Here is what Mr. Hollinger over at this site called ESPN had to say about two of our Kings:
Tyreke Evans, Kings
Evans plays point guard much of the time and thus has a decent assist ratio, but that masks his major weakness as a playmaker: He thinks sequentially. As in, "First, I'll look for my shot; only when I am cut off, I'll look to see what's going on around me." As a result he might be one of the most frustrating teammates in the league.
He's one of a handful of players with a TS% under 53 and a usage rate above 25, but the visual is what really puts him over the top -- the idea of involving people just for the sake of their participation in the offense seems completely foreign to him. Too many times he's passing only as a last resort.
Andres Nocioni, Kings
The classic case of a jaded veteran on a bad team; you can practically hear him screaming "get me out of here" every time he catches and shoots a contested 22-footer in the first seven seconds of the shot clock. Known as "Red Bull" for his superior effort level in Chicago, his color is more blue these days -- check out all those cold zones on his NBA.com shot chart. Nocioni shoots 46 percent or less from every spot except the left corner and 39.6 percent overall. Does "El Rey Azul" work for anyone?
Now, while I think he is being a little over the top about Reke, there is a bit of truth to this. My concern this whole season has been the free reign that PW has given Tyreke, and of all of the adulation that the press, with Peachtard in particular berating the other Kings on air for not making shots that could give Tyreke an assist, is that we are going to create a player not in the Magic-LeBron-Nash-Duncan-Kidd mode, but one of the McGrady-Iverson-Carter mode. Just this past game, I counted Tyreke dribbling the ball for at least eleven seconds one he past half court. How can his teammates even know what to do at that point? I do not think that he is determined to be a ball hog, like Ellis, Harrington, or even Nocioni for that matter, but I think that PW hasn't really been teaching him how to run an offense, and if that isn't addressed this summer, I think it would be doing Tyreke a disservice, as if he can learn to be competent at running an offense, and not just kicking out after someone has blocked his way to the hoop, he could probably be a top ten player in a very short amount of time.


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