Situation Natt, Day 1
by Tom Ziller on Apr 16, 2009 6:03 AM PDT
in Commentary
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PrintAs reported by Ailene Voisin earlier this week, Geoff Petrie has said no decision on Kenny Natt will come until next week. The Bee's Sam Amick repeats that in today's story on the coaching situation, and adds this note:
[S]ources close to the team indicate that Kings co-owners Joe and Gavin Maloof have made their opinion known that they would prefer Natt not return.
Amick goes on to publish a rather stunning indictment of Natt's tenure, with Ike Diogu as a centerpiece. Apparently -- fighting the knock against him from previous stops in the league, particularly Indiana -- Diogu has been killing Jason Thompson and Spencer Hawes in practice since arriving from Portland in February. But it took until Monday for Diogu to get a real shot on the court. Obviously, he made the most of it. As Sam argues, this reflects poorly on Natt's understanding of his team.
Amick also mentions a few new names in asserting the Kings will not rush to hire Eddie Jordan. There's Del Harris, Mike Fratello and ... Jeff Ruland, an assistant with Philadelphia. It'll be interesting to see who else makes the list of prospective coaches if Geoff Petrie doesn't quickly turn to Jordan.
Meanwhile, Voisin's column on the Natt decision explains itself fairly simply, with a headline "Natt Must Go."
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I'm interested to see which lists have what guys
Because I think it will be fairly obvious with those lists alone who is doing the search, and who ends up making the final decision.
Evil Cowtown Inc: Screwin' Suckaz over since Nineteen Eighty-Five.....
No mistakes in the tango, darling. Not like life. Simple. That's what makes the tango so great. If you make a mistake, and get all tangled up, you just tango on.....
Not playing Diogu might be the best thing Natt did for us
Otherwise Diogu would’ve played out of his mind for us to get his next contract and Petrie would sign him for $40 million
www.mancancook.net
by vfettke on Apr 16, 2009 9:45 AM PDT reply actions 1 recs
Harsh!
but possibly true. Good call Vfettke.
by betweentheeyes on Apr 16, 2009 11:46 PM PDT up reply actions
Diogu arguement if flawed...
Does anyone believe that Mikki Moore practiced better than Thompson or for that matter Kenny Thomas? Can Martin guard Rashad McCants in practice or Beno guard Bobby Brown? Natt believed that in order to save his job he had to play and develop both Hawes and Thompson, what he did with extra minutes was probably up to him. Unfortunately Natt made the decision to play Noc and Donté out of position. Natt chose to play Calvin Booth (who actually held his own) and the whole time he had a player who was drafted #9 overall and who had actually played decent per minute ball when given the chance.
Now, I’m not in love with Diogu but I do think that the league is littered with guys who can play at a very high level if given the shot. Diogu made a the most of his limited opportunity but let’s not fool ourselves into believing that this guy is worth anything more than a two year, non-guaranteed contract for 2-3 mill. If Diogu can produce off the bench, in a limited role, he will get paid when he becomes a FA again at age 27 and I’m fine with the Kings giving him that opportunity. I guess that the future of Ike, like McCants is probably tied to 250 little white balls in a large clear plastic bubble.
Hot dogs, get your hot dogs.
I think draft day will have more to do with whether Ike is retained
I think Rashad McCants is as good as gone now.
Evil Cowtown Inc: Screwin' Suckaz over since Nineteen Eighty-Five.....
No mistakes in the tango, darling. Not like life. Simple. That's what makes the tango so great. If you make a mistake, and get all tangled up, you just tango on.....
absolutely and totally right on
"We are in the business of kicking butt and business is very, very good." - Charles Barkley
yeah, Sam seemed off-the-mark on Ike as symbolic of Natt's incompetence
Clearly whatever Ike did in practice, his mandate was to develop JT and Spence. Had he given JT’s minutes to Ikester, there would have been hell to pay.
As far as giving Booth’s minutes to Ikester, how many minutes are we talking about, and were they truly “5” minutes rather than “4” minutes? Ike is Godlike, of course, but in barefeet he and Dudley Moore have a lot in common.
Life is every mammal's journey from very very wet to very very dry.
Not to pick any nits but there are only 14 balls
"If you don't have anything good to say, LIE" - Mom
What does that mean?
There is only 3 winning combinations total. They only draw 3. After that everybody settles in whatever spot they get from their record, and whatever result from the top 3.
Evil Cowtown Inc: Screwin' Suckaz over since Nineteen Eighty-Five.....
No mistakes in the tango, darling. Not like life. Simple. That's what makes the tango so great. If you make a mistake, and get all tangled up, you just tango on.....
There are 14 balls numbered 1 to 14
Four balls are drawn for each of the first 3 draft picks. Each team is assigned a series of numbers based on their total chances. The Kings get 1,2,3,4 then 1,2,3,5 then up to 1,2,3,14,and return to 1,3,4,5 and so on until they get 250 combinations. If the first 4 balls are one of the 4 number combinations that the Kings are assigned (in any order) then the Kings win.
After the #1 pick is made the 4 balls are returned to the hopper, and 4 balls are drawn to see who gets the #2 pick. But, each teams 4 number combinations stay the same for all three picks. If the kings were to win the #1 pick, and one of their combination came up as the winner of the #2 pick. The balls would be returned to the hopper and the 4 balls drawn again until a winner is decided. If there really where 1000 balls in the hopper they would have to use a really big hopper. And, they would have to pick out all of the winners lottery balls before the next drawing.
"If you don't have anything good to say, LIE" - Mom
by HighTops on Apr 16, 2009 5:50 PM PDT up reply actions 5 recs
You suck
I was really hoping you were going to say there were 14 balls, one for each team. That way I could blast you like I did some other jackass who said I was wrong about the draft.
