J.J. Hickson officially became the Sacramento Kings first player to start his season, debuting Sunday night for Israel’s Bnei HaSharon/Herzilya against Hapoel Holon. With the growing realization that his exploits might be the only basketball we get from any current Kings for a while, we’re going to give you a weekly summary of J.J.’s international adventure, in what will hopefully be an experience that gives Sacramento a better power forward.

First, let’s start with some background on the team J.J. has joined.

Read more…

DeMarcus Cousins had one of the most intriguing rookie seasons of recent memory. Constant clashes with multiple bodies on and off the court; a knack for both scoring by the bundle and taking shots that even Michael Beasley shakes his head at; a monster both at rebounding the ball and fouling the opposition; unique passing skills for a big man that occasionally translate to assists and occasionally just become turnovers. There is seemingly nothing good that DeMarcus can’t do on a basketball court, but at the same time, he also possesses every negative trait in the book. For him to fulfill the considerable potential that got him drafted, he’s going to have to learn which of those traits he should develop, and which traits he should drop like they were Mike Bibby on a 2011 NBA roster.

At this point it’s pretty clear what DeMarcus can and can’t do. DeMarcus’ offensive game hinges on two things – how close he is to the basket, and how much he dribbles. It’s that simple.

Read more…

In a last minute move before the lockout-imposed deadline, the Kings have decided to solve their self-created logjam at small forward, by trading Omri Casspi and a conditional future first round pick to the Cleveland Cavaliers for J.J. Hickson. Marc Stein, via twitter, has the details regarding the pick:

“Protection specifics on pick going from Kings to Cavs: Protected 1-to-14 in 2012, 1-to-13 in 2013, 1-to-12 in 2014, 1-to-10 from 2015-2017; If first-round pick is not conveyed from SAC to CLE by 2017, then Kings convey their 2017 second-rounder to Cavaliers (protected 56-60)”

As an Israeli Kings’ fan, this hurts, but it makes a lot of sense. Between the re-acquired John Salmons, the previously present Francisco Garcia and Donté Greene, and the newly drafted Tyler Honeycutt, the 3 was by far the Kings’ most crowded position. Meanwhile, Casspi is coming off a second straight season of falling out of the rotation post-January, and has been mired with inconsistency throughout his Kings tenure. If any small forward was to go, it was Omri. With his main competition on the Cavs being… umm… well… yeah, he should be starter from day one, with a young, passing point guard to grow old next to, and a fanbase that could use a high-energy guy such as him. This is a great opportunity for him, even if seeing him leave Sactown is sad.
Read more…

My Dearest Marcus,

Long have I craved for our roundball rendezvous. Ever since those optimistic days of training camp, ripe with hopes of ascension into 30 win range and of beastly monsters by the name of DeMarcus guarding our paint, my love for your skills as a shooter and creator has remained unwavering. Restricted free agency be damned, I wanted you immediately. How marvelous, how grand it is to finally see my fandom entwined with your buckets in a purple jersey, for the price of a free agent to be!

Sadly, since I first alluded to the shipment of Buckets’ buckets to the Kings, the cruel basketball heavens have taken both you and I on a raggedy road of hardships, robbing our reunion of its triumphant glee.

As your new Cowbell comrades saw their season buried in a heap of plantar fasciitis, chemistry issues, immaturity, and terrible defense, fate hasn’t been kind to you as well. Despite last winters expulsion of Byron the Scott (how fulfilling it is to see the rookie-discriminating fiend lean on the likes of Manfred Harris and Christian Eyenga in the cold, cold winters near Lake Erie!), you once again found yourself staring in the eyes of an apathetic coach.

As a ward in the hands of an abusive guardian, you fizzled on the cold, hard bench deep in Louisiana. What god is there, what justice, in a world where you are being held hostage in the menacing grasp of one despicable Montgomery Williams? As your birthright of constantly ecstatic hardwood presence is being sucked away by the Velocious William Green, or Marco Belson Nelson, Marksman of Rome? As the pitiful excuse of “defense” saw you toil away in agony with these lesser souls taking your spot, so went the twinkle in my eye.

I shall not entertain you with an attempt to appear brave, Marcus. Difficulties were abound. As even the most desperate pleas of your fellow Hornets fell silent upon the ears of your captors, the Kings have consistently struggled, specifically in your expertise, ranking 26^th in offensive efficiency. All this while struggling to fill in a backcourt missing Francisco Garcia, or trying to play an injured Tyreke Evans, or giving your potential minutes to the likes of Luther Head. The fit was painfully obvious, and yet painfully distant. The nights, especially, saw me at a state of constant depression. This mostly due to the fact that I live in Israel, and the time difference means that all NBA games take place during nights, but, you know, trying to be poetic here.

And suddenly – huzzah! A beacon of truth and light descends upon us, in the form of a departed Carl Landry and a willing Dell Demps! Make no mistake, dear Marcus, I harbor nothing but love to the outgoing, rugged power forward, but in comparison to you? An excess of mid-range jab steps compared to your joyous, bouncy, off-the-dribble splendor? With Carl competing for minutes with the benevolent Jason Thompson while your main competition figures to be Jermaine Taylor? Oh, happy days, happy days indeed.

I know what they say, Marcus. “He’s the only return for Kevin Martin”, they say, as if you’re to blame for that. “He can’t get through a screen set by a mosquito”, they say, as if getting through screens on defense is some kind of a necessity for a Sacramento basketball player (Beno Udrih knows what I’m talking about).

No, Marcus. Spite and hate may fall from the skies like Kevin Durant jumpers on a warm TNT eve, and I shall not relent. They shall laugh and point at my gullible ways, but their jokes shall be filtered by the pure joy of you taking the court with Pooh Jeter and Omri Casspi, losing by 50, and capturing my heart.

XOXO,
Noam

In Friday’s Weekend Dime over at ESPN, Marc Stein reported the following:

“It wasn’t long ago that Thompson, selected with the No. 12 overall pick in the 2008 draft, and Spencer Hawes were being touted as the Kings’ frontcourt tandem of the future.

Now?

Thompson is averaging just 15.4 minutes per game off the bench and has been shopped by the Kings, who according to one source with knowledge of the talks offered the 6-11, 250-pounder to Atlanta in a deal featuring young point guard Jeff Teague. The Hawks declined.”

This report bugs me quite a lot, and it should bug you too.

First and foremost, I don’t like that the Kings are shopping JT. I know that the frontcourt is loaded, and I fully submit to the line of thinking that despite DeMarcus Cousins’ struggles early on, Jason is the team’s 4^th best big. But why does this necessitate shopping him? Both Samuel Dalembert and Carl Landry are currently playing on expiring deals, and have more value to veteran teams. If you insist on moving a big – which I see no reason to do so early – why not shop one of them, ensure that you don’t lose them for nothing at all after the season, and continue to reap the benefits from Jason’s development? If an offer for Jason blows you away, by all means, take it – the frontcourt is deep enough to offset the loss – but there is a fine line between making one available and all out shopping him.

But fine. Let’s say you love Landry, you love Sammy, Darnell Jackson makes you believe in fairies, and DeMarcus – well, DeMarcus is your future. So you have to move Jason. I disagree with this line of thinking, but I can see where it’s coming from.

Seriously, though – Jeff Teague? That’s your compromise?!

It doesn’t make sense in the short term. Jason is the team’s 4^th or 5^th big man, depending on how Paul Westphal feels about Darnell on a given night. Teague would potentially be the team’s 4^th or 5^th guard, depending on how Paul Westphal feels about Luther Head on a given night.

Except, you know, how Jason’s a much better player.

It doesn’t make sense in the long term. You trade the guy who you hope will be your secondary big man, next to DeMarcus, for the guy who you hope will be your secondary guard, next to Tyreke.

Except, you know, how Jason’s a much better player.

It’s not that I don’t like Teague. I think he could be a serviceable starter down the road. But that’s it. Serviceable starter. And one who would be a far from ideal fit next to Tyreke, too – you want a shooter next to a guy like Reke, while Teague boasts career marks of 39.8% FG and 21.6% 3PT. It should be noted that he shot well at college – 44% from three his final collegiate year – but that 21.6% is way too horrible to make me believe his NBA future holds a scorer’s identity that isn’t of the “slasher” variety. A variety of which you already have a much superior version. And while the high assist ratio (29.0 last year, 31.8 so far this year) is nice, don’t you want Tyreke handling the ball for the next decade anyway?

Jason, on the other hand, already was a serviceable starter. For two years in a row. That Jeff Teague best-case scenario is the Jason Thompson last-year-scenario. He also has the skill set to complement your existing stud – soft mid range touch to DeMarcus’ overpowering inside presence, quick enough to guard 4s but big enough to guard 5s, thus enabling DeMarcus to switch between the two to his more comfortable match-up.

So go ahead and color me puzzled, because I just don’t get the entire way the Kings have been handling Jason this season. I don’t get yanking his minutes around; I don’t get playing him out of position (the 3? Really? You need more reasons to take minutes away from Donte Greene?); I don’t get keeping him on the bench to play inferior players (again, I love D-Block, but come on); and I most certainly don’t get the need to hurt his value by actively pursuing deals that would move him for nothing but raw, second year point guard projects.

The Hawks threw Geoff Petrie a life jacket here by rejecting a deal that, frankly, I don’t think could have been realistically better for them. So there is still plenty of time to return back to the glory days of “Jason is our future!” before it’s too late. Here’s hoping that something of the ilk happens, whether it’s just keeping Jason, or getting someone of equal or superior value for him (I’ve said this before, I’ll say it again – MARCUS THORNTON!), because this is a concerning development in a season that already seems to have too many of them.

