Paul Westphal is a completely likable guy.  On January 6, 2011, he won the 300th game of his career, a feat that he was unaware of until after the game.  Unfortunately, as the coach of the Sacramento Kings, Westphal has lost more games than he or anyone else would like.  There are certainly many reasons for the losses, outside of his coaching ability, such as the team’s youth, lack of talent, injuries and even bad luck.  The losing aside, if there is one thing that Westphal does as a coach that drives people crazy, it is the constant line-up changes.

So far this season, Coach Westphal has used 16 different starting line-ups in just 39 games.  Of those 16, only five of those line-ups have been used more than two games in a row and none more than four games consecutively.  Not all of these changes have been by choice.  Tyreke Evans was suspended one game and missed another four due to injury.  Samuel Dalembert began the season injured, missed a game due to a funeral and hasn’t been the impact player the Kings hoped he would be when they traded for him in the off-season.  Rookie DeMarcus Cousins has been erratic both on and off the court, but he is showing flashes of the brilliance the Kings hoped for when they made him the fifth pick in the 2010 NBA draft.  In short, the Kings have had to deal with injuries and growing pains to go along with an imperfect roster.  For some unknown reason, this particular blend of veterans and young players, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, hasn’t meshed as well as expected.

Many fans would like to blame Westphal and his tinkering for the inconsistency of this group of players, which is probably fair on some levels.  Westphal has started 13 of the 15 players that have appeared on the Kings’ roster this season, leaving only rookie second round pick, Hassan Whiteside, who spent most of the last two months playing in the NBA D-League, and Antoine Wright, a player who was waived November 29th, as the only two players not to start a single game.

Is the tinkering over?  I doubt it with the trade deadline looming in February and injury issues that are bound to come up again.  Has the tinkering slowed?  It appears so.

Over the last ten games, a clear rotational pattern has developed.  Due to injuries facing Evans and Garcia, changes have occurred, but they are clearly injury replacements and nothing more.  It appears that not only has Westphal decided on a rotation of players, but he has cut the rotation to nine and stuck to it.

The same starting five, when healthy, has started six of the last ten games since January 1st, and barring a major turn of events, will continue to start for the foreseeable future.

Here are the lucky winners:

 

Tyreke Evans (Guard)- Last season’s rookie of the year and the new face of the franchise, Evans is the player the Kings hope to build the franchise around.  His numbers are down across the board, but he has struggled with plantar fasciitis and personal off-court issues.  Coach Westphal would call these struggles “reasons” and not “excuses” and Tyreke is still considered the player most likely to deliver the Kings from the hell they have been mired in for the last half decade.

Stats since Jan. 1:  38.7 min., 17.7 points, 6.7 assists, 4.8 rebounds.

 

Beno Udrih (Guard)- Once considered a minor albatross because of his contract, the Slovenian native has become the Kings’ most consistent offensive weapon.  The Kings will continue to look for the perfect backcourt mate for Evans, but until then, Beno will do.  Udrih is shooting 50.4% from the field and averaging 14 points a game, both career highs.

Stats since Jan. 1:  34.5 min., 14.7 points, 3.4 rebounds, 3.2 assists.

 

Francisco Garcia (Small Forward)- From opening day starter, to bench player, to DNP-CD and back to starter, Garcia is the Kings’ best pure shooter and the team’s undisputed leader.  When Garcia is on, the Kings’ offense opens up; when he is off, the Kings see a lot of zones.  After missing all but 25 games last year due to a horrific arm injury, Cisco has only missed four total this year including coach’s decisions.

Stats since Jan. 1:  30.9 min., 11.6 points, 3.7 rebounds, 1.1 assists.

 

Jason Thompson- Considered a building block a year ago, the third year big man out of Rider is just now figuring out how to play alongside rookie DeMarcus Cousins.  Sometimes lost in the rotation of quality big men, Thompson does a lot of things well.  JT is not the shot blocker that Dalembert is, a pure scorer like Landry or the post force of Cousins, but he is a more versatile player than any of the other three at this point in his career.

Stats since Jan. 1:  22.6 min., 10.0 points, 6.4 rebounds, 0.8 assists.

 

 

DeMarcus Cousins- The rookie big man out of Kentucky has had his ups and downs, but over the last 10 games he has been dominant.  At this point of the season, only Blake Griffin has been a better rookie and Cousins’ best days are clearly ahead of him.  DMC is showing an uncanny ability to not only improve week by week, but quarter by quarter and he looks like a pretty good bet to be the Kings’ second all-star caliber player along with Evans.

Stats since Jan. 1:  28.8 min., 17.4 points, 7.9 rebounds, 2.2 assists.

The starting five isn’t all that is set.  Westphal has pared down the rotation off the bench as well.  For most of the season, Westphal has used 11 or 12 players in almost every game.  In the last 10, he has, for all intents and purposes, cut that number to nine players, the five starters and four players from the bench.

