Theus' current logic, the move to put Mikki on the bench and, instead of promoting your second string power forward, ineffectively moving your second string center to an out of position starting line up. The ramifications of this move have three effects: there is no one to come off the bench and back up the center position directly, Moore will get more minutes than Thompson because he's a veteran, and Thompson is now burried on the bench because Theus will not play him at center.

We can argue all day about why this happened. Miller's ego, not to be benched; Moore's offensive inabilities; Hawes' development & senoirity; Thompsons inexperience, etc. But the important note is that it takes a simple depth chart and destroys the logic of it. If you want to develop the future center of your team, play him at center. If you want to develop the future power forward of your team, play him at power forward. This is simple coaching, give them a role, have them execute that role. Especially since Thompson is statistically beating Moore in almost every category(shots, free throws, blocks, assists, rebounds, steals, & points).If you sit Moore, play Thompson. (It's not like we're winning now, right?)

I believe the effect of putting JT in the starting line up would be a lot more stability and growth from him. In his starts he's put up better numbers, he has more time to get the feel for the tempo of the game and he provides the energy that our starting rotation currently lacks. (And moving Moore to the bench cannot be a reflection of defence since Theus thinks so highly of Moore's D right?) While we could argue that Hawes does this also, I think Hawes would be better suited coming off the bench at center, knowing his role when he gets out there, and he would enable the offensive load of the second string while playing alongside Moore.

The other effect of this is less playing time for Miller. And while I want to note I love Miller usually, when his effort is lacking he becomes this teams worst enemy. If he's not getting calls his defense becomes more aggressive(in a bad way), he gets more fouls, he doesn't run the floor, he stops playing, he wines, and he does less to help the people around him. Let him know this is not getting him or the team anywhere. When he begins to pout, put in Hawes quickly. Let him sit for a few minutes, put him back in when we need some experience on the floor.

I could go further with all of this but I think these are the major points I wanted to make. My issue with Theus' is that he says he has a system, or a structure, and granted I'm not on the team, in the meetings, at the practices, but Theus' rotation and system seems highly flawed or even illogical. Players are questioning their roles, because they do not understand them, and on this issue he reminds me of Musselman, remember the Miller quote this summer saying he didn't know what he was supposed to do in Musselman's system? How do you think Moore & Thompson feel right now? I'd bet pretty confused.

Thus CONFUSED PLAYERS = BAD COACHING.

If the Kings are currently confused, which can manifest itself in a lack of effort, weak or routine/tired rotations and passes, then the coaching staff is not doing it's job properly. And if Theus can't change that effort he has to go, unless the Maloofs are happy alienating their fan base while simultaneously looking for a better draft pick in the summer of 09.