So, the Kings have started off their 2010-2011 campaign to relative success. Sure, the wins have come against inferior competition, two of the losses were very winnable, and it’s still very early. But the Kings are at .500, and perhaps more importantly, they’re above .500 on the road. Last season may have created some skepticism when it comes to strong starts, but why not go glass half full?

Of course, we must still remember that this is, in fact, the first week of the season, and as such some of the “trends” we’ve seen so far aren’t trends at all. This is why I’m not going overboard with Tyreke’s seemingly improved shot – mechanics are nice, but I want to see it stick – or why I’m not sinking into a deep depression because Pooh Jeter hasn’t broken into the rotation (it’s more like a light depression).

However, some things have stood out with this incarnation of the Kings, and bare mentioning. Presented in incoherent rambling form:

The Bad

Perimeter defense: Not that we didn’t know this already, but something here has to change. Guys like Ramon Sessions and DeMar DeRozan killed the Kings, getting to the rim time and time again. Not that I don’t like Sessions and DeRozan, but some kind of effort has to be made. The main culprit here has to be Beno, who has done everything but give opposing players mints on their way to the hoop. Beno has been ridiculous on offense so far, so I hate to point out the bad side of the court over the good side of the court, but this has to change. Tyreke, Cisco and Omri have been better than Beno, but that’s obviously not saying much. Which brings me to…

Where are Donte and JT? After a summer long debate, Donte was declared a starter to open the season, but after playing 27 minutes on opening night, he was apparently demoted to a towel boy. This makes absolutely no sense to me. Donte certainly has his flaws, but he’s a young guy with upside on a young team with upside, and the best perimeter defender on a team that, as I mentioned, has struggled greatly in this regard. I don’t mind Omri starting over him, not one little bit, but 4 minutes in 4 games for Donte is a felony.

JT’s story is even weirder. He was expected to be the team’s 4^th big man… only Darnell Jackson’s strong play has bumped him down to 5^th. A drop from his career average of 29 minutes per game was to be expected, but that figure was nearly cut in half. Even worse, he was unimpressive when playing, even though he’s still a defensive improvement over Landry. I’ve warned that this season could cause Jason to stagnate – it’s looking that way right now, and it isn’t good.

I was hoping that after a full season on the job, coach Westphal would stop jerking his team around. So far, it’s been more of the same.

Big men shot selection: DeMarcus Cousins has taken 56 shots so far this season. Only 13 of them have been at the rim. Of those 13 shots, he has made 11. You then have 7 for 21 from inside of 10 feet, and 5 of 22 from 10 feet and beyond, including 6 baffling attempts from three point range.

Carl Landry has displayed a similar thirst for outside shooting, with only 16 of his 73 attempts coming at the rim, and 34 coming from 16 to 23 feet. Of those 34, he has made 13. Even Jason Thompson has attempted a third of his shots (11 of 33) from that dreaded “long two” area.

Big guys. We like that you can make outside shots. But don’t forget what your best skills are. DMC is a monster inside, and Carl has elite post scoring skills. Wasting that away is a damn shame, especially if both started off relatively cold from the outside.

Slow starts: This is very indicative of a young team, but that shouldn’t make it excusable. The Kings are digging holes for themselves early on, and though they may be recoverable against the Torontos and the Clevelands of the league, this is a terrible 82 game strategy. Third quarter surges are nice. It would be even nicer if they came when the Kings were already leading. Hopefully this is something that can be helped by moving Samuel Dalembert into the starting lineup.

The Good

DeMarcus Cousins is a man: There has been foul trouble. There has been bad shot selection. Doesn’t matter. Everything we have been seeing since summer league is for real – the passing, the rebounding (when he’s not distancing himself from the basket by taking long jumpers), the scoring instincts, the willingness to step up in the clutch. 99% of the learning curve is still ahead of us, but it’s good to know that the Kings have the commodity they thought they were drafting.

Beno and Cisco are legit: I won’t point out Cisco’s ridiculous shooting percentages, since they won’t last. Nor will I fret over Beno’s subpar three point shooting. Sample size should always be remembered this early in the season.

However, both players seem very capable of filling in the role of secondary guard next to Reke. Cisco has been brilliant as a scorer and an energizer on defense, leading the team in PER so far. Beno hasn’t been as strong as a scorer due to the shooting slump, but he has been finding his teammates for open shots left and right and steering the ship on offense. The Kings still need a better second guard if they want to return to the league’s elite, but these two are more than good enough in the meantime.

Another strong November for Omri: The real test for Omri this season will be to succeed where he failed last year – and that’s someime around January or February. One worry we can safely cross off our worry list, though, is that Omri’s blazing start to his rookie campain is a fluke. Omri has displayed the shooting stroke that helped him break into the rotation last year, and has seemed more comfortable defensively (he was absolutely everywhere against Cleveland, and not just on offense). Now it’s just a matter of keeping it up.