Meet the second unit:

 

Pooh Jeter- Jeter is the primary back-up guard behind Evans and Udrih.  He is a change of pace player who pushes the ball with incredible speed.  If you want to know about his impact on the floor, just ask Omri Casspi who raves about the little man out of the University of Portland.  Beyond his offensive prowess, Jeter has shown an amazing ability to guard some of the league’s elite point guards, even with his size limitations.

Stats since Jan. 1:  18.3 min, 4.1 points, 4.3 assists, 1.5 rebounds.

 

Carl Landry- Landry is the Kings number one weapon off the bench.  Last season, before the trade that brought him to Sacramento, Carl Landry was in the running for the NBA’s sixth man of the year.  Up until the last 10 games, he had struggled to find his rhythm, either as a starter or bench player this season for the Kings.  Carl now has a role and Coach Westphal has decided to use him in tandem with Samuel Dalembert, which seems to be a good pairing of offense and defense.

Stats since Jan. 1:  27.0 min., 14.0 points, 4.8 rebounds, 1.7 assists.

 

Omri Casspi- Omri’s path is similar to Francisco Garcia’s.  He has been the starter and a bench player and even received the dreaded DNP-CD this season.  Casspi also shares two other traits with Garcia, he is a fighter and he can really shoot it from behind the three point line.  The Kings’ second unit is at its best when Casspi is hitting his perimeter shots or running the floor with Pooh Jeter.

Stats since Jan. 1:  24.7 min., 8.6 points, 5.3 rebounds, 0.9 assists.

 

Samuel Dalembert- The veteran center has just recently started to figure out his place with his new team.  In his last four games, Sammy D has put up 8.8 points and 6.3 rebounds, which are major improvements over his season averages.  More than the numbers, Dalembert looks comfortable, especially on the offensive end where he has really been absent all season.

Stats since Jan. 1:  16.2 min., 5.4 points, 4.1 rebounds, 0.9 assists.

The other five players on the roster- Donté Greene, Jermaine Taylor, Darnell Jackson, Hassan Whiteside and Luther Head, are the odd men out as of today.  When the Kings have been healthy (six of the last 10 games), these five have combined to play a mere 47 of a possible 1440 minutes, or 3% of the total action over those six games.

Surprisingly, three of the five players completely out of the rotation have started during this 10 game stretch due to injury, keeping with Paul Westphal’s policy regarding the importance of continuity in both the starting and second units as well as having quality players coming off the bench.

Donté Greene was the latest of the out-of-the-rotation players to get a start, playing 35 minutes in the Kings’ Martin Luther King Day loss to the Hawks.  It will be interesting to see if his play will merit yet another change in the rotation.  For now, I would think that it is unlikely.

There are reasons that each and every one of these players aren’t getting the playing time that they so desperately desire.  Greene was given his chance.  Starting a total of 19 games this season, the third year player out of Syracuse just hasn’t been able to find a consistent stroke, shooting just 37.2% from the field and only 28.9% from three.  Jermaine Taylor is new to the club, arriving from Houston on December 15th via trade.  Hassan Whiteside is faced with the duel challenge of being a second round pick who missed all of training camp due to injury and also having a very similar skill set to Dalembert.  Luther Head has fought a myriad of injuries and illnesses, while Darnell Jackson, a player Coach Westphal thinks very highly of, is lost in a numbers game with the crowded front line.

So there you have it.  Many fans have asked for a solid nine man rotation, and after trying 16 different looks, Westphal seems locked in to group that he feels comfortable with.  The team has responded with quality play, but they are still struggling to translate that into consistent winning on the court.  Hopefully with a little bit of time, this unit will grow together and start seeing the fruits of their labor pay off because be it a reason or an excuse, the rotation issue looks to be solved.

How We Feeling?
Sort of feel split down the middle.

Literally.

The Kings split the weekend games between the Nets and the Hornets (both at home) by playing pretty good defense and offense that ranged from “just good enough” to “OH MY GOD MY EYES IT BURNS SO BAD” type of performance. Against the Nets, the Kings did just enough to gut out a much-needed victory. Carl Landry, Tyreke Evans and Beno Udrih were effective in small doses while the rest of the team seemed to just be mired in some for of execution and overall shooting slump. But they didn’t win the game because of offense; they won it because of defense.

For the first time all season long, the Kings had a defensive rating under 100. They did it by forcing the Nets away from the paint (where they scored at a clip of 92%) and made them live by the long jumper. The Nets were just 2/11 from 3-point range and 9/24 on long 2-pointers. The Kings didn’t bail the Nets out by sending them to the line either. They just played good, physical basketball as the refs allowed. It was good to see the Kings win ugly because that’s the kind of play that corrects losing stretches, rather than some random blowout victory in which everything fell the right way.

