A Great Year for Sacramento

The Kings don’t have a great record at just 10-21, additionally, they don’t have a long term coach in Keith Smart, and they don’t have great veterans (sorry Chuck Hayes, you just aren’t cutting it as a sole veteran for the team).  But those are pretty much the only bad things for the team, and all of those things are going to get better.

            Pretty much, the importance of wins is to get fan excitement.  Generally you don’t want to have a bad season because your fans won’t enjoy it and therefore won’t watch; and you want to have a good season so fans will be excited about their teams.  For this reason, the kings pretty much have a free pass this season.  By signing their deal to stay in Sacramento, the Kings have made their fans excited about their team, and they are just glad to be having a team.  Therefore those fans are going to worship their team regardless of how they play. 

Since they aren’t in the championship, I’d say their record is even helpful.  In a year where there are a lot of exciting bigs, having a high lottery pick is good.  Right now the kings have the seventh worst record in the league.  Pretty much anyone they could get with that pick would instantly jump into the starting lineup.  Let’s examine a specific case, say they get Jared Sullinger with the pick; They would instantly have a frontcourt that would be unique and at least borderline elite. 

Demarcus Cousins is averaging 16.4 points and 11 rebounds this season (which is outstanding for a third scoring option who only averages 29 minutes a game; Andrew Bynum, the second scoring option on his team, averages 16.4 points and 12.3 rebounds in 34 minutes.) he’s also not a normal big man stylistically; he’s quick (for a big man), he can handle the ball (for a big man), he passes well from the post, he runs the floor surprisingly well, and although he doesn’t get as many blocks as you’d like a big man to get, he gets steals using his quickness.  Jared Sullinger Is a big man very much like Greg Monroe; he’s got a great post game, he rebounds well, and he’s slow, but he actually has advantages on Monroe because he’s bigger (280 pounds), he scores better, and he gets steals.  Their frontcourt would be two bulky (550 combined pounds) low post scorers who rebound well and run the floor well and can run heavy minutes.  That would be the biggest front court in the NBA, and these are both guys who genuinely do use their weight.

Everyone has been playing well lately.  Keith Smart may not be a championship coach, but he certainly is making championship players.  Before he came Tyreke Evans was having a terrible season, Demarcus Cousins was about to be labeled a bust, and Isiah Thomas was the most irrelevant name imaginable.  Over the last 10 games Evans has averaged 17 points 5 rebounds and 5 assists, Thomas is averaging 13 points and 4 assist (19.5 points and 6.3 assists over the 5 games he has started), and Cousins has averaged 19.6 Points and 11.3 Rebounds, and Marcus Thornton, who was already playing well, has been averaging 20 points.  Pretty much every player on the team has been playing better under Smart.  The only reason they lose is because their defense sucks, but really it’s their defensive strategy that sucks.  That’s one of the things you don’t get with Keith Smart is wins but he will help another coach get some soon.

They really have the players you need to succeed, a wing scorer (Thornton), a post scorer (Cousins) a versatile, athletic, defender (Evans), and a point guard who you can trust with your offense (Thomas)… wait did I just list Isiah Thomas as a trustable point guard?  Scratch that, I’ll admit, they can’t yet consider their void at the point guard position filled yet.  Thomas isn’t big, not a great shooter, and not a great passer.  He’s not the next Linsanity he’s just having a spike.  That being said, he does have a permanent place in this league perhaps even as a starter on a contender, but he’s just can’t be a core part of a championship team.  If the Kings want a championship, they’ll need a frontcourt partner for Cousins and a starting point guard.

So really, assuming they get that (not that hard to do when you have a good first round pick coming up in a draft class loaded with big men.  And they needed a veteran or two (veterans on expiring contracts over the next two years are:  Kirk Hinrich, Tracy McGrady, Kevin Garnett, Jermaine O’Neal, Lamar Odom, Shawn Marion, Ben Wallace, Samuel Dalambert, David West, Chauncey Billups, Juwan Howard, Brad Miller, Mehmet Okur, Chris Kaman, Emeka Okafor, Mike Bibby, Baron Davis, Tony Battie, Elton Brand, Steve Nash, Grant Hill, Kurt Thomas, Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobli, Raja Bell, and Maurice Evans.)  Obviously they are going to have to show improvement (or just fork up a lot of cash) to sign any of these guys.  (genuinely, they should just fork up some cash and get rid of salmons.)  But really, isn’t it scary to think that the team that’s 7^th to last could be in contention for a championship within 3 years?

Has John Wall Really Been the Best player from the 2010 Draft Class?