Role players are emerging: On opening night, it was Luther Head. Against the Nets, it was Darnell Jackson. While it still seems overly optimistic to expect the two to be solid contributors down the road, so far they have both taken their chances and used them to up themselves on the depth chart. If they prove they are here to stay, the Kings just picked up two solid pieces for virtually nothing.

Comebacks: The Kings displayed some of the worst basketball I’ve seen against the Cavs in that first half… but then, in the second, it was like they were a different team. Similar phenomena showed against the Nets, Raptors and Wolves. While giving up early leads sucks, it’s good to see that this team never gives up, and is capable of playing some actual defense every once in while.

Jury still out

Interior defense: Don’t get me wrong – though it hasn’t been as bad as the perimeter defense, the work inside was still terrible. But it has looked much, much stronger with Dalembert in the game, and will look even better once DeMarcus figures out how to challenge shots without fouling. I fully expect this to get better quickly, which is why it gets a pass.

All in all, a cautiously optimistic start to the season. Some problems seem fixable. Others are just the product of a young team trying to get out of the league’s cellar. Any way you look at it, this is a fun team to watch so far, which is really all one can ask for. You know, assuming that ring is still out of reach.

I am well-aware that this article is much more Noam-y than it is Kings-y. If this bothers  you, I will gladly reveal to you the punchline – I am a former Kings fan who was drawn back into the world of Sacramento basketball by a team so fun it makes you believe in unicorns – and send you on your way. However, the punchline as of itself is quite stale. It is the journey that brought me to re-embrace my Kings fanhood that I felt the urge to share with you, this being my first “full” season writing for Cowbell Kingdom. If you would be so kind as to tolerate the ramblings about Israeli sports teams you’ve never heard of and bad attempts at sophisticated jokes, I think you’ll have a better understanding of what the hell I’m doing on this cyberspace, anyhow.

As most sports fans worldwide would probably testify about themselves, the development of my sports fandom is the result and intricate combination of random circumstance and my father.

In college sports, I possess the ever rare double-edged fandom of the Florida Gators and the Ohio State Buckeyes. No, not because of recent success combined with bandwagon tendencies, but because my father’s work led to me spending 3 years of my childhood in Gainesville and 2 in Columbus. In major international soccer competitions – which, by definition, do not include Israeli squads – my allegiance is forever reserved for the Italian teams, after years of Dad teaching me that “the Italians are just so, so nice”. And of course, my one true love, Hapoel Jerusalem (both soccer and basketball), is based in the hometown of both mine and my father’s, and has been a cause of happiness and mental distress for him long before I was present on this planet.

However, as my father constantly laments, my sports education includes one glaring failure: my favorite sport is only second in his hierarchy.

He has only himself to blame. Despite the flaming passion for soccer that he has successfully conveyed to me as well, basketball has been the clear alpha dog in my book ever since my 4^th birthday. That was when, as a present, I was given a small plastic basket, the type you can adjust in height so little kids can dunk on them. Thanks to me, he used it almost as much as I did. Our living room became the scene of some of the world’s greatest one-on-one games, with me assuming the role of Hapoel’s then superstar Adi Gordon (widely considered as the best player ever to play for the team), while Dad would play Gordon’s teammate, Doron Sheffa. As the 4 year old Gordon drove the 32 year old Sheffa into the ground again and again, it was clear that for me, soccer could never rank higher than second.

However, unlike the Israeli basketball league, I was not equipped with an NBA franchise at home. Not that my father wasn’t interested in the NBA – I’ve yet to see him turn down a good NBA game, and he hates the Lakers as much as the rest of us – but once we left the US and returned to Israel, he voluntarily gave up the wear-and-tear of sleepless nights for box scores and recaps.

As such, my NBA fandom was left abandoned, susceptible to the ever-changing impressions of a young child. And who do you like in the NBA when you’re a young child in the late 1990s?

Yup, I was a Bulls fan. Except, I wasn’t really a Bulls fan. I had no association with the red-and-white jerseys, or the past antics of Artis Gilmore. What I loved was that bald dude wearing number 23 who killed everybody else. Not that I didn’t grow to love every other Bull. I loved Pippen’s all around brilliance, the kind clear even to a child; I loved Rodman’s hair, tattoos, and general craziness; I loved just how white Luc Longley was. I especially loved Steve Kerr, for the clutch shooting that helped seal the deal so many times in the playoffs. But MJ was a step above everybody.

But what happens when a little kid who just wants to root for MJ finds himself in an MJ-less world?

Well, in my case, the bizarre answer was rooted in the summer of 1997, and the small town of Davis, California.