Against the Hornets, the defense was once again there after a shaky first quarter. You may look at the 14 points the Kings gave up in the first and think I’m crazy for thinking it was a shaky quarter, but the Kings got away with quite a bit. The Hornets were getting quality, open shots from the perimeter and pretty much whatever they wanted in the interior too. The shots just weren’t falling for New Orleans and the Kings were the benefactors of this luck. But after the first quarter, the Kings defense and defensive results were legit. They swarmed, they swatted and they smothered the Hornets for much of the game.

They just couldn’t get much execution going in any consistent manner because the Hornets were matching them stop for stop. The Kings missed free throws and threw the ball all over the court. They didn’t need much to control this game and eventually win it but they could never get what little they needed moving forward. When crunch time came and they got much-needed stops, they couldn’t secure the defensive board and the Hornets pulled out the game thanks to David West’s clutch scoring.

Ultimately, the Kings split two tough home games in which they had just enough offense to win in one game not quite enough to pull out two wins in two games.

Key Sequence in the Game(s)
In the win over New Jersey, the key sequence of the game was the entire final nine minutes of the game for the Kings. There wasn’t a single stretch by the Nets that didn’t get matched by the Kings. Brook Lopez made a shot and it was answered by a Landry 3-point play. Morrow made a layup and Donté responded with one of his own. Kris Humphries tipped in a missed shot and Cousins answered with a score in the paint. And after Travis Outlaw brought the Nets within two points, Tyreke was inexplicably doubled at the top of the key. He was kicked the ball to Luther in the corner and Luther swung the ball to Beno for the dagger 3-pointer. The Nets scored and the Kings answered every time.

In the loss to the Hornets, the final two minutes were a microcosm for missed opportunities for the Kings. Donté Greene missed a big 3-pointer that would have tied it. When the Kings got a stop the next time down the floor, Ariza kept the Hornets’ possession alive with a rebound and West made them pay with a jumper. Then the Kings couldn’t get another stop and gave up another back-breaking jumper to West again. Finally, they gave up an offensive rebound that led to game-clinching free throws by Belinelli.

Kings simply couldn’t get key defensive rebounds when they needed to and it killed their chances of winning a second ugly game in a row.

A Big Concern
Offense, offense, offense.

Seriously, what is going on with this team? Westphal has dumbed down the plays quite a bit and the Kings still look clueless out there. They’re not moving the ball and they’re getting into their sets way too late in the shot clock. This causes them to rush shots and possessions. This is where the turnovers come from. The Kings have no direction and you can’t just chock it up to Tyreke not being able to find the rolling big man on a pick-and-roll. Beno can’t direct them and neither can Luther Head. The offense is beyond stagnant. It’s simply dead and in desperate need of reanimation.

Advanced Stuff

It’s not even an advanced stat that needs to be addressed. The Kings continue to miss free throws and it killed them against the Hornets and could have buried them against the Nets. They shot a grand total 25/38 (65%) in these two games and missed seven freebies against the Hornets. You have to shoot free throws better if the offense is going to be this stagnant.

Here is where the Kings stack up in the Four Factors after these two games (via HoopData):

Player of the Game
Samuel Dalembert was definitely the player of the game against the Nets. He was so instrumental in holding Brook Lopez to seven points on nine shots. He kept Brook out of position for much of the game and perfectly timed nearly every post move and shot Lopez threw at him. Without him smothering the Nets future All-Star big man, the Nets would probably have been much more efficient offensively.

For the loss to the Hornets, Donté Greene was the most consistent performer. He attacked the basket for much of the game, played fantastic defense all over the floor and controlled the boards most of the time he was on the floor. He put together two nice games after his hiatus from the court. Looks like he’s played himself back into a regular gig for now.

On to the Next One
Kings face the Jazz in Utah Monday at 6pm.

Key Matchup – Tyreke Evans vs Deron Williams
Enough said.

A horse peed on my car when I was traveling down the freeway, going about 65 miles per hour.

While this sounds like the setup, or even the punch line, to some type of joke, it’s actually something that happened to me Tuesday morning. This sort of sounds like an impossible feat but it was actually quite simple. There was a truck pulling a large trailer that housed probably six horses. There was a spout coming off the side of the trailer and a horse just happened to urinate into it. The urine went down the spout and sprayed back onto my windshield.

While some people might get mad about this because nobody wants horse pee on their car, I really couldn’t do anything but chock it up to an unavoidable occurrence. Maybe I could have avoided the horse peeing on MY car but someone’s car was going to get peed on.

With the Kings’ five-game losing streak, I sort of feel the same way. I don’t know that they could have avoided it. In a perfect world with perfect perspective, young teams who garner a little hype and praise after showing some promise during a 25-win season would come out ready to respond to those expectations and make people wish the expectations were even higher. Everyone wants the Kings to be the new version of the Thunder or Blazