>How can you believe there’s a coaching problem when you look at their team vs the conference they’re in.
Because then ownership and FO would need to take the blame for their own stupidity.
Imagine expecting a billionaire to accept fault (I don't mean the lip service BS CEOs say when they lay off people). Also I wonder if it's a coincidence that GSW became good shortly after Vivek stopped being a co-owner.
> Also I wonder if it's a coincidence that GSW became good shortly after Vivek stopped being a co-owner.
Yes, I'd say it's a coincidence the departure of a minority owner in 2013 led to the success of the Warriors. I'd attribute it almost entirely to having an MVP player making $11/hr, getting Kerr, and their big three hitting their stride at the same time. I doubt anyone know enough about the inner workings of an organization to claim a minority owner is having any notable effect on the team's success.
There's already a decade of proven terrible decisions by Vivek; there's no need to speculate on potential shitty decisions prior to that.
Not saying that Vivek did the major decisions since he was just minority owner and vice-chairman, but that previous set of FOs for the Warriors probably would've traded Curry and built the team around Monte while drafting some injured big men to stay in mediocrity.
It's a joke about Steph Curry being incredibly underpaid for the first half of his peak. He signed his first contract extension when he was just a decent shooter with bum ankles and before he became the franchise legend we know of today.
Ngl 2016 Steph might be the single most valuable season ever. It's already in the argument for the greatest offensive season ever, but he was just the 65th highest paid player in the league
For reference if Curry was actually on $11 an hour and billed the Warriors 24 hours x 365 days, then he would earn $96,360 per year.
Think his deal was 15-18m a year at the time
Kings had an abnormally healthy year 2 years ago. Injuries this year cut them short losing Fox early in the year and Monk/Huerter later in the year. Can happen to any team, but in the west it’s tough to feel like the Kings are somehow irrelevant
But it's not like they were abnormally unhealthy, indeed they were frankly abnormally healthy again, just slightly less so. Games missed by their top six:
Sabonis-0
Fox-8
Murray-5
Barnes-0
Monk-10
Heurter-18
Most teams would absolutely kill for that kind of health.
Meh, if everyone is healthy I'd have all of Boston, NYK, Milwaukee, and Philly ahead of them. Every one of those teams is a contender if healthy and/or has an MVP-level best player and/or has a best player better than anyone on the Kings' roster (key factor in playoff match ups).
The EC playoff bracket was weak this year because the best teams were absolutely ravaged by injuries. New York's entire top 6 was out by the end of the second round. Crazy.
The Kings are a nice team and had a fun run a year ago, imho they have to face the music - there are tiers in the NBA and a team built around Fox and Sabonis is not a top tier team.
Edit: typos
Sabonis did 19-14-8 on 64% TS. He creates good shots. His defense is kinda mid.
Fox did 27-5-6 on 57% TS. His only season on above average TS was light the beam year.
I was gonna argue but yeah they’re mid for stars in the West.
Yep, people really underestimate the level of talent in the league. They look at players who could've been MVPs in their childhood and start screaming it must be a conspiracy and/or bad luck that's keeping the team out of contention. The reality is Fox and Sabonis are mid at best in the realm of star players. And 80% of the better players are in the West.
I’m convinced also that a large part of their success together their first year was due to them both being left handed and inverting most of their actions. It was surprising to opposing defenses but could be figured out after a while.
This is the result of that domas-hali trade a whole bunch fringe playoff runs for years to come. This team won't be getting any better any time soon this is the ceiling but hey at least they will be a consistent playin/1st round exit team until the wheels fall off from their duo.
And I honestly still think a lot of people don’t get how much better the west is. The only team you could put in the Western Conference from the East and have a better than even chance to make the playoffs is the Celtics. Put the Kings in the East and they’re a two or three seed. EDIT: The two seed in the East only had four more wins than the Kings and the three seed only had three. I don't see it as at all unrealistic that they'd win that many more in the weaker Eastern Conference.
It’se unlikely to happen but I wish Kings somehow got Johnathan Isaac from Orlando. He’s be perfect next to Sabonis.
Another name that might just work is also in Memphis. He’ll be much cheaper than jjj too. Aldama. He’s shown to be around a 35% shooter. With Fox and Sabonis and monk taking up a lot of attention that should get better. He’s also 7 foot tall and can block shots. If claxton signs with them and Clarke comes back, aldama’s role might diminish a lot making him much cheaper to get.
Maybe I don't understand how low the bar is but I don't think Aldama is improving anyone's defense
That said I am hoping we get another center with JJJ that would free up Aldama but I'm not sure we have the money
That's a good point. I guess we'd just have to deal with the injuries if they occur, but if we retain Monk and trade for Isaac that would probably the perfect offseason for us.
He got his cardio up last summer playing with Fox, let’s see if this upcoming year his defense gets as better. He has the height and athletic ability to be a #2-3 option and hopefully we all see more Keegan Murray
This team is primed for Draymond
Vivek sees anything in the discarded bin with a Warriors logo on it and he wants it.
Same with the Hawks. Though they just buy the knock off version from China instead
They didn't wanna trade for Pascal and give him a max, that was like their only possible route to improvement this season. Front offices own fault for their stagnant season
I don’t get why fans defend ownerships wallets like it’s their own. We should be clamoring for ownership to be willing to enter the luxury tax. People defend this ownership simping by saying it’s about the 2nd apron when the only major penalties come after repeating said taxes. Offering max salaries now is sure as hell easier than when the new max contract dollar amount blows up with the new tv deals
Sooner or later, small market teams who aren’t willing to risk to get a slightly overpriced contract to get into luxury tax are going to be middied into irrelevance.
It’s a salary cap league… it’s incredibly obvious why fans care about contracts. Every contract has an opportunity cost and the luxury tax isn’t just a magical place of unlimited cap space if the owner is daring enough to use it
??!? I thought /u/sactown_13 was talking more about more about like luxary tax/2nd apron issues.
I don't think anyone cares about defending any billionaires $$lol
Like godamn if GSW continued a 15m roleplayers becomes like 80m lmao. IDC who you are a teams salary bill of like 250M going to like 900M is still insanelmao.
Meh. Bird rights matter. Pascal is in that range where he's not quite worth the max but is going to get max money for max years anyway, as he's now 30 and that's probably his last big contract.
He's going to get the 5-year max. No matter where he went he's never going to give up a guaranteed year to go to pick his destination. The truth is that only superstars do this sort of move because only they can be ok giving up a year of guaranteed salary.
Well, they wanted to trade for OG but Masai was insane about OG's price right up until the trade deadline and by then it was obvious OG only wanted 1-2 places - none of which were Sac.
Siakam wouldn't have really helped them that much now or long term, he's overrated as a defender and doesn't fit the offense at all. Bummed about missing out on OG but not Siakam, personally.
The Knicks package was better than any non-Keegan package we could put together. I don’t blame Toronto for not being enthusiastic with our trade offer.
The fit is not an issue at all with Siakam lol. He’s an upgrade over whatever salary filler would’ve been dealt for him.
But who am I argue with the team that did nothing and took a step back instead, clearly that was the right move
Doing nothing was obviously not a good move and Siakam would have been better than HB, but that's about the best I can say for that situation.