The summer of ’97 saw a 6 year old me travel, by van, from our then Columbus home to sunny California, staying for 2 months in Davis before driving all the way back. Not unlike the rest of my life, I remember that trip for the constant basketball occurrences throughout – watching Karl Malone almost singlehandedly tie the finals from my uncle’s home in Rochester, Minnesota, worrying me out of my mind that MJ might just lose; my fears happily slipping away as I watched the Flu game at a Wyoming hotel, knowing then that game 6 will go to Chicago; the kind man at the (then named) Delta Center, who offered my father and me a short, free tour of the Jazz’s legendary arena when we just showed up there to look at it from the outside; and the pink and green plastic courts set outside the aforementioned Delta Center, who witnessed Adi Gordon yet again beating Doron Sheffa in a game of one-on-one.

But the highlight of the trip was, without a doubt, the Sacramento suburb. Maybe it was the vacational vibe, or the fond memory of a young child, but Davis remains one of my favorite places in the world to this day. The ever-present sun, always warm but never relentless, the laid back attitude that leaves you without a care in the world, and of course, Silver Dragon, which has reached legendary status in the Schiller family ranks (I dream of their cashew nut chicken on a nightly basis). My second and third visits to the city are just as magical as the first, and I count on visits 4-through-hopefully-a-lot to live up to the same standard.

More importantly to our Sacramento-basketball related story, it was during this Davis stay that my father took me to the Californian capital to witness my first live, pro ball game. Except that if you’ve been reading until now (if not, I don’t blame you), you’ve probably noticed a glitch: the NBA Finals were over before we arrived at Davis. The Kings don’t play in July.

Indeed, the first time I was in attendence for a professional basketball game (I saw a few college one’s before), the league under which the game took place was the WNBA.

Now, this is the part of the story where the narrative takes a turn to the bizarre, so you’ll just have to believe me that this is how a 6 year old thinks. At the time, I was still all Jordan, all the time. Heck, a few months later, on October 31^st 1997, I went to sleep crying after second year pro Antoine Walker scored 31 points to beat the Bulls on opening night (no amount of “Noam, it’s the first game of the season, it’s all right” could console me). But the seeds were planted. I remember not who the Sacramento Monarchs played when I was in the building (I do remember they won) or the names on the back of the home jerseys, but from that moment on, I had a strong sympathy for all Sacramento basketball teams. I swear, when I found out the Monarchs franchise folded, I was legitimately sad, even if I discovered it something like 2 years after it actually happened.

After Jordan’s second retirement, it only made sense to me that the Kings were now my favorite team. As if to solidify my feelings, the Kings drafted Jason Williams in the 1998 draft. I was in attendence for White Chocolate’s final home game with my beloved Gators, when he scored 26 points off a ridiculous 8 for 12 showing from 3 to defeat Auburn. Even when the Kings traded Jason for Mike Bibby, I remained a King – the franchise had grown on me, and besides, I enjoyed Bibby’s run at Arizona and didn’t mind rooting for him at all. Seems funny saying that today, doesn’t it?

And yet, the foundation was severely weakened by my return to Israel. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to be an underaged NBA fan living 7 time zones away from the East coast of the US in a pre-internet era, but it ain’t pretty. My NBA fandom was pretty much reduced to dial-up-based box score scouring, and the extremely rare occasions when a game was broadcast, and it wasn’t a school night, and I managed to stay awake. This is also the reason that even though I was a Kings fan at the time, I can still hear conversations about the 2002 WCF Game 6 without running away in tears – I loved those early decade Kings teams from the bottom of my heart, but as far as actually experiencing them, I was hardly a part of it.

My re-fanaticization, to invent a word that describes the situation better than any existing one, of the NBA took place during the 03-04 season. I’m not really sure why – if I had to give a reason, I’d say it was a combination of my new school having constant internet access in the library, thus enabling me to go on my box score runs without incapacitating our phone (yeah, laziness made my family kind of late on the technology train), and that NBA Live 2004 was just a really good game (if you disagree, don’t tell me. I realize in retrospect that it may have sucked, and I made the transition to 2K sports like everybody else, but Live 2004 has too many happy memories in my head).

The great thing about my enhanced interest in the NBA in 03-04 was that it coincided with a career year from my favorite King. Peja Stojakovic dominated that campaign, scoring 24 a night on a ridiculous 62% true shooting. If you take nothing else from this post, at least reflect for just a few minutes how damn good Peja used to be. He was by far my favorite player in the league at the time (he was also the first “real” player to join the roster of my imaginary basketball team “The Supers”. Yeah, I kind of wish you didn’t read that), and never truly recovered from the recurring back injuries, but before he was dead weight on the Hornets, this dude was the truth.

Sadly, this wasn’t to last. I spent another year in the States during the 04-05 season, raising my NBA awareness and fandom to new heights (you’d be amazed how much easier it is to watch basketball when you’re awake during the games). The Kings part, on the other hand, was on a steady decline. Vlade was done, Peja was breaking down, the remnants of Chris Webber were stuffed into a duffel bag and mailed to Philly. Nothing was right anymore. And while I realize this sounds like a bandwagoner’s diary, the bottom line is that my original connection to the team was rickety at best. I had watched very few Kings games (and NBA games in general) during this episode of my fanhood, and my connection was to the names I saw on the box score, and not so much the color of the jerseys or the name on up front. Thus, as the core group who led that team slowly disintegrated, so did my interest. The sympathy always stayed, but once Peja finally left for a nutjob I had no interest in rooting for, it was all that remained.

And so I became the dreaded “players fan”. The NBA nomad who wanders the streets of basketball, knocking on car windows and asking for spare change, occasionally finding it in players both transcendent and just plain entertaining. I rooted for the Cavs because of the way Lebron James made my jaw drop. I rooted for the Suns because of how Steve Nash made me want to take a ball, go to the nearest court, and practice no-look passes to the molecules standing on the three point line at the other side of the court. I rooted for the Hornets because of how I won my 2006 fantasy league thanks to rookie Chris Paul (sixth round, son!) and Most Improved Player runner up David West (waiver wire). But the satisfaction of watching 82 games of one team just to see what they do on every given night wasn’t there any more.

Until last season, when once again circumstance decided to play a funny game with my NBA loyalties.

First and foremost, I was luckily presented with a boatload of free time, which happilly coincided with the NBA’s rapidly evolving online presence. Given the ability to do absolutely nothing, I purchased League Pass Broadband, gave up sleep, and dove head first into the everyday NBA world. And while I had been reading big name blogs like Ball Don’t Lie and Truehoop before hand, the booming blogosphere along with the emergence of Twitter and the successful new Daily Dime Live chats allowed me to surround myself with the NBA 24 hours a day, while giving me a voice to chime in with. Obviously, after delving into this world I now realize that LPBB is here to stay even if life tries to get in the way, but I think you’d agree with me that making a conscious decision to be awake from 2 A.M. to 8 A.M. on a nightly basis is something that one has to arrive at, and not a natural state of being.

My newfound exposure to the online NBA world and the many incredible writers who contribute to it not only expanded my knowledge and love of the game of basketball, but also raised the question of my fanhood from the dead. Now provided with more voices than only Marv Albert, AP recaps, and whatever I was reading at the time, I started missing that unique perspective of monogamous basketball. I still had it at home – cut to me beaming at my Hapoel Jerusalem season tickets – but not in the NBA. And it was sorely missed. Coming in constant interaction with dozens of voices swirling in a never ending roller coaster of emotion, I couldn’t help but feel like the cold, toneless robot that wasn’t invited to the party. Specifically, this fantastic post from Matt Moore regarding his own venture towards supporting the Grizzlies was a big influence on this piece, since it echoed so many of my own sentiments regarding my placement as an NBA fan. If you didn’t read it at the time, and even if you did, I recommend you do so.

The second factor was, obviously, Omri Casspi. The second Omri’s name was called by David Stern, I immediately knew two things: 1. I would be watching a lot of Sacramento basketball for the next few years. 2. I will never be able to root for them again. It felt too much of a bandwagon jump for me, with so many people in Israel who had no idea what NBA basketball even was all of a sudden declaring they bled purple and white – this assuming that they actually bothered to find out what colors the Kings wore. Besides, I had just spent the past few years despising Casspi as he bore the Maccabi colors (I think anyone who watched the Kings last year can understand how Casspi is the kind of player one absolutely loathes when he’s playing against you), and while I had no doubt that I would be rooting for his success, making the jump towards rooting for his team seemed too extreme.

And yet, as I watched Omri, and by proxy, his new teammates, I felt myself slowly gravitating into that once familiar territory. No, this wasn’t Peja pulling the ball to that sweet spot just behind ear before slingshotting in another three, and it wasn’t Bibby pulling up for a clutch three pointer when all logic says to wait things out. This was different. But still, it was those same colors that had me jumping up in my seat. The more the season went by, the more my interest expanded from just “tell me when Casspi is in the game”, to the point that I was actually looking forward to watching the Kings even when Omri fell out of favor late in the season.

I was yelling in glee as Tyreke Evans turned fourth quarters into layup lines, and in frustration as Spencer Hawes just refused to show any semblence of a will to enter the paint. I was in awe at how Beno Udrih managed to flick up floaters above people that seemed poised to consume him every second, and in shock at how Andres Nocioni just didn’t realize that shooting isn’t his thing. I was clutching at my chest as this young squad took the Lakers and Cavs to overtime, crushed at how they just couldn’t pull it off. And of course, no matter how much the rest of the team found it’s way into the roundball dimensions of my soul, nothing could compare to the sense of pride at watching Omri knock down a three, or get fouled while converting a tough layup, or smashing Danilo Galinari’s face, and then yelling to the skies, his fist repeatedly asking his chest “what’s up?”

When the Kevin Martin for Carl Landry rumors started rushing in the night before the trading deadline, it was after all of that night’s games were done. Around 8 A.M. local time. And yet, I was transfixed, glued to the refresh button, with my twitter account spread out on the screen, unable to quench my thirst for more information. And then it was official. And I was ecstatic. “The Kings got Carl Landry!” By the time the draft came by, and David Kahn passed on DeMarcus Cousins, the sentence that resulted was similar, but so, so different. “We got DeMarcus Cousins!”. We.

When Zach offered me to write here last February, I found it ironic. The Truehoop blogger who writes for the team he doesn’t root for, asking me, who doesn’t root for anybody, to write for him. In the perspectively diverse NBA blogosphere, the perspective of Cowbell Kingdom was, and will remain, that of an outsider.

Not anymore. You’ve got a Kings fan on your hands.

More than anything else, Donte Greene makes you think.

We’re talking about a 6’11″ small forward. 6-freaking-11. Same height as both candidates to start for the Kings at center. Taller than the projected starting power forward. Taller than any small forward in the league, sans the occasional minutes Lamar Odom spends at the 3. Taller than anyone I can remember playing the position since Dirk Nowitzki and Kevin Garnett were listed as such earlier in the decade (remember that? That was cool).

And yet, the role the Kings need Donte to fill is rarely bestowed upon players of his physical attributes.. They don’t need him to play in the post, or rebound the ball – they have plenty of guys to do that. They need him to knock down outside shots and guard the opposition’s best perimeter player every night. Jobs more typically bestowed upon wings of the 6’6″ish variety. It’s just that when you’re the Kings, you’re 6’6″ish guard is your lead guard.

The fact that those attributes are what they are makes you wonder about the whole positional revolution thesis almost as much as Evans does. Donte’s would-be bigmanny height lacks any true semblance of bigmanny muscle and no bigmanny game. Not that there aren’t any other perimeter power forwards in the league, but you’ll be hard pressed to find any power forward who took 1.8 threes out of 4.3 shots a game while making just 26%, such as Donte shot in 08-09, or who boasted consecutive rebound rates of 6.9 and 8.2. Mainly because power forwards with those stats don’t get off the bench.

But as a small forward? The concept of a 3 so… well, the word big doesn’t apply much to Donte, but… long, is one that is hard to accept. For some reason, small forwards are defined as 6’5″ to 6’9″ish and that’s it. And when you have a guy like Donte who can even play some of the 2 (though I wouldn’t recommend it), it gives you a lot of options. The same options that make the positional revolution so intriguing.

In the post MJ era, we have almost forgotten a very basic rule in basketball – in a game where the objective is to place the ball inside a little hoop that is 10 feet high, being as tall as possible goes a very long way towards winning. It’s why a good big man will always be more important than a good shooting guard. Just look at how the Lakers have been dominating teams. Sure, Kobe Bryant is a once-in-an-era type of player, but how far does that team go without the three headed monster of Andrew Bynum, Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom? Just re-watch the Finals, and tell me what bothered Rajon Rondo the most: his inability to get past Kobe, or the three giants that were waiting for him at the rim?

Donte isn’t nearly the player that Bynum, Pau or Odom are, but he has the potential to have an effect along the same concept. Just look two years into the future, at a lineup featuring Tyreke at point, Omri and Donte at the wings, and Cousins and Dalembert sharing the frontcourt. Pretty stupid, right? Tyreke would remain as the only ball handler on the squad, both Omri and Donte can’t play the 2, and both Cousins and Dalembert are too slow to defend 4s. But forget what you know about traditional lineups and stick with me here, if only for the purspose of the exercise. If Omri and Donte can both improve their outside shooting enough to spread the offense (certainly a realistic goal for Omri, and not too much of a stretch for Donte if he improves as much as he did last season), how do teams score on you? That lineup has the combined wingspan of a flock of eagles! They could high five from different ends of the court!

Obviously, Tyreke has a lot to do with the option of such versatility – there are very few 6’6” guys who can play point in this league. His offensive set is entirely 2-like, and he is quick enough to guard your traditional 2s. Sure, he can’t help with handling the ball, and smaller, quicker guys such as Dwyane Wade and Monta Ellis might pose problems. But how many teams have those guards? And how many teams can have a guy who offers the possibility of such crazy mismatches and defensive units?

That’s what makes Donte such an interesting prospect going forward. He’s already the best perimeter defender on this squad. Is he consistent in his shut down abilities? No. That’s why the Kings signed Antoine Wright this summer. But he’s certainly shown flashes. I don’t think any Kings fan will soon forget the incredible job Donte did against Kobe last season in those heartbreaking losses. You might also remember he wasn’t too shabby at staying with Carmelo Anthony.

Well, that’s what you can do when you have the length – both height and wingspan – of a center, but have the skills – both the speed and the hops – of a shooting guard. It’s a wonderful combination to have, on both sides of the court. And while on offense, you can’t get along with physical attributes alone (pour one out for Gerald Green), on defense those tools go very very far. Obviously, one also needs things like footwork, smarts, and discipline are key to a good defender – the same things that enable largely unathletic players to be good defenders – but the physical tools are so, so important, that just by having them and the right mentality you could be great.

This is what the Kings’ coaching staff has to be explaining to Donte on a daily basis. Sure, he needs to work on offense as well (I’m getting there shortly). But he has the unique tools to become not only a lockdown individual defender, but a key cog in a lockdown unit. He’s already shown the willingness to take on that role, and has performed quite ably. But if he takes the next step? He could be much more than “that guy traded for Ron Artest”.

Moving on to the “put the ball in the basket” part of the game, Donte should be able to pose a constant mismatch. I say should, because the physical advantage he holds over nearly every small forward in the game is mostly negated by his style of play and lack of muscle. In an ideal world, Donte would pick up another 20-30 pounds of bulk while keeping his athleticism (note: he did the first part without apparently keeping the athleticism), thus enabling him to take his man to the post time and time again.

Luckily for the Kings, what they need out of Donte has nothing to do with his individual best case scenario. Sure, Donte’s body could make him dominant as a post-up guy/driver, but the Kings already have enough guys living in the paint. The Kings need Donte to do what he likes to do best – stand outside and stroke that three-point shot.

In that, Donte is indeed a work in progress, but the progress is certainly there. After making only 26% of his threes and 31% of his long twos his rookie year, Donte bounced up to respectable figures of 37.7% and 42%. More importantly, Donte abandoned the idea of becoming only a shooter, taking much more shots at the rim (2.1 this season, 1.0 last season) to keep defenders honest.

Of course, the Kings will probably want a little more cosistency than what Donte showed, with his monthly splits seeing his 3 point percentages ranging from 25% in December to 50% in February. But that’s the price you pay when you’re a youngster trying to carve out your niche, and it’s something that is bound to get better as Donte does.

But the steady improvement from his rookie season shows that it’s possible.This is a player whose main impact in his rookie season was in “who was the worst player in the league” discussions. Suddenly, those discussions turned into “should he start?”. If he makes a similar jump this year, the official Donte discussion topic of July 2011 could be frightningly optimistic.

I can’t help but feel sorry for JT.

Well, the knowledge that he plays basketball for a living and is set to make 5 million dollars in the next two years before probably signing a new, multi-million dollar contract does kind of help. But it still makes me kind of sad to see a young kid with so much potential, so much skill, who was counted on to do so much, suddenly forced into a supporting role behind – let’s face it – brighter prospects.

First it was the Landry acquisition. Then it was the Dalembert trade. And finally, the incredible steal that was the Cousins draft pick. And before you know what hit you – BAM! Instead of being your team’s second best player (arguable. I’d say that in Kevin Martin’s absence, JT was a clear number two for the first few months of last season, before Beno surpassed him as Jason regressed with the rest of the Kings roster sometime around January), you’re but the fourth option in your frontcourt alone.

Could this be a problem? Could this hinder Jason’s development? Well, I want to say no. But I worry. Because the best case scenario with JT looks so high.

The blazing start to last season showed as much. 15 and 10 a night in November? 16 and 9 in December? Call me crazy, but to these eyes, those first few months saw Jason show future all-star potential. A raw future all-star to be sure, but one with a soft mid-range touch, a knack for rebounding the ball, and a gazelle’s stride. A very long, talented gazelle.

Sometimes.
Read more…

The good thing about Beno is the confidence he instills in one’s heart as far as the Kings’ front office. Yes, Geoff Petrie gave him a contract extension worth more (some may say much more) than he justifies. But you know that if your team’s roster includes a productive player that the Spurs let go, you’re in good hands.

And after two years of solid back-up-point-guard-level production, Beno seemed to take the leap, to the point where the Kings can probably be comfortable starting him. He runs the pick-and-roll with expertise and precision, fine at both creating for others and shooting himself while curling off the screener. According to Synergy Sports, Beno scored 0.91 points per play as the ball handler in a pick-and-roll, while shooting a very impressive 48.3%. Going by these stats, Beno ranked as the 37^th best pick-and-roll ball handler in the entire league.

Beno’s best asset as a player, though, is his lightning quick release. The second Beno gets the tip of his big toe around the pick set by his big man, the ball is already up. This sort of quickness makes his shot very hard to contest, and helps his percentage immensely. This is what makes Beno such a weapon both on the pick-and-roll, and as an off ball shooter, as a spot up guy, and moreso when coming off of screens. Since opponents must respect his shot, this also opens room for penetration, both for scoring and for dishing, with the former often featuring his very strong floater. The downside to this is that his penetration rarely ends at the free throw line – Beno averaged only 1.5 shots from the stripe every game throughout his career, denying him the chance to show off that 82% free throw shooting.
Read more…