But thank you for knowing how it works and not being retarded
www.mancancook.net
Thank You HT
That’s a great explanation.
Evil Cowtown Inc: Screwin' Suckaz over since Nineteen Eighty-Five.....
No mistakes in the tango, darling. Not like life. Simple. That's what makes the tango so great. If you make a mistake, and get all tangled up, you just tango on.....
I hope that's not as irritating as it might sound
Evil Cowtown Inc: Screwin' Suckaz over since Nineteen Eighty-Five.....
No mistakes in the tango, darling. Not like life. Simple. That's what makes the tango so great. If you make a mistake, and get all tangled up, you just tango on.....
Not irritating just lonely, what to give me a hug?
"If you don't have anything good to say, LIE" - Mom
that's want to give me a hug? Oh, just forget it.
"If you don't have anything good to say, LIE" - Mom
No
That’s the short AND long answer.
Evil Cowtown Inc: Screwin' Suckaz over since Nineteen Eighty-Five.....
No mistakes in the tango, darling. Not like life. Simple. That's what makes the tango so great. If you make a mistake, and get all tangled up, you just tango on.....
"Me Cant's Pass the Ball"
McCants needs to be gone. He has talent, but is a vacuum with the ball. I don’t see him as part of the future. Nothing slowed down the offensive momentum like McCants entering the game. If anyone is signed, keep Ike. I like jjham15’s idea of a two year deal for him. Prove himself and then get the big payday.
To quote him being quoted
Voisin has GP saying, “Can’t there be some dignity in this?”
Petrie is all class. I would like to think the decision is entirely his. Pookeyguru makes a good point that the list of candidates will identify who is pulling the strings. If it’s genuinely the basketball president, as it should be, who wouldn’t want to work for this guy?
I read Sam Amick’s article about how Diogu had been tearing it up in practice and that Natt failed to give him enough opportunities to show what he can do in a game. But hindsight’s 20/20. It’s easy to say that Diogu should have played more after watching his last two games. And if Diogu was playing obviously better than the other forwards during practice, how come Amick never reported on it until now? I’m thinking for the same reason Natt didn’t give him real minutes until Hawes got hurt; because it wasn’t so clear at the time.
It was often reported that QDouby was dynamite in practice
and we all know how that ended up.
Ike has us all excited and shaking our heads at what could have been. Should Ike have proven to be a 20 and 10 beast and carried the Kings to an extra 7 or 8 wins (or 3 or 4) – I can say, with certainty, before May 19th arrives and whatever pick happens – that the increase chance for a higher pick is worth the lost games. 23 wins would be nice as a hope to the future – at the expense of some very entertaining moments of growth from both Mr. Hawes and Mr. Thompson.
Coach Natt did the best he could and did so with effort and professionalism. I agree that he is not Head Coaching material at this time and demonstrated a consistent lack of judgement in game situations. How he conducted his practices we can only guess at, what he saw at those practices, with his other coaches we fans cannot reasonably pass judgement Ike is a pleasant surprise and the more talent the Kings can accumulate the better. I miss a Lawrence Funderburke type of player on the Kings and maybe Ike could be that person. Then again, maybe not.
I will spend the time until free agency becomes relevant wondering what the Kings will do. But the signings of Beno, Cisco, and Bonzi loom uneasily in the past.
by betweentheeyes on Apr 17, 2009 12:50 AM PDT up reply actions
From the outside looking in,
I’d be curious to find what odds Vegas would offer on “Natt returning as Kings head coach” props. Given some of the comments he has made during the year (read: the nonsense about Hawes needing more touches to do a better job rebounding or something similarly absurd) and just how poorly the team performed under his watch plus the questions raised by so many here as well as Amick and the rest of the MSM establishment over these past few months, the idea of him having any shot to return seems purely astounding to me.
-sw
The best of the 2008-09 Boston Celtics is still yet to come. Believe.
Hindsight?
The day the trades happened, myself and others on this site said Diogu might be the best player we got and should obviously given a shot since A. we weren’t going to the playoffs B. who knows what offense or defense we run C. the Kings are rebuilding and need young players with potential (especially former lottery picks like Diogu and McCants)? But Natt plays Booth and Nocioni and Solomon. McCants was probably who we feared he was but wasn’t a complete cancer. The players with the most potential, Diogu never got minutes and Donte Greene got 5 a game (why not at least ship him back to Reno?). Natt sadly tried to keep his job with what he thought was his most competitive lineup which probably wasn’t.
Draft Balls Be Kind, The Kings Need Blake! The Padres need Strausberg and the Chargers need Mauluaga!
by bringbackbuddytrees on Apr 17, 2009 6:30 PM PDT reply actions 1 recs
good points
finding out what we actually have/had in Diogu and McCants should have been a priority of the 2nd half of the season along with developing Donté, JT and Spence.
Ball movement ... is like jogging for most people: They do it occasionally, and it makes them happy. Then they go back to not doing it. - Henry Abbott
by Kfan in Korea on Apr 17, 2009 6:34 PM PDT up reply actions
What ????
Knatt still has a job? Whats to think about? WORST RECORD IN HISTORY OF ORGANIZATION should be printed on his PINK SLIP !! This is a no brainer. Maybe they are waiting until a team in the playoffs is eliminated because someone on their staff is a candidate. Who Knows, but they really should have handed Knatt his walking papers. Not head coaching material ever. Doesn’t seem to communicate well with players. That is the one area of coaching that is a MUST in the NBA,…
I have cut the Mouth and Nose out of my Paper Bag, but I am contemplating not cutting out any EYE HOLES so I don't have to watch this mess at all...
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