The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Week 20

Sam Amick > Peaches

A disappointing week if you were looking for wins, but there were plenty of bright spots.

The Good:

1. Reke RoY Night

Reke RoY Night was a smashing success.  A fun blowout win against a Playoff team, Beno Udrih and Carl Landry being there awesome selves and Tyreke Evans notching his first career triple double.  It couldn't have been scripted better, and more importantly, the Kings won.  In a side note, the Kings have done a great job this year at connecting with the fans, especially through social media and they deserve a round of applause.  Bravo, Gentlemen.

2. Another step forward for an Arena

Last week, Mayor Kevin Johnson and the city council officially recommended the Sacramento Convergence Plan, which would involve a complicated land swap deal but eventually lead to an arena by the railyards.  These Arena talks mean more to our future in Sacramento than any sort of cap space, draft picks or trades will ever do.  I'm glad to see them moving in the right direction after so many years of taking steps backwards.

3. Francisco Garcia

See Player of the Week

4. JT off the bench

I like JT off the bench.  His energy suits him well there, and then we also don't have to worry about his foul trouble as much either.  And with Sir Carl in the game as well, we actually have a post man we can focus on instead of forcing it into JT and making him learn how to have a post game, a tactic which failed miserably so far this year.  I really hope that having Landry on the team helps JT calm down and learn to be better around the basket, because as of now, JT's offense is pretty bad.  I don't know what changed since the beginning of the season when he was downright dominant, but he needs to bring that JT back again.  I also want to commend the job Thompson did against Bosh defensively.  He and Landry helped slow him down and have a rough night.

5. Sir Carl Landry

This cat is efficient and consistent as no other big we've had in a while.  You can count on him to get his 17-20 points and 6-8 boards (that hopefully can improve) every night, and his shooting has been ridiculously efficient.  It was tough not to award him player of the week again after he posted his regular numbers on 57.4% shooting, as well as playing pretty good man defense.  He's not a bad defender all told.   And for some reason (I'm going to say his quickness and athleticism) he gets a lot of steals for a big man.  He's been averaging slightly over 1 a game since coming to Sac and almost 1 for the year.  One bad thing for Carl this week though was his unreal FT% fell back to earth, as he only hit on 47% of his FTs this week.

6. Beno Udrih

Beno has been awesome this year.  He was awesome this week.  When he's playing the way he was against Toronto, he's unstoppable.  That was probably the best game of his career.  Yes Tyreke had a triple double, but Beno deserved the game ball.

7. Sean May

I'm officially on the Sean May fan club, after saying earlier this year that I wouldn't mind not seeing him play the whole year.  But he's converted me.  Great teammate, plays hard no matter what.  Here's hoping he can sign with a team that will play him in a bigger role next year.  Might I suggest New York?  I wouldn't be averse to keeping May as a glue guy for little money either.

8. Garrett Temple's 10 day contract not picked up, signs with Spurs

From what limited time we've seen of Garrett it definitely looks to me like he belongs in the Big Leagues, and I'm glad he went to a team that might actually play him a bit in San Antonio.  Best of luck Garrett.

9. The Truth about Stats Tampering

Bench Blob shoots and scores:

Stephen Curry
Assists Home 6.0
Assists Road 4.8

Darren Collison
Assists Home 6.2
Assists Road 3.8

Tyreke Evans
Assists Home 5.3
Assists Road 5.6

The Bad:

1. The Andres Nocioni Situation

I really feel bad for Noc.  Yes, he hasn't played well this year (or this week for that matter).  But with the Kings continuing with the youth movement, Noc hasn't been able to get off the bench much at all ever since he was yanked out of the starting lineup early in the season.  The Kings don't want his contract, but can't trade him.  Noc wants to play, but can't seem to earn time.  Noc deserves a better situation because he still has plenty of basketball left in him and he deserves playing time on a team that could use him.  Perhaps Noc would be susceptible to a buy-out this offseason?  I honestly think that'd be the best for both parties, because I don't think anybody is willing to take on his contract right now.  If not, I can see this situation turning much worse.

2. Spencer Hawes takes a step back

Although his rebounding has increased back to averageness (if you look at his per 36 stats), he's struggling to stay on the floor because his offense has sucked as of late.  His defense has been ok, and it doesn't help that he has to help a lot when the guards let people get to the basket at will, but there is no getting around Spencer having a bad week.

3. Tyreke Evans defensive consistency

I know a lot of us consider Tyreke a good defender.  We've ragged on out of town reporters who have called him a bad defender.  Well here's a newsflash if you hadn't already known: Tyreke is, as of this moment, a poor defender.  He gambles too much for the steal, often trying to poke the ball out from behind after he lets a player beat him (this often results in a foul), he stands around too much when he's not guarding the player with the ball (If you read that Elie article, Elie has nicknamed Tyreke the "Watcher" because of this), and he still struggles to defend against the pick and roll.  Now this isn't to say that Tyreke is a bad defender all the time.  He's shown glimpses of being a great defender when thats what he focuses on.  The Gilbert Arenas steal for example.  But he's not being consistent on this end of the court.  Now this is only a minor gripe of mine, because Tyreke has been awesome this year, better than I expected from whoever we were to draft, and I look forward to his improvement in this area of his game (he's only 20), because I think he has the skill and physical gifts to become an All-Defensive 1st Team kind of guy.

4. Rebounding

We were outrebounded twice (OKC and PDX), pretty much tied once (PDX, we won by 1 board), and dominated once (Toronto).  Consistency is needed on this end.  Hello Draft.

5. The Ron Artest Trade

Donté and Omri have not been playing that great lately.  Omri has been tired and hasn't been seeing the minutes he was earlier.  Donté's defense has been slipping from the great performances we saw earlier this year, and his offense is inconsistent.  Neither one has really won over Paul Westphal as starter, as evidenced by the Bee Article today, and this will probably be the position of greatest competition during the off-season and pre-season next year.  Who will win out?  My money is on Donté if he can become consistent, otherwise it goes to Omri.

The Ugly:

1. Blazers have our number

PDX definitely knows how to play us, and they absolutely dominated us on our home floor the other night, mostly due to sloppy play by us and Brandon Roy being awesome.  But the scary part is Portland isn't even near being back to fully healthy and they still dominated us and beat us consistently.

2. Grant Napear v. Amick Part 4,313

This has been talked about a lot recently and my two cents is that Amick > Chuck Norris > Tyreke Evans > Steph Curry > Brandon Jennings > Nate Robinson > Chris Duhon > Kobe Bryant > Paramecium > Feces of a Paramecium > Peaches. If you're reading this Sam, I really whatever you were saying was going to happen in a few days won't be you leaving.

Player of the Week:

Francisco Garcia

12.5 PPG, .667 FG%, .667 3P%, 4.3 RPG, 2 APG

Cisco is officially back.  I love this guy.  He broke his shooting wrist and yet he's been on fire lately.  Look at those percentages.  Unreal.  He plays tenacious defense, can handle the ball, and can hit shots when his team needs to hit shots.  If Cisco plays like this, he'll be a valuable role player and leader for this team for the rest of his contract, which will be fairly priced at this production all year.

Comment of the Week:

This should be easy to top.

by andy sims on Mar 11, 2010 7:46 PM PST reply actions   19 recs

Highlight of the Week:

Caption Contest:

Link to Last Week's Picture

Last Week's Winner: JediLeroy

The Zohan and Speed Racer clash in a battle of box office duds

Last Week's Runner-Up: JediLeroy?!?! (Hey it goes by recs)

Kevin Martin is wearing a Houston Rockets uniform. Your argument is invalid.

This Week's Picture:

Lottery Projection and Profile of the Week:

Current Projected Lottery Position: 6th

Current Lottery Range: 3rd - 8th

Draft Profile: John Wall, 6'4, 195 lbs, PG, Freshman, Kentucky

While Evan Turner may be the best player in College Basketball, John Wall is perhaps the best talent.  Lightning quick and super athletic, with an insane ability to handle the ball, Wall reminds me of a hybrid between the last two point guards Calipari has coached: Derrick Rose and Tyreke Evans.  There have not been many players as physically gifted as Wall coming into the NBA since LeBron and Josh Smith.  His length, quickness and jumping ability let him contest shots and steal the ball, as well as being able to stay in front of his man.  He is big for his position, and he's a clutch player, having shown that several times in his year at Kentucky.  He has unbelievable body control and is excellent at creating offense for himself or for his teammates.  With great talent comes some downside though.  Like Tyreke and Rose, Wall has been able to rely on his physical abilities throughout much of his career and as such isn't that great of a shooter, although Wall is a better shooter than either Tyreke or Rose, and is hitting about 33% of his 3s at the college level.  Not great, not even average, but its not terrible.  He also lacks a little bit of discipline and control when running the offense, mainly because of inexperience, and as such has averaged 4.0 turnovers this year, but we've seen players make big jumps in A:TO ratio in the NBA.  Take Tyreke for example: 3.9 A: 3.6 TO in college to 5.5:2.9 in the NBA.  John Wall is going to be the #1 pick in the draft.  Yes he and Tyreke might not be the ideal fit together, but you draft the best player.  John Wall is the best player in this draft.

Next Week's Profile: Derrick Favors

And Nostradumbass Prediction for Next Week:

@ Minnesota 3/14 W (Kings lost big last time in Minnesota, but after the Portland game and the fact that Landry should feast against Minnesota, the Kings should win this game comfortably against a bad team)

v. Los Angeles Lakers 3/16 W (Yes this is generous, but we match up well against them, Landry also has had great games against them in the past with Houston and screw it we're winning)

v. Milwaukee 3/19 W (StR Nights shall continue to be undefeated)

Nostradumbass Record for the Season 38-28 (Similar winning Percentage to the Portland Trail Blazers)