Grading the Kings and Addressing their Needs...

If not sign Lee for $10 mil or less. I am actually backing off of that a little based on how well JT has played off the bench as our 3rd big. Or trade for Okafor if NO will take back Noce.
Rudy Gay is too expensive & was just as good as Donte or Omri in his 1st & 2nd years. Maybe he was better than Donte but he’s had consistent playing time since he was a rook.
No one is going to trade John Wall for a 5 or 6 pick & Donte, Omri, JT, Hawes or anyone else on our roster noy named Tyreke.

interesting……ha

It is clear you thought this out, but I can pick out points that probably bear consideration.

Coaching: Westphal’s handling of the media and Spencer showed a serious lack of poise. He is too quick to show anger and a bit of a temper. I like him so don’t get me wrong, but his bungling of that was inexcusable. So no points for poise there, but I agree about yanking around players and think he should practice what he preaches. If the kids play well give them more minutes, not less.

Management: There are issues and most of them, for me, is around how they are dealing with public relations. I think it is inexcusable to allow Napear to go after Kings players like he has done, Martin being the latest example, and there are only a few reasons why they would allow it. Either they wanted him gone or they just can’t control that redheaded blowhard and either way. Both suck and show a complete lack of professionalism.

By position:

I agree that we are light at PG and SG. Losing both Sergio and Martin did that and Cisco is just not up to being the PG. He may work into it, but his passing just isn’t there.

I like how we are shaping up at SF. I think that Donte’ and Casspi fill out, or will, that position well enough. Add Noc for a stretch 4, even Donte’ at that, and we are good. I say we keep the depth here and worry about our bigs

As to PF and C, well it has improved. Landry is a big improvement and adds depth, but I don’t think we have it set yet. JT is rebounding and coming back. Last few games show lots of progress and I think he deserves credit for whatever those demons were that he beat off. Spencer is showing more consistency. The bigs at least deserve a better grade given the recent performances, but the final grade isn’t in yet.

I don’t see us signing a free agent of huge salary and would prefer to stay young and inexpensive for while so we can re-sign our kids to contracts, the ones who earn it anyway. I also don’t like most of the guys you list for free agency. I would prefer to keep the core young and youth movement strong. Who we get depends on the draft. Hopefully a big and if not then maybe we pick up a FA.

Our biggest need is a defensive minded Center and not any more PFs. If we don’t have another C by next season then GP get a big fat F.

1 thing is that Omri avgs 4.8 boards in just under 27 mins. And Donte has shown plenty that I think more time should be invested before giving up on him.

I really think Gay would be an excellent pick-up for the Kings.. He has averaged 20 ppg twice in his career and he is only 23. He is not ball dominant at all which would be ideal next to Tyreke.. And after that draft a power forward or center we could build upon, then i think we would be 1 of the best young teams in the league…

He would command a double team by an opposing big and that would help our bigs as well.

I really love Gay He would command a double team by an opposing big

but the Cal-Expo plan is no longer the front runner. The Sacramento Convergence plan (with a new arena downtown at the railyards) is the leading arena plan at the moment. With a foreign investment group (from australia I believe) and the support of the NBA.

Tyreke is probably the closest thing we have to locking up a position, followed by Landry. All the other positions could use upgrading, and you could also argue that we could do better than Tyreke and Landry as well.

Scola would be a good fit and probably moves us up to .500 ball. I’m not sure that’s where we want to be, though.

I think Petrie will draft Monroe and continue playing Moneyball in stockpiling cheap yet productive talent until the time is right to make a splashier move. If he could move Beno or Garcia and get a second pick in the 10-15 range to take a scoring guard, I think he will strongly consider that.

I also wouldn’t give up on the SFs just yet. Omri and Donte are just pups yet and could have a lot more upside than some here envision.

Good, thought-provoking post and timely with the tournament at hand.

Ownership: C The Maloofs are financially leveraged to the hilt, lacking the wealth, portfolio and network to control the Kings’ destiny without outside intervention. We don’t know if the Kings will remain in Sacramento since all our hope seem to be tied to the Cal Expo Project propagated by the NBA that requires TBD developers, tax changes and time.

Nah, it’s the “Convergence” now, and that includes the Railyards instead of Cal Expo.

As far as their financial leverage, a lot of that depends on how much the Palms is decreasing their overall wealth. The Kings are fine financially in many ways though. I’m more worried about a potential sale than anything else. Until a new Arena plan is created, then paid for, and then built, a potential move will always be on the horizon.

General Management: B Geoff continues in his role as our very own Moneyball Maestro delivering us talent via the draft consistently despite our Five Stages of a Geoff Petrie Draft reaction that typically ends with contentment or his trade machine that leaves us half the time scratching our heads with HOW did he do that and WHY did he do that? In my mind, if he would have drafted Rubio and traded him for Tyreke + something else or was able to trade Kevin Martin and one of our young bigs for a legit center then I would have given him a glowing A.

Moneyball? Eh no. Other than the “Moneyball” theory in basketball being complete and utter bullshit, one difference between Billy Beane and Geoff Petrie is that Petrie has had a much higher success rate with prospects than Beane has. Even then, that’s only a minor argument at best given that MLB & NBA have a great deal of differences dealing with young players that it makes it almost no point to make comparisons between either team.

As far as actual moves go, I don’t have a single problem with any of the moves Petrie has made in hindsight. I think he did the best he could given his circumstances, and that’s all you can really ask. Also, you could include that Petrie hasn’t hurt the team financially despite taking deals (and ultimately losing out on an opportunity to pick DeJuan Blair—which doesn’t bother me but probably irritates some out there) like the Sergio Rodriguez deal that included a lot (2.9 mill to be exact—thanks Sam!) of cash in it?

Grading Petrie is something I don’t do naively or without full view of how he does things, but I have to give him an A all told. He’s started something, and it will take luck to finish this whole rebuild. But I believe he can finish it.

I expected the assistant coaches to have a greater impact. Mario and Truck were brought in to improve our defensive which has made some progress going from 30th to 24th in overall defensive rating and from 29th to 25th in points allowed.

They have had an impact. The Kings went from 30th to 24th with a younger team, which usually does not see teams improve defensively, and with a new coaching staff, which takes time to figure out how to ultimately use all the guys to the best of their abilities, all the while dealing with the inconsistency that often comes with a young roster. That isn’t Mario Elie’s and Truck Robinson’s fault. They’re starting something. Whether they’re around to finish I don’t know, but the whole staff has earned the benefit of the doubt. This year has been excellent in terms of competitiveness and what not.

Good point regarding Bibby vs Udrih. Given that people squawk about what Beno’s paid, some of yall might be disappointed about what Bibby is now making with Atl. I do disagree with Garcia not being a real SG. His ballhandling, shooting, energy and leadership are all positives that the Kings considered when they traded Kevin Martin. The fit with Cisco and Reke offers to have much greater potential than Kevin/Reke if only because of what Cisco/Reke do as a tandem as opposed to what Kevin/Reke did as a tandem.

We have issues in the middle. I wouldn’t have been advocating selecting Derrick Favors in the draft (if we can) for the last 7 months if the Kings didn’t have those issues.

As far as Free Agency goes, I’m almost as interested in the Kings using their cap space to trade for Troy Murphy using their cap space and Jason Thompson to do it. I think that would help the Kings immensely, and the worst that can happen is Murphy doesn’t help the Kings and they let his contract expire at the end of the season in 2011 anyway.

I don’t ever worry about projecting the starting 5 until training camp. Doing so in March when we don’t even know the lottery order seems hasty to me.

The details were a bit off in a few areas. Not a problem though. I do appreciate the effort that went into getting all this information down. It’s not nearly as easy as it looks.

Rec’d OC.

I understand the need to dump salary

Until proven different, that’s all you need to understand. Any chance we have to get cheaper and not sacrifice much in talent, Petrie will jump at the chance.

A lot of veteran teams already in the championship or solid playoff hunt will be happy to bank on a known commodity rather than the crapshoot that is the draft. We’re at the other end of the spectrum, looking to get cheaper and younger.

The ability for the Kings to pillage a salary-burdened team that is looking to unload salary. This is how the Clips landed Camby for a 2nd round pick, this is how Seattle landed Kurt Thomas and 1st round picks for a 2nd round pick.

The KIngs may have a better shot at filling a need via this route than the free agent market.

Great write up by the way. I think you are pretty much spot on.

Also, In a related matter I think those of us that are LA based King’s fans should get together for a game sometime or head to staples when the King’s play the Clips or something. Like our StR night in LA or something like that.

:)

Just a thought.