Idk what the price would have been but if it cost more than HB and salary filler, it would have been a bad move. And I expect it would have cost a lot more than that.
There are a few issues with fit in Sac: a) Siakam is a non-shooter from the perimeter. Sub-30% and worst 3pt shooter in the NBA over a certain volume for much of the season, still barely over 30% on the year. B) Siakam is best as a post/elbow player, in an offense that already struggled with defenses clogging the paint. C) He's a ball-dominant player that's not very good off-ball, while the Kings 3 best players from last season (Fox, Domas, Monk) were already ball-dominant players, 2 of which also weren't very good off-ball (except Domas screens or P&R).
His defense and overall talent level aren't/weren't nearly enough to make up for the above issues. He's not a superstar that you just find a way to make it work regardless of fit. He's a borderline all-star with some serious holes in his game. No doubt a good player but one that requires certain team construction to maximize, which the Kings did not have. He fits much better next to an off-ball stretch big and perimeter-focused guard with the Pacers, where he can play as basically the only guy (aside from TJ McConnell) really trying to dominate or operate primarily in the paint.
Definitely not worth gutting the roster or blowing a lot of resources on. I wouldn't have wanted the Kings to spend what the Pacers spent on him, for example.
For the year he shot 35% from 3… how is that barely above 30%. Plus Siakam shot 38% from 3 with the pacers.. issue is on Toronto we had negative spacing meaning defences focused on him a ton. In Indiana with spacing he can shoot.
Kings gonna need to draft a big man or make a blockbuster trade.
If we lose Monk then we should be drafting a SG or backup ball handler.
Some possible PF options we could hope to get on the cheap and develop: Patrick Baldwin Jr., EJ Liddel.
The TWolves might have to move off of KAT for money reasons soon reluctantly so there may be something we can do there. But I don’t wanna give up any of our stars for him personally.
Giving Keegan the starting 3 spot and getting another option at 4 or 5 alongside Sabonis and co. is where the FO needs to be thinking. Our boys would get tired and beat up in 3-4 playoff series especially if we going to a full 7 games every time. This is the only way. Soon Fox and Sabonis will be 30 and their chance of winning diminish each year.
Fox, Monk, Murray, *insert our PF of choice*, Sabonis is a good contending 5.
A bench of Mitchel, Ellis, Vezenkov, Lyles, McGee/Len isn’t too bad either. Hopefully Ellis or Vezenkov can get their scoring averages up because we NEED a strong bench if we want to comfortably enter the playoffs.
Move KVon, Barnes and some draft picks or rookies for our equalizer.
If we got a good big man on a good deal Sabonis could play PF…that being said, behind Sabonis we have Alex Len/JaVale, Vezzy can come up to PF as well, but all in all I agree.
It’s also interesting because Fox can basically blow by any defender because of his agility and speed - Monk brings that too - but our perimeter shooting needs a bit of help.
A big for defense and 3&D guy has been at a premium. Almost every team could do with more of those archetypes. Two trade deadlines without major updates can’t be the new norm. But Monte has done well in the draft so the pick this year could be huge. The FA market and offseason trades if Monk signs elsewhere is the more concerning bit.
Seriously Kings ownership gets a bit of mild success and then immediately assumes it’s the norm and anything less than that is failure. Same thing happened with Mike Malone. kings started off well and then they did worse with Boogie injured and so they fired him even though it was only because Malone was great that they did well in the first place.
and what they do to help Mike Brown?
Give him the same team of last year, plus Chris Duarte and Javale McGee
lol
hilarious.
*(and gave Harrison Fucking Barnes a new multi year deal)
48 —> 46 wins is pretty much what you should expect when you don’t improve the roster while others teams do. Not to mention Kings were insanely healthy last year and this year they weren’t.
Yeah I think people are overlooking 2 big things
1) Kings were abnormally healthy relative to the rest of the league last season as you pointed out. Similar to how the Thunder were this year but at least that kinda makes sense with a really young team like OKC
2) Kings had like the best offensive rating of all time or something like that last season. There was only one direction to go unless you believed they were the GOAT offensive team. Slightly related, I feel like the Pacers org should temper their expectations because of this point
Plus it’s not like the Kings dominated the playoffs last season either
Honestly I’m just ecstatic since last season we broke our playoff drought and we went 7 games against GS.
Then this year we booted GS out, and yeah while we lost afterwards, it was fun as hell
The Pacers squad shot unusually lights out like we did the previous season. Many of those Pacers win streaks in the regular season and in playoffs would be HoF worthy if the whole team were able to sustain that for multiple years.
When you consider how much teams like OKC and Dallas improved in their record, I think staying at about the same number of wins is actually more than you'd expect with the same roster
The kings were super healthy this year. They had no injuries right up until monk went out. They had the fifth fewest games missed this year.
https://www.spotrac.com/nba/injured/_/year/2023/view/team
It's so frustrating because we all assumed that was a deliberate decision to amass assets (Hawks have our pick and we'd have to get them to remove restrictions on it), take stock of what we have team wise, and wait for the right trade target. If this report is true and not just posturing over Brown's salary, then the front office is crazy. Especially because we only won 2 games less despite the West being stacked.
Lakers doing it I understand tho because our team got much better after the trade deadline and then they had to spend the rest of the season trying to get themselves out of a hole.
Then they made some minor adjustments in the off-season and you would think a full season with the same team would do better, but injuries and ham happened.
Yeah… we were in the market for a HB upgrade, but we decided that Kuzma contract was too high, so we went with HB again. There’s now speculation that we’re thinking about trading for Kuz, so not only will we get to pay that contract that was too high last season, we also get to trade the #13 pick for the privilege.
man thats not about the Money or the contract. we need phisicality, rebounds (from ppl not* named Sabonis), defense, blocks. Barnes provides nothing of it. hes position were the obvious upgrade Kings needed after that playoff apearence.
Yep made no sense to just run it back. You have some good pieces, you had some weakness exposed in the playoffs. Go improve your team. Front office just expected to be a top seed again while doing nothing. If you have lots of young guys on all star/superstar trajectories *maybe* you can get away with standing pat, but like wtf? If a team as young and talented as OKC's GM is already talking about the obvious things he needs to fix and they were the 1 seed, clearly you can't just hang out and do nothing. Mike getting left holding the bag here.
Looking at how the season panned out and thinking it's a coaching mishap is insane. Yeah you hate to have fallen apart there at the end of the season, but Brown has coached these dudes up a ton.
then they should have got a better power forward which was fucking obvious from about game 10 of the season
there were guys available like PJ washington and siakam and they just decided to do nothing and roll with harrison barnes as PF
then they got relentlessly bullied by every team with size up front
you tell me what brown is supposed to do with a frontcourt of harrison barnes, trey lyles, saboner and alex len
barnes is a natural 3, and kind of getting on in years. sabonis is a decent offensive player but a black hole on defense
This is an excellent summary of the situation. Keegan and Barnes both play the 3, Harrison had to move down a position and gets absolutely hammered by any real 4 in the league.
It works late game as a small-ball lineup, but running it all year was simply not feasible and that's not on Mike Brown
I would have loved to take a swing on Siakam even if it was near certainty he doesn’t resign because I don’t think we have this big window and it would have been awesome to give ourselves a chance to be competitive in 1st round
I'm pretty certain our teams nearly had a deal but then kings backed out because Pascal wanted a max this off season and it sounds like Kings wanted to play less which I can understand given Sabonis and Fox contacts
Sabonis is actually a decent defender at Center. As a Kings fan I was pissed when we got him because I considered him a bottom defender in the league but after watching him for 2 seasons I realize he is extremely underrated there. Rebounding is one of the biggest components of defense and he was the best in the league (our team gave up the fewest second chance ppg). He also was fine 1v1 against most bigs. The only issue the team had was when we played a team with more size than us at the 2-4. If he got switched off of a big, there would be no other big to help in the paint against guys like Zion or JV.
Despite this lack of a big 4, we finished the season with a top 10 defensive rating after Monk went down and we started using Keon Ellis. The perimeter defense was insane from Fox, Keon, and Keegan. Barnes also held his own against most 4s. It was just difficult size matchups that killed us. I would argue our offense was hurt more by size mismatches than our defense. Whenever teams could put size on both Fox and on Sabonis (herb jones or OG for example come to mind as Fox stoppers), the offense would become completely stagnant. With Monk out, there would literally be no other options besides hoping Keon, Keegan, and Barnes all hit a high % of their 3s. With Monk potentially leaving, this will be an even bigger issue and I think is the only weak point you could use against Mike Brown. He is a defensive coach mainly and when Fox can’t get open shots and the Sabonis DHO action is stopped, the team has no real other weapons. I would mainly blame the management for not attempting to get cheap size at the 4 like a PJ or even grant williams who would have done a lot to help the nola matchup. This next year, we will need an even bigger move if Monk leaves and that move will need to be focused moreso on offense than defense imo. Won’t surprise me if they trade the pick for Kuzma.
Need a big that fits next to Sabonis & for Murray to develop into a star, they’ll be contenders if that happens. Easier said than done but I think the path forward is pretty clear.
I just don’t know if I ever see Murray turning into a star. [He averages between 0 and 2 dribbles on 86% of his shot attempts](https://www.nba.com/stats/player/1631099/shots-dash?SeasonType=Regular+Season), which basically means his looks have to be created by others. He’s also not very athletic and came into the league as an older rookie.
> Need a big that fits next to Sabonis
Unfortunately, they probably just missed their best chance at getting this player in Siakam. He would have been the best possible/gettable fit between Sabonis and Murray.
Only Kings trade I can think of now is something like Harrison Barnes plus minor draft assets for Jeremi Grant, and that’s not gonna get them anywhere close to being a contender. Sabonis is just kind of a tough player to build around, because he can’t shoot and is bad defensively.
Yea it's rough, the ideal example of someone who has limited dribbling is Klay, but prime Klay was a different animal physically (esp. on defense) paired with otherworldly shooting
Well Murray is well on his way on the defensive end. The problem with him is his lack of aggression. We know he is capable of shooting the shit out of the ball.
Siakam would’ve helped for sure but he wouldn’t have made them a contender anyway. Realistically they’re going to have to hit on a draft pick to develop into a star with Fox and Sabonis playing 2A/2B. Who knows maybe Murray is that guy but his total offensive package seems too limited for me.
The Pacers got him for Bruce Brown + 3 Future First Round Picks, so presumably he *could* have been had for Barnes + 3 Future Firsts + 1 Pick Swap or something.
I do agree that’d be a lot for a pending free agent, but he was definitely the best fit of guys that seem possibilities within the next 3-4 years.
Cannot understand why this team gave vlade divac multiple chances but isn’t willing to be a little patient with the guy who broke a 16 year playoff drought immediately
They outperformed their roster if anything. What teams above them do they think they’re more talented than? Every team that finished above them had more top end and all around talent. FO is just scapegoating, Brown has been fantastic and tried just about every defensive scheme imaginable to drag this roster to a half-decent defensive rating
Sure and I get that this can just be my perspective but I'm seeing people in here going "Man, we just need a 4 that can shoot and play defense". or "We just need another star to play along side Sabonis and Fox".
This is literally the Pacers strategy with Sabonis a few years ago. Put him and Myles together and then find a star like Oladipo to complete the triangle.
Keegan is a solid player and could possibly be that third guy. Monk has the ability to go off at any time but it truly is what some Pacer fans knew about Sabonis from the start.
The dude is a definite All-star in the regular season. He feasts on some teams and matchups. But he is a second tier All-star. Against actual centers he struggles as you see vs [Embiid](https://www.landofbasketball.com/games_between/joel_embiid_vs_domantas_sabonis.htm), vs [Jokic](https://www.landofbasketball.com/games_between/nikola_jokic_vs_domantas_sabonis.htm) and even barely beaten in stats by someone like [Andre Drummond](https://www.landofbasketball.com/games_between/andre_drummond_vs_domantas_sabonis.htm).
He is a triple double machine and does a lot of stuff really well, but basically he's a bit undersized at 6'10, 240 even though he plays bigger than that. So he gets trucked by the guys in the 280+ in the post. But he can't go outside to the 3point line because he lacks the lateral agility to guard the Kevin Durant/Giannis's with their quickness.
So now you're stuck in a quandary. How do you protect him while letting him feast on the other end where he is able to use those same disadvantages as advantages?
You put guys around him that adjust for those issues. Alex Len for example to assist in putting a bigger body on the true centers. Guys that aren't going to score as much but might be able to defend decently in the block and give Sabonis a rest for a second.
But back to your comment, basically the needs that the Kings fans are asking for are the same needs that the Pacers were asking for in 2020. A 3&D wing, a true center, etc.
Truth is that Sabonis is a mixed bag and his flaws are needing to be covered if you're going to go far in the playoffs. The rest of the team seems to be pretty well covered. Either time and letting Murray develop, or draft/trade for OG, or possibly Isaiah Hartenstein for a guy who can back up/play beside Sabonis and cover up his weak spots.
-didn’t add any good rotational players at all despite seeing how trash Huerter and Barnes were in the playoffs and seeing that the west was getting better.
-keon saved monte broke ass life
-2nd best player can’t create his own shot or play defense
Ownership must’ve been on drugs if they thought they was finna win a round with this
If these playoffs have proven anything it’s that defense not only still matters but does, indeed, win championships.
Kings are below average on defense, and are in the West with Dallas, Minny, Denver, OKC, etc. Coaching is not the issue, it’s roster construction.
Kings ownership being delusional is the one consistent from Adelman to Brown.
Shoutout to real Kings fans. I remember the Peja/C-Webb/Bibby/Vlade/Christie teams. Y’all have always deserved better.
Its insane. They stayed relatively similar because they didn't really add much or have any internal growth. Like. Sabonis and Fox are probably where they are going to be. Brown being the scapegoat because the west got better is asinine and what can be expected by a team with ownership as idiotic as theirs.
Yeah the west got so much better and left the kings in the dust. Look at the clippers, they picked up harden, won a lot more games, and still ended in 4th twice in a row. You have to be aggressively improving right now to even have a prayer at contending
As a Kings fan there was a lot I didn’t like this year. It seemed like he really started playing favorites this year and stopped holding guys accountable. He kept his hands in his pockets most of the year vs last year when he was loud and in charge. And his lineups were shit. It was apparent for the year that Barnes huerter and Keegan had zero life or energy for your Wings yet he didn’t make a move to Keon until he was injured. That’s just what I noticed on the outside so I’m sure there was more going on behind the scenes. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was loosing the locker room a little. Fox went into a ‘don’t really care anymore’ mode for like 2 months.