At the time of the 2010 draft it was an obvious, undoubted fact that John Wall was the best player in that draft class.  No one could argue that, he’s fast, he’s strong, he has great vision, he’s humble, and he was NBA ready.  Everyone just knew that he would be the best player right out of that gate and he would stay the best for every second of every one of their careers.

Now we have an elephant in the room; this season there has been no practical argument that John Wall is the best rookie of that draft class.  There have been three truly standout players with bright futures, 4 if you want to put John wall in that class.

Greg Monroe is the first of these standouts.  He has had undoubtedly the best numbers of all the rookies from that year.  He’s averaged 16.3 points and 9.9 rebounds per game.  He’s scored a majority of his baskets off of post catches.  He appears to be someone who can be built around, you can dump the ball off to him and tell him to score.  He also inhales rebounds, while he’s no Kevin Love, teams shouldn’t anticipate easy lanes to the glass while he’s down there.  His downside is he’s not a good defender, he he’s too slow to guard a forward, too small to guard a center.  He ends up playing center because at least that lets him get the rebounds and there are less elite scoring centers than power forwards.  Also, his scoring numbers could be deceptive.  Monroe is the first scoring option on his team.  They give him the ball and he gives it back if he doesn’t want it.  He’s very much like Kevin Love where you can count on him for numbers, but you can’t count on him for wins.  Also, if his team had another good scorer I’d wonder if he would still score so well because he doesn’t move without the ball very well.

The next is Paul George.  I’m not going to lie, I didn’t even know who he was, but he has made me learn.  He has been averaging 12.5 points, 5.5 rebounds, 1.4 steals, and 2.2 assists per game; while these numbers aren’t exactly overflowing the stat sheet you have to understand that numbers on the Pacers are harder.  They have a near unstoppable scorer in Danny Granger and even he can’t score that much on this team (only 18 ppg) because they get everyone involved in the offense.  Essentially the way there offense works is they move the ball around (really well) and it doesn’t stop until they find a flaw in the defense and someone capitalizes on it.  The way I just described it really doesn’t give them enough credit because it is an outstanding offense, you should really watch them if you haven’t done so already this year.  So anyway, in this system it’s hard to get numbers very easily.  He’s the third highest scorer in this offense behind Roy Hibbert and Danny Granger.  Another thing that’s impressive about him is his defense, a lot of people forget that he has really replaced Dahntay Jones (and done a better job) of defending the other teams best player, he smothers them and he’s massive (6’8).  But he’s done one thing none of the other stellar members of that draft class have done which is bringing his team wins.  Of course there is the con that he hasn’t necessarily brought his team those wins, the pacers are a good team, but still numbers on a good team is more impressive than putting up numbers in losses.  Also there’s the issue that the offense may be creating the numbers for him, but just to make it simple, the offense itself isn’t doing all of the work for him, he goes over people, he runs ahead of people and he gets by people, just because his numbers aren’t coming from isolations doesn’t mean they are not coming from serious work.

The last of these surprises is Demarcus Cousins, everyone who has seen him play understands that he is talented, he can post you, he can handle it fairly well, he can pass, he can rebound, and he’s actually a pretty good defender although he’s not really a shot blocker.  All last season and early this season he had confirmed those worries to be true.  However, since the kings fired Paul Westphal and hired Keith Smart there has not been a hint of any maturity issues, Cousins has put up great numbers and I think he has been the best king.  He’s done everything we had hoped he would eventually do.  Since hiring smart, Cousins has only been held to less than 10 rebounds 4 times, and he’s had 15 or more rebounds 5 times.  Also, the team has been playing good basketball and looking like a decent basketball team.  The downside is that cousins can’t block shots and he doesn’t run the floor very well (even though that shouldn’t be too big of a deal.)

John Wall has by no means played badly.  He’s averaging 15 points, 7 assists and 5 rebounds, all of those numbers are down this year except for rebounds.  When a guy is on a team where he is expected to dominate the ball as much as John Wall, he’s supposed to get points, but Wall has gotten his points in extremely inefficient ways.  He is shooting below %40 from the field which is the worst of the good players.  His assists come solely off of being a point guard who has the ball in his hands all of the time.

So to acknowledge the elephant in the room, I’ll just say it, Wall has not been the best player form that draft class.  Whether you think it’s been Cousins, Monroe, or George, it certainly hasn’t been Wall; while he still could eventually be one of the best point guards in the league, up to now he still hasn’t even passed the rest of his class.

ESPN's rececnt 5 on 5

Recently espn did a 5 on 5 about the start of the season (http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/page/5-on-5-120104/nba-most-impressive-disappointing-2011-12) and while it's very good, I disagree with a few things so I have decided to do my own.

1. Most Impressive team thus far.
            Without a doubt, the Portland Trail Blazers.  To me, most impressive entails that it's not expected for them to play at the level they are playing at, so that means I just can't say Heat/Thunder/Bulls because they were expected to be playing this well, but the Trail Blazers were expected to be good but there were questions as they had officially lost Brandon Roy, and they are once again without Greg Oden.  They weren't supposed to be a team that beats the Thunder by 10 and goes 4-1 in their first 5 games and they have done so, so they are my most impressive team this year.

2.  Most disappointing team thus far.
              I have to say the Knicks, they were supposed to be a top team and the east and while that's still very much a possible goal, you have to be dissapointed when you see a team with so much promise come into the season and lose to the raptors, and give up over 100 points a game.

3.  Most impressive player thus far.
               By far James Harden, he's been clearly the second best player on that team, and for a team whose point guard isn't doing too well he's been making that offense look pretty good.  Additionally he's made all the right plays at the right times.  I know he hasn't been the best overall player, but for someone who didn't start last year he's been pretty dams good.

4.  Most disappointing player thus far.
              Demarcus Cousins, without question.  Demarcus Cousins has always been talented and he's expected to produce, which I acknowledge, he has done while he's been on the floor.  But, this is a year when many people were saying Demarcus Cousins was going to step up and become a relatively mature player to help his team and what he's been doing hasn't portrayed him as mature at all.

5.  Biggest Surprise thus far.
                New Jersey's monstrosity of a season.  This was supposed to be the year that New Jersey would enter the an area that people care about in terms of basketball and that just hasn't happened.  They have looked like they genuinely couldn't care less win or lose every game and Deron Williams has been lazy, while they weren't expected to be champions, they weren't expected to be an easy win either.

What we Learned from week 1

1.  Andrew Bynum is still good.  In his first two games back, he's been the best player on the floor twice.  If he can keep this up the question will move from if the Magic want to give up Howard, to whether the Lakers want to give up Bynum.

2.  The Clippers have some problems, they play absolutely no defense, and they don't box out, and an their offense is having some trouble getting into their rhythm.  The offense will come with time, and so will the rebounding but the concern is the defense.  Looking at their roster it's clear why they are bad defensively; they're slow at the perimeter and bad inside with the exception of Deandre Jordan.

3.  The Heat and Thunder are much better than everyone else.  It's tempting to throw the Bulls into this but I'm going to stick with teams that are undefeated.  For teams that want to win the championship, they need to start fixing up their roster to find a way through these teams.

4.  The Kings are in a bad situation.  I anticipated Tyreke Evans and Demarcus Cousins doing extremely well for them this year and it looks like that might not happen (although I'm not rescinding my prediction yet.)  I was right that Cousins would do well on the court, but underestimated his immaturity.  He's been shunned by the team and he's demanded a trade.  As for Tyreke, either he's just in a slump, or last year wasn't a fluke.  Only time will tell but I hope it's not the latter.

5.  James Harden, and Marcus Thorton are both really really good.  Marcus Thorton has appeared to be his teams best player, and James Harden has been his teams second behind none other that Kevin Durant (maybe Wrestbrook too.)  He's giving the Thunder a big 3 that competes with that of the Heat.

6.  Dwight Howard really wants out.  He's had bad production and it doesn't appear to be lack of talent but lack of effort, the only way Dwight would not try is if he doesn't want to be there.

What was learned from Christmas

1.  Once again I'll say this, the Lakers are still very good.  They went against a Bulls team who had the advantage of not having to integrate many new players in and didn't have to learn an entirely new system, and they barely lost.  This would be pretty impressive naturally but with Bynum out it's outstanding.  The Lakers are absolutely still contenders.

2.  The Heat are the team to beat.  They play defense, they run the floor, they can move the ball well, they can isolate you, they get the ball inside, their in great shape, they get second chances, and they don't give them up.  The Mavericks may be the defending champions but the Heat are the team to beat.