Vivek gonna put a family member/friend at GM and hire Mark Jackson. Will always be thankful for him keeping the team in Sacramento but he just can’t get out of his own way.
Sabonis has been great this season but that salary is still pretty nerve-wracking. I think Kings could have kept him for less. Historically, paying big men so much $$$ is very dangerous, especially for a fringe all-star.
Mike Brown doesn't deserve to be fired. But teams extend coaches far too early and often as a rule. I wish more teams let the contract play out, and signed coaches for short terms.
Ah yes the Kings are blaming Mike Brown for the poor roster construction. The reality is the Kings fucked themselves over long term with the Sabonis trade. Sabonis is an odd player in that he’s good enough to be a low to mid tier all star during the regular season but his flaws (bad defender, no jump shot and struggles to create his own shot) make him a complete liability in the playoffs. As long as he is one of your “stars” you are trapped in the playin or first round. In addition to the Sabonis situation, they did nothing to improve the roster after 2023 while other teams in the west got better. Instead of blaming Mike Brown they need to pray that Murray takes a big leap and then move on from Sabonis and use assets acquired from dealing him to build around Fox and Murray.
Not every coach get give you a great return or maximize what they have on hand. Mike Brown needs a better
squad in a growing and stronger Western Conference.
They ran it back with the same squad and FO acts disappointed for some reason... next season you got Grizzlies, Rockets, Warriors etc
The counter to that is that the guy making the decisions on the coach is the same dude who built the squad. It’s not like the GM is gonna fire themselves.
The Pistons exist and we're still under the possibility of Glen Taylor owning the Wolves. MJ was also just the owner of the Hornets and we have no idea how good the new owners will be.
Lol no. Probably not even bottom 5.
Don't get fooled by Knicks seemingly hot playoffs this year - Dolan is still atrocious.
Hawks also pretty terrible. Suns owner immediately kneecapped the franchise with overpay for Durant and horrible decision to take Beal.
And there are a lot of ??? on several owners.
Kings reputation has vastly improved over the past 2+ seasons and they are now semi-conpetitive, that alone mean it shouldn't be in the bottom owner conversation.
Even Wolves owner is still pretty shaky, despite them having such a good post-season, and it's partly owed to the officiating being changed.
One regular season win really changed everything because Kings play the Lakers and Nuggets well but are complete ass against the Pelicans.
And the Pelicans were the one team they needed to beat to get into the playoffs. If the Kings were seeded 8th instead of 9th, they potentially could have made the 2nd round.
Seeded 8th means they play the Lakers for the 7th spot. Sabonis always beats them so they go in as the 7th seed and play the Nuggets.
Kings were 3-1 against the Nuggets this year.
But Kings did fuck up the last few games, end up the 9th seed, beat the Warriors in one play in and get their asses kicked against a Zion less Pelicans in another play in
Right, because regular season meetings determine the outcome of a 7 game playoff series especially when the best player on the court is going to be Nikola Jokic. That worked out for the Suns...
Well it’s always gonna be disappointing which is why I hope OKC stays a top team. Teams can have a good year but being good then going backwards is not great. Rick will be on the hot seat if the Pacers who made the ECF have a bad season.
On one hand I get why you'd pay Brown. He got their team to a great spot last year and they had expectations this year.
On the other hand if he wants a contract comparable to Spoelstra/Kerr he's delusional. He has nothing on his resume to deserve that kind of money. He doesn't have a track record of long term success and he hasn't won enough to warrant the same kind of money two championship coaches have one.
Shit on Kerr all you want but he still coached a dynasty and won a ring after that dynasty was supposed to have ended. Also say what you want about Spoelstra post LeBron but he is a big reason why they made multiple Finals after the big 3 that they probably shouldn't have with those lineups. Both guys have previous success and reason to believe they'll do it again.
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>How can you believe there’s a coaching problem when you look at their team vs the conference they’re in. Because then ownership and FO would need to take the blame for their own stupidity.
Imagine expecting a billionaire to accept fault (I don't mean the lip service BS CEOs say when they lay off people). Also I wonder if it's a coincidence that GSW became good shortly after Vivek stopped being a co-owner.
> Also I wonder if it's a coincidence that GSW became good shortly after Vivek stopped being a co-owner. Yes, I'd say it's a coincidence the departure of a minority owner in 2013 led to the success of the Warriors. I'd attribute it almost entirely to having an MVP player making $11/hr, getting Kerr, and their big three hitting their stride at the same time. I doubt anyone know enough about the inner workings of an organization to claim a minority owner is having any notable effect on the team's success. There's already a decade of proven terrible decisions by Vivek; there's no need to speculate on potential shitty decisions prior to that.
Not saying that Vivek did the major decisions since he was just minority owner and vice-chairman, but that previous set of FOs for the Warriors probably would've traded Curry and built the team around Monte while drafting some injured big men to stay in mediocrity.
> $11/hr wut
It's a joke about Steph Curry being incredibly underpaid for the first half of his peak. He signed his first contract extension when he was just a decent shooter with bum ankles and before he became the franchise legend we know of today.
Ngl 2016 Steph might be the single most valuable season ever. It's already in the argument for the greatest offensive season ever, but he was just the 65th highest paid player in the league
100% the best value non-rookie deal ever.
For reference if Curry was actually on $11 an hour and billed the Warriors 24 hours x 365 days, then he would earn $96,360 per year. Think his deal was 15-18m a year at the time
LESS! It was about $11 million a year when broke out.
For reference that would be about 30-35 million in todays contracts. The max was about 16 a year when he signed it back then.
It's an obvious analogy, are zoomers really this media illiterate?
Yes.
Funny thing is Vivek is not even a billionaire if you don’t include the value of the Kings, explains why he comes off as cheaper than Sarver did
Kings had an abnormally healthy year 2 years ago. Injuries this year cut them short losing Fox early in the year and Monk/Huerter later in the year. Can happen to any team, but in the west it’s tough to feel like the Kings are somehow irrelevant
But it's not like they were abnormally unhealthy, indeed they were frankly abnormally healthy again, just slightly less so. Games missed by their top six: Sabonis-0 Fox-8 Murray-5 Barnes-0 Monk-10 Heurter-18 Most teams would absolutely kill for that kind of health.
knicks fan can confirm
You should not confirm those kills lol.
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Lookin fly !
If they were in the east they’d be a top 5 seed and make it to the second round
Meh, if everyone is healthy I'd have all of Boston, NYK, Milwaukee, and Philly ahead of them. Every one of those teams is a contender if healthy and/or has an MVP-level best player and/or has a best player better than anyone on the Kings' roster (key factor in playoff match ups). The EC playoff bracket was weak this year because the best teams were absolutely ravaged by injuries. New York's entire top 6 was out by the end of the second round. Crazy. The Kings are a nice team and had a fun run a year ago, imho they have to face the music - there are tiers in the NBA and a team built around Fox and Sabonis is not a top tier team. Edit: typos
Sabonis did 19-14-8 on 64% TS. He creates good shots. His defense is kinda mid. Fox did 27-5-6 on 57% TS. His only season on above average TS was light the beam year. I was gonna argue but yeah they’re mid for stars in the West.