3.  The Knicks still have the same glaring flaws, and some new ones.  First of all, they may have added a great shot changer in Tyson Chandler, but that doesn't make up for the fact that pretty much no one else on that team understands that defense matters too.  Additionally, they have terrible backcourt play (worse than last season) during the celtics rally in the fourth courter the real problem was their offense wasn't facilitated well at all.  They pretty much had Melo running the point and I think anyone understands someone who can't pass can't play point guard.  Additionally, Dantoni is a bad coach.  Some say he is a great offensive coach but he's not even that good of an offensive coach, Dantoni's teams score a lot because they have terrific offensive players.  First Carmelo Anthony, and Amare Stoudamire are supposed to score a lot, what would be impressive is to get them to play defense.  Additionally, late in the game he made poor decisions, why Jared Jeffries, one of their few players who plays defense, was not in late in the game, confuses me.  Even though they came out with the win, Dantoni won by just having a very talented team, not good coaching.

4.  The Celtics are still good.  They may have lost but honestly, the Celtics looked like the better team.  First of all, on that last play Carmelo wasn't really fouled, but even if, they were extremely competitive with the Knicks despite being without one of their best players in Paul Pierce.  They may not end with the greatest regular season record but watch out for them in the playoffs.

5.  The Thunder will be very good this year.  No need for explanation, they will be one of the best in the west.

6.  Mark Jackson is a very good coach.  They did get killed but quite frankly, the Clippers are a much more talented team than the Warriors and there is nothing that Mark Jackson could do about that, but he had Biedrens looking better than Jordan, and David Lee looking better than Blake Griffin.  This is really the first times I've watched the Warriors actually be effective in the half court set.  Generally Warriors games look like high skill pickup games and Jackson appears to have already changed that culture.  Additionally, they were able to play defense on a very good team, and that was a smart and ballsy decision to pull a Hack-A-Shack on Deandre Jordan.  I really liked what I saw out of him and I think he will be a great coach.

What We Learned from Preseason

1.  The Clippers are very good.  The Clippers beat the lakers twice and not only did they win but they displayed team work, and Blake displayed terrific improvement.

2.  Don't count the lakers out just yet.  Although they lost, they showed that the question "Are the Lakers still contenders?" Is a dumb question, they can absolutely compete.

3.  The Mavericks understand that they are old.  They didn't play some of their old players, not because of injuries, but just to give them a rest.

4.  The Heat are really REALLY good.  The Heat showed that in all that time other teams were talking about how to bring in Chris Paul, and Dwight, they were working on getting better, and they came into camp in great shape and they are going to be much more fearsome than last year.

Players who will under-perform

Amare Stoudamire

           Amare Stoudamire has always been tremendously injury prone.  With this shortened season one of two things will happen, either Amare will be overplayed and his poor little knees will give in on him, or he will lose a lot of minutes and possibly not get injured.  Additionally, they didn't really address their backcourt issues so the ball will probably be in Carmelo's hands a lot, and while Carmelo is a great scorer, don't look for him to get Amare the ball too often.

Deron Williams

          In the past Deron Williams has been one of the best point guards in the league, and don't get me wrong, he still is.  However, in Brooklyn Deron Williams is the only player.  Maybe Humphries will up his numbers to 14 but without Brook Lopez, Deron Williams just doesn't have anyone to pass to. Not only does he not have anyone to pass to, but playing crappy basketball for a team that can't even imagine making the playoffs in their wildest dreams won't exactly drive Deron to have an MVP output.

Gerald Wallace

         The Trail Blazers have a terrific back up small forward in Nicolas Batum who is not only young but also in a contract year.  The Trail Blazers will be giving him more minutes so he feels like he really has a place in their organization, and he'll probably fill those minutes with terrific play.  (Generally players play well in contract years.)  Additionally, even if they didn't have Batum, the season would kill Gerald Wallace.  He's 29 years old and plays an extremely physically demanding style, he will burn out quick in this season.  He might still do O.K. on steals and maybe boards, but don't expect any more than 12 points a game from him.

Paul Pierce

        He's old so he's probably not overjoyed about playing back to back to back to back... and also, the Celtics are not going to be at the same level that they usually are and when that happens Pierce tends to have a little less determination.

David Lee

         No explanation necessary, he's just not a great player.

Serge Ibaka

         Saying he will under-perform may be a bit of a stretch, because Serge will certainly not take a step backwards; However, there is a common assumption that Serge will make a Kevin Love, or Lamarcus Aldridge level jump.  But he won't do this.  Those players made their jumps because their teams lost key offensive players and they were asked to essentially become the teams entire offense (Kevin Love was just asked to become the team).  Serge Ibaka however does not have the same fate, They pretty much have the same squad as they did last year and Serge will just be asked to continue improving his defense.

Metta World Peace

         

         Just wanted to say it.

Also, something of note, pretty much all of the old players will have declines this season because of the condensed schedule, but I don't wan't to explain each one of their problems.  This year youth will rule the League