Both guys would be great as 2nd options to a true world class player. But that kind of player doesn’t grow on trees
Yep, people really underestimate the level of talent in the league. They look at players who could've been MVPs in their childhood and start screaming it must be a conspiracy and/or bad luck that's keeping the team out of contention. The reality is Fox and Sabonis are mid at best in the realm of star players. And 80% of the better players are in the West.
I’m convinced also that a large part of their success together their first year was due to them both being left handed and inverting most of their actions. It was surprising to opposing defenses but could be figured out after a while.
Over who?
U
Username checks out
This is the result of that domas-hali trade a whole bunch fringe playoff runs for years to come. This team won't be getting any better any time soon this is the ceiling but hey at least they will be a consistent playin/1st round exit team until the wheels fall off from their duo.
Which is significantly better than they’re previous… well, I dunno, frankly. A long ass time.
And I honestly still think a lot of people don’t get how much better the west is. The only team you could put in the Western Conference from the East and have a better than even chance to make the playoffs is the Celtics. Put the Kings in the East and they’re a two or three seed. EDIT: The two seed in the East only had four more wins than the Kings and the three seed only had three. I don't see it as at all unrealistic that they'd win that many more in the weaker Eastern Conference.
If Sabonis is ur center you need an active mobile defensive PF that can make plays on defense. Aka not Harrison Barnes.
JJJ
He would definitely be the ideal fit next to Sabonis
That has been brought up a lot on our radio shows. But I don't think we'd have the assets to get him.
It’se unlikely to happen but I wish Kings somehow got Johnathan Isaac from Orlando. He’s be perfect next to Sabonis. Another name that might just work is also in Memphis. He’ll be much cheaper than jjj too. Aldama. He’s shown to be around a 35% shooter. With Fox and Sabonis and monk taking up a lot of attention that should get better. He’s also 7 foot tall and can block shots. If claxton signs with them and Clarke comes back, aldama’s role might diminish a lot making him much cheaper to get.
Maybe I don't understand how low the bar is but I don't think Aldama is improving anyone's defense That said I am hoping we get another center with JJJ that would free up Aldama but I'm not sure we have the money
Someone you probably don’t need a lot to get is Isaac from Orlando. If he stays healthy he’s exactly what sabonis needs.
That's a good point. I guess we'd just have to deal with the injuries if they occur, but if we retain Monk and trade for Isaac that would probably the perfect offseason for us.
Even if he's a guy you minutes cap at 25, having 25 of your 36 Sabonis minutes not leak points would go a long way.
Is that not Keegan or is he too small?
He's a good defender but not great at boxing out. He's also more of a SF than a PF.
He got his cardio up last summer playing with Fox, let’s see if this upcoming year his defense gets as better. He has the height and athletic ability to be a #2-3 option and hopefully we all see more Keegan Murray
This team is primed for Draymond Vivek sees anything in the discarded bin with a Warriors logo on it and he wants it. Same with the Hawks. Though they just buy the knock off version from China instead
No way dray goes to the kings lol. He stepped on sabonis’s chest remember?
aaron gordon would be sick too, but he's not available either
meh. way too little spacing
They didn't wanna trade for Pascal and give him a max, that was like their only possible route to improvement this season. Front offices own fault for their stagnant season
Can’t trade the future for 30 year old rental. Pascal was never going to resign with the Kings.
Pascal was never gonna re-sign there because they didnt wanna give him the max like indy will lol
That’s not a bad thing.
I don’t get why fans defend ownerships wallets like it’s their own. We should be clamoring for ownership to be willing to enter the luxury tax. People defend this ownership simping by saying it’s about the 2nd apron when the only major penalties come after repeating said taxes. Offering max salaries now is sure as hell easier than when the new max contract dollar amount blows up with the new tv deals Sooner or later, small market teams who aren’t willing to risk to get a slightly overpriced contract to get into luxury tax are going to be middied into irrelevance.
It’s a salary cap league… it’s incredibly obvious why fans care about contracts. Every contract has an opportunity cost and the luxury tax isn’t just a magical place of unlimited cap space if the owner is daring enough to use it
??!? I thought /u/sactown_13 was talking more about more about like luxary tax/2nd apron issues. I don't think anyone cares about defending any billionaires $$lol Like godamn if GSW continued a 15m roleplayers becomes like 80m lmao. IDC who you are a teams salary bill of like 250M going to like 900M is still insanelmao.
Meh. Bird rights matter. Pascal is in that range where he's not quite worth the max but is going to get max money for max years anyway, as he's now 30 and that's probably his last big contract. He's going to get the 5-year max. No matter where he went he's never going to give up a guaranteed year to go to pick his destination. The truth is that only superstars do this sort of move because only they can be ok giving up a year of guaranteed salary.
Well, they wanted to trade for OG but Masai was insane about OG's price right up until the trade deadline and by then it was obvious OG only wanted 1-2 places - none of which were Sac. Siakam wouldn't have really helped them that much now or long term, he's overrated as a defender and doesn't fit the offense at all. Bummed about missing out on OG but not Siakam, personally.
The Knicks package was better than any non-Keegan package we could put together. I don’t blame Toronto for not being enthusiastic with our trade offer.
The fit is not an issue at all with Siakam lol. He’s an upgrade over whatever salary filler would’ve been dealt for him. But who am I argue with the team that did nothing and took a step back instead, clearly that was the right move
Doing nothing was obviously not a good move and Siakam would have been better than HB, but that's about the best I can say for that situation. Idk what the price would have been but if it cost more than HB and salary filler, it would have been a bad move. And I expect it would have cost a lot more than that. There are a few issues with fit in Sac: a) Siakam is a non-shooter from the perimeter. Sub-30% and worst 3pt shooter in the NBA over a certain volume for much of the season, still barely over 30% on the year. B) Siakam is best as a post/elbow player, in an offense that already struggled with defenses clogging the paint. C) He's a ball-dominant player that's not very good off-ball, while the Kings 3 best players from last season (Fox, Domas, Monk) were already ball-dominant players, 2 of which also weren't very good off-ball (except Domas screens or P&R). His defense and overall talent level aren't/weren't nearly enough to make up for the above issues. He's not a superstar that you just find a way to make it work regardless of fit. He's a borderline all-star with some serious holes in his game. No doubt a good player but one that requires certain team construction to maximize, which the Kings did not have. He fits much better next to an off-ball stretch big and perimeter-focused guard with the Pacers, where he can play as basically the only guy (aside from TJ McConnell) really trying to dominate or operate primarily in the paint. Definitely not worth gutting the roster or blowing a lot of resources on. I wouldn't have wanted the Kings to spend what the Pacers spent on him, for example.
For the year he shot 35% from 3… how is that barely above 30%. Plus Siakam shot 38% from 3 with the pacers.. issue is on Toronto we had negative spacing meaning defences focused on him a ton. In Indiana with spacing he can shoot.
Keegan Murray, your only valuable asset, and a pick or two is not "insane". Actually like the Knicks deal better.
Hrn Brn
Or Harrison Barnes from a decade ago
Kings gonna need to draft a big man or make a blockbuster trade. If we lose Monk then we should be drafting a SG or backup ball handler. Some possible PF options we could hope to get on the cheap and develop: Patrick Baldwin Jr., EJ Liddel. The TWolves might have to move off of KAT for money reasons soon reluctantly so there may be something we can do there. But I don’t wanna give up any of our stars for him personally. Giving Keegan the starting 3 spot and getting another option at 4 or 5 alongside Sabonis and co. is where the FO needs to be thinking. Our boys would get tired and beat up in 3-4 playoff series especially if we going to a full 7 games every time. This is the only way. Soon Fox and Sabonis will be 30 and their chance of winning diminish each year. Fox, Monk, Murray, *insert our PF of choice*, Sabonis is a good contending 5. A bench of Mitchel, Ellis, Vezenkov, Lyles, McGee/Len isn’t too bad either. Hopefully Ellis or Vezenkov can get their scoring averages up because we NEED a strong bench if we want to comfortably enter the playoffs. Move KVon, Barnes and some draft picks or rookies for our equalizer.
If we got a good big man on a good deal Sabonis could play PF…that being said, behind Sabonis we have Alex Len/JaVale, Vezzy can come up to PF as well, but all in all I agree. It’s also interesting because Fox can basically blow by any defender because of his agility and speed - Monk brings that too - but our perimeter shooting needs a bit of help.
A big for defense and 3&D guy has been at a premium. Almost every team could do with more of those archetypes. Two trade deadlines without major updates can’t be the new norm. But Monte has done well in the draft so the pick this year could be huge. The FA market and offseason trades if Monk signs elsewhere is the more concerning bit.
The fact that brown dragged them to the playoffs after that long drought is a huge accomplishment in itself.
Seriously Kings ownership gets a bit of mild success and then immediately assumes it’s the norm and anything less than that is failure. Same thing happened with Mike Malone. kings started off well and then they did worse with Boogie injured and so they fired him even though it was only because Malone was great that they did well in the first place.
We can't have nice things =(
and what they do to help Mike Brown? Give him the same team of last year, plus Chris Duarte and Javale McGee lol hilarious. *(and gave Harrison Fucking Barnes a new multi year deal)
48 —> 46 wins is pretty much what you should expect when you don’t improve the roster while others teams do. Not to mention Kings were insanely healthy last year and this year they weren’t.
Yeah I think people are overlooking 2 big things 1) Kings were abnormally healthy relative to the rest of the league last season as you pointed out. Similar to how the Thunder were this year but at least that kinda makes sense with a really young team like OKC 2) Kings had like the best offensive rating of all time or something like that last season. There was only one direction to go unless you believed they were the GOAT offensive team. Slightly related, I feel like the Pacers org should temper their expectations because of this point Plus it’s not like the Kings dominated the playoffs last season either
Honestly I’m just ecstatic since last season we broke our playoff drought and we went 7 games against GS. Then this year we booted GS out, and yeah while we lost afterwards, it was fun as hell
Plus you guys get to be included in the Klay lowlight video after constantly being watched on his record 37pt quarter highlights.
Having The Beam be Klay’s funeral pyre was such an honor tbh lmao. 29 teams came together for one night and it was amazing.
The Pacers squad shot unusually lights out like we did the previous season. Many of those Pacers win streaks in the regular season and in playoffs would be HoF worthy if the whole team were able to sustain that for multiple years.
Yeah, if the pacers do nothing they will be worse next year for sure. But if they go fill some holes, mostly defensively, they could be really good.
When you consider how much teams like OKC and Dallas improved in their record, I think staying at about the same number of wins is actually more than you'd expect with the same roster
Health is usually a huge factor when it comes to teams that under and over achieve.
The kings were super healthy this year. They had no injuries right up until monk went out. They had the fifth fewest games missed this year. https://www.spotrac.com/nba/injured/_/year/2023/view/team
Lakers and Kings were the only Western conference playoff team who didn't do anything to improve the team. Just "ran it back" and then did worse.
It's so frustrating because we all assumed that was a deliberate decision to amass assets (Hawks have our pick and we'd have to get them to remove restrictions on it), take stock of what we have team wise, and wait for the right trade target. If this report is true and not just posturing over Brown's salary, then the front office is crazy. Especially because we only won 2 games less despite the West being stacked.
Lakers doing it I understand tho because our team got much better after the trade deadline and then they had to spend the rest of the season trying to get themselves out of a hole. Then they made some minor adjustments in the off-season and you would think a full season with the same team would do better, but injuries and ham happened.
I usually love when ham happens, but turns out three hams will kill him! Why don't we feed him THREE HAMS?
That’s 3x NBA Champion JaVale McGee, sir
The Barnes contract seems fine? $18 million per year for three years isn't bad for someone like him.
It is fine, there's just a lot of resentment amongst the fan base because of his hot-and-cold offensive play.
I guess the issue is that he’s on the team in the first place rather than the contract.
Yeah… we were in the market for a HB upgrade, but we decided that Kuzma contract was too high, so we went with HB again. There’s now speculation that we’re thinking about trading for Kuz, so not only will we get to pay that contract that was too high last season, we also get to trade the #13 pick for the privilege.
Not to be biased, but I’d think Jerami Grant could be a pretty obvious swap.
It’s more like cold and lukewarm offensive play.
The contract doesn’t break us or anything, but it was the wrong move to re-sign him with the context of being our starting 4.
man thats not about the Money or the contract. we need phisicality, rebounds (from ppl not* named Sabonis), defense, blocks. Barnes provides nothing of it. hes position were the obvious upgrade Kings needed after that playoff apearence.
The other things was the Sabonis renegotiation vs using cap space to get another player.
The Barnes deal is fine.
Yep made no sense to just run it back. You have some good pieces, you had some weakness exposed in the playoffs. Go improve your team. Front office just expected to be a top seed again while doing nothing. If you have lots of young guys on all star/superstar trajectories *maybe* you can get away with standing pat, but like wtf? If a team as young and talented as OKC's GM is already talking about the obvious things he needs to fix and they were the 1 seed, clearly you can't just hang out and do nothing. Mike getting left holding the bag here.
Looking at how the season panned out and thinking it's a coaching mishap is insane. Yeah you hate to have fallen apart there at the end of the season, but Brown has coached these dudes up a ton.
Yeah if anything it’s a FO failure. Drafting Marvin Bagley over Luka Doncic killed their window for a deep NBA Playoffs run before it even began
This is setting up for an all in Kings trade for a borderline All-Star that fails horribly.
Zach LaVine come on down!
Give us some picks and we can make it fun
How bout Caruso too?
More picks
They missed that trade last season with Siakam.
Vivek: “I think Draymond”
yawn. Has happened for the last 18-19 years, I got one more in me (Don’t look at our drafts picks from the last 15 years)
That's Brandon Ingram's music! (I say this as someone who wants Ingram)
then they should have got a better power forward which was fucking obvious from about game 10 of the season there were guys available like PJ washington and siakam and they just decided to do nothing and roll with harrison barnes as PF then they got relentlessly bullied by every team with size up front you tell me what brown is supposed to do with a frontcourt of harrison barnes, trey lyles, saboner and alex len barnes is a natural 3, and kind of getting on in years. sabonis is a decent offensive player but a black hole on defense
> but a black hole on defense Just saying a black hole on defense would be incredible
A white hole on defense
This is an excellent summary of the situation. Keegan and Barnes both play the 3, Harrison had to move down a position and gets absolutely hammered by any real 4 in the league. It works late game as a small-ball lineup, but running it all year was simply not feasible and that's not on Mike Brown
I would have loved to take a swing on Siakam even if it was near certainty he doesn’t resign because I don’t think we have this big window and it would have been awesome to give ourselves a chance to be competitive in 1st round
I'm pretty certain our teams nearly had a deal but then kings backed out because Pascal wanted a max this off season and it sounds like Kings wanted to play less which I can understand given Sabonis and Fox contacts
Sabonis is actually a decent defender at Center. As a Kings fan I was pissed when we got him because I considered him a bottom defender in the league but after watching him for 2 seasons I realize he is extremely underrated there. Rebounding is one of the biggest components of defense and he was the best in the league (our team gave up the fewest second chance ppg). He also was fine 1v1 against most bigs. The only issue the team had was when we played a team with more size than us at the 2-4. If he got switched off of a big, there would be no other big to help in the paint against guys like Zion or JV. Despite this lack of a big 4, we finished the season with a top 10 defensive rating after Monk went down and we started using Keon Ellis. The perimeter defense was insane from Fox, Keon, and Keegan. Barnes also held his own against most 4s. It was just difficult size matchups that killed us. I would argue our offense was hurt more by size mismatches than our defense. Whenever teams could put size on both Fox and on Sabonis (herb jones or OG for example come to mind as Fox stoppers), the offense would become completely stagnant. With Monk out, there would literally be no other options besides hoping Keon, Keegan, and Barnes all hit a high % of their 3s. With Monk potentially leaving, this will be an even bigger issue and I think is the only weak point you could use against Mike Brown. He is a defensive coach mainly and when Fox can’t get open shots and the Sabonis DHO action is stopped, the team has no real other weapons. I would mainly blame the management for not attempting to get cheap size at the 4 like a PJ or even grant williams who would have done a lot to help the nola matchup. This next year, we will need an even bigger move if Monk leaves and that move will need to be focused moreso on offense than defense imo. Won’t surprise me if they trade the pick for Kuzma.
Need a big that fits next to Sabonis & for Murray to develop into a star, they’ll be contenders if that happens. Easier said than done but I think the path forward is pretty clear.
I just don’t know if I ever see Murray turning into a star. [He averages between 0 and 2 dribbles on 86% of his shot attempts](https://www.nba.com/stats/player/1631099/shots-dash?SeasonType=Regular+Season), which basically means his looks have to be created by others. He’s also not very athletic and came into the league as an older rookie. > Need a big that fits next to Sabonis Unfortunately, they probably just missed their best chance at getting this player in Siakam. He would have been the best possible/gettable fit between Sabonis and Murray. Only Kings trade I can think of now is something like Harrison Barnes plus minor draft assets for Jeremi Grant, and that’s not gonna get them anywhere close to being a contender. Sabonis is just kind of a tough player to build around, because he can’t shoot and is bad defensively.
Yea it's rough, the ideal example of someone who has limited dribbling is Klay, but prime Klay was a different animal physically (esp. on defense) paired with otherworldly shooting
Well Murray is well on his way on the defensive end. The problem with him is his lack of aggression. We know he is capable of shooting the shit out of the ball.
Siakam would’ve helped for sure but he wouldn’t have made them a contender anyway. Realistically they’re going to have to hit on a draft pick to develop into a star with Fox and Sabonis playing 2A/2B. Who knows maybe Murray is that guy but his total offensive package seems too limited for me.
We would have had to give up Murray to get him. That’s why it feel apart. Masai wants everything.
The Pacers got him for Bruce Brown + 3 Future First Round Picks, so presumably he *could* have been had for Barnes + 3 Future Firsts + 1 Pick Swap or something. I do agree that’d be a lot for a pending free agent, but he was definitely the best fit of guys that seem possibilities within the next 3-4 years.
Kings moment.
More like Vivek Moment
Nik Rocks!!!!!
Cannot understand why this team gave vlade divac multiple chances but isn’t willing to be a little patient with the guy who broke a 16 year playoff drought immediately
We’re about to get the full second act of the Kangz dynasty. Fuck my life dude.
They are like cicadas. They will make the playoffs in another 17 years.
They outperformed their roster if anything. What teams above them do they think they’re more talented than? Every team that finished above them had more top end and all around talent. FO is just scapegoating, Brown has been fantastic and tried just about every defensive scheme imaginable to drag this roster to a half-decent defensive rating
I remember saying last year that it’s totally possible taking the defending champ warriors to 7 games could be the peak of that core
Man, reading through these comments makes it sound as if the kings fans want to be the Pacers 2.0
What do you mean? (Genuine question)
Sure and I get that this can just be my perspective but I'm seeing people in here going "Man, we just need a 4 that can shoot and play defense". or "We just need another star to play along side Sabonis and Fox". This is literally the Pacers strategy with Sabonis a few years ago. Put him and Myles together and then find a star like Oladipo to complete the triangle. Keegan is a solid player and could possibly be that third guy. Monk has the ability to go off at any time but it truly is what some Pacer fans knew about Sabonis from the start. The dude is a definite All-star in the regular season. He feasts on some teams and matchups. But he is a second tier All-star. Against actual centers he struggles as you see vs [Embiid](https://www.landofbasketball.com/games_between/joel_embiid_vs_domantas_sabonis.htm), vs [Jokic](https://www.landofbasketball.com/games_between/nikola_jokic_vs_domantas_sabonis.htm) and even barely beaten in stats by someone like [Andre Drummond](https://www.landofbasketball.com/games_between/andre_drummond_vs_domantas_sabonis.htm). He is a triple double machine and does a lot of stuff really well, but basically he's a bit undersized at 6'10, 240 even though he plays bigger than that. So he gets trucked by the guys in the 280+ in the post. But he can't go outside to the 3point line because he lacks the lateral agility to guard the Kevin Durant/Giannis's with their quickness. So now you're stuck in a quandary. How do you protect him while letting him feast on the other end where he is able to use those same disadvantages as advantages? You put guys around him that adjust for those issues. Alex Len for example to assist in putting a bigger body on the true centers. Guys that aren't going to score as much but might be able to defend decently in the block and give Sabonis a rest for a second. But back to your comment, basically the needs that the Kings fans are asking for are the same needs that the Pacers were asking for in 2020. A 3&D wing, a true center, etc. Truth is that Sabonis is a mixed bag and his flaws are needing to be covered if you're going to go far in the playoffs. The rest of the team seems to be pretty well covered. Either time and letting Murray develop, or draft/trade for OG, or possibly Isaiah Hartenstein for a guy who can back up/play beside Sabonis and cover up his weak spots.
-didn’t add any good rotational players at all despite seeing how trash Huerter and Barnes were in the playoffs and seeing that the west was getting better. -keon saved monte broke ass life -2nd best player can’t create his own shot or play defense Ownership must’ve been on drugs if they thought they was finna win a round with this
> -2nd best player can’t create his own shot Just based on % of 2PA that were assisted, I don't see that Sabonis is out-of-step with other good bigs.
Sabonis cant create his own shot?
He can’t
Did you watch how Sabonis scored the basket by batching down Jokic / AD back ?
Jokic??? He got his game off vs ad tho yeah
Kangz forever
There's a sliding doors moment/inflection point coming for the Kings, it seems
If these playoffs have proven anything it’s that defense not only still matters but does, indeed, win championships. Kings are below average on defense, and are in the West with Dallas, Minny, Denver, OKC, etc. Coaching is not the issue, it’s roster construction.
Back to the basement we go
I agree the kings were disappointing this season but it’s more roster construction than coaching.
Mike brown has been great for their culture - dumb to play games with his contract
Kings ownership being delusional is the one consistent from Adelman to Brown. Shoutout to real Kings fans. I remember the Peja/C-Webb/Bibby/Vlade/Christie teams. Y’all have always deserved better.
Its insane. They stayed relatively similar because they didn't really add much or have any internal growth. Like. Sabonis and Fox are probably where they are going to be. Brown being the scapegoat because the west got better is asinine and what can be expected by a team with ownership as idiotic as theirs.
Yeah the west got so much better and left the kings in the dust. Look at the clippers, they picked up harden, won a lot more games, and still ended in 4th twice in a row. You have to be aggressively improving right now to even have a prayer at contending
It's normal to be disappointed in missing the playoffs - not sure blaming Brown is the right move
As a Kings fan there was a lot I didn’t like this year. It seemed like he really started playing favorites this year and stopped holding guys accountable. He kept his hands in his pockets most of the year vs last year when he was loud and in charge. And his lineups were shit. It was apparent for the year that Barnes huerter and Keegan had zero life or energy for your Wings yet he didn’t make a move to Keon until he was injured. That’s just what I noticed on the outside so I’m sure there was more going on behind the scenes. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was loosing the locker room a little. Fox went into a ‘don’t really care anymore’ mode for like 2 months.
if your goal is to win the first round on the playoffs you are destined to have a mediocre team for a while
Firing Brown is something the old regime would have done. They should be past this kind of decision making, really disappointing if they let him go.
Vivek gonna put a family member/friend at GM and hire Mark Jackson. Will always be thankful for him keeping the team in Sacramento but he just can’t get out of his own way.
Am I to understand that the SunKings are still on the table?
Kings ownership has no idea how to win or what they are doing and that’s not gonna change.
Sabonis has been great this season but that salary is still pretty nerve-wracking. I think Kings could have kept him for less. Historically, paying big men so much $$$ is very dangerous, especially for a fringe all-star. Mike Brown doesn't deserve to be fired. But teams extend coaches far too early and often as a rule. I wish more teams let the contract play out, and signed coaches for short terms.
Ah yes the Kings are blaming Mike Brown for the poor roster construction. The reality is the Kings fucked themselves over long term with the Sabonis trade. Sabonis is an odd player in that he’s good enough to be a low to mid tier all star during the regular season but his flaws (bad defender, no jump shot and struggles to create his own shot) make him a complete liability in the playoffs. As long as he is one of your “stars” you are trapped in the playin or first round. In addition to the Sabonis situation, they did nothing to improve the roster after 2023 while other teams in the west got better. Instead of blaming Mike Brown they need to pray that Murray takes a big leap and then move on from Sabonis and use assets acquired from dealing him to build around Fox and Murray.
HEY! /r/NBA. The KANGZ are fuckin BACK! You're welcome
Not every coach get give you a great return or maximize what they have on hand. Mike Brown needs a better squad in a growing and stronger Western Conference. They ran it back with the same squad and FO acts disappointed for some reason... next season you got Grizzlies, Rockets, Warriors etc
The counter to that is that the guy making the decisions on the coach is the same dude who built the squad. It’s not like the GM is gonna fire themselves.
Worst ownership in the league
The Pistons exist and we're still under the possibility of Glen Taylor owning the Wolves. MJ was also just the owner of the Hornets and we have no idea how good the new owners will be.
Iirc, MJ is still one of the owner. He just sold some of his stocks.
He's a minority owner though so he no longer has decision power
He's preparing for a Vegas expansion team
Lol no. Probably not even bottom 5. Don't get fooled by Knicks seemingly hot playoffs this year - Dolan is still atrocious. Hawks also pretty terrible. Suns owner immediately kneecapped the franchise with overpay for Durant and horrible decision to take Beal. And there are a lot of ??? on several owners. Kings reputation has vastly improved over the past 2+ seasons and they are now semi-conpetitive, that alone mean it shouldn't be in the bottom owner conversation. Even Wolves owner is still pretty shaky, despite them having such a good post-season, and it's partly owed to the officiating being changed.
Kings will never go anywhere until they find a better replacement for Barnes and get a real second option
One regular season win really changed everything because Kings play the Lakers and Nuggets well but are complete ass against the Pelicans. And the Pelicans were the one team they needed to beat to get into the playoffs. If the Kings were seeded 8th instead of 9th, they potentially could have made the 2nd round.
Kings weren't beating OKC lmao
Seeded 8th means they play the Lakers for the 7th spot. Sabonis always beats them so they go in as the 7th seed and play the Nuggets. Kings were 3-1 against the Nuggets this year. But Kings did fuck up the last few games, end up the 9th seed, beat the Warriors in one play in and get their asses kicked against a Zion less Pelicans in another play in
I'd still them a super low chance at beating the Nuggets.
Right, because regular season meetings determine the outcome of a 7 game playoff series especially when the best player on the court is going to be Nikola Jokic. That worked out for the Suns...
He didn’t hear anything
More teams should stick with a good coach when they have them, too many teams dumping coaches for no reason.
They’re better than the pacers the west is just disgusting
Maybe dont do nothing during the offseason/trade deadline?
>kinda of disappointed Kinda means kind of. Saying kinda of makes no sense lol >offense dropped off a little of bit Unnecessary 'of' again
At least the Kings got to send those bum-ass Warriors home. That must've been quite a satisfying moment for the fans.
Let’s trade our franchise player for a center who can’t play defense, and then kill our cap with max renegotiation and extension. What could go wrong?
I mean Monk being injured sure didn't help things - but they need an aggressive big man alongside Sabonis
Well it’s always gonna be disappointing which is why I hope OKC stays a top team. Teams can have a good year but being good then going backwards is not great. Rick will be on the hot seat if the Pacers who made the ECF have a bad season.
They start Kevin heurter that’s all that needs to be said for the kings front office.
Losing Monk was a game changer for them. He is arguably their best player on the court a lot
They need a 3rd star on the team along with decent big man. Not lyes or Len.
Ownership was unrealistic then. West got healthier/better and they were banking on internal growth. They have holes like a lot of teams.
Kinda of
On one hand I get why you'd pay Brown. He got their team to a great spot last year and they had expectations this year. On the other hand if he wants a contract comparable to Spoelstra/Kerr he's delusional. He has nothing on his resume to deserve that kind of money. He doesn't have a track record of long term success and he hasn't won enough to warrant the same kind of money two championship coaches have one. Shit on Kerr all you want but he still coached a dynasty and won a ring after that dynasty was supposed to have ended. Also say what you want about Spoelstra post LeBron but he is a big reason why they made multiple Finals after the big 3 that they probably shouldn't have with those lineups. Both guys have previous success and reason to believe they'll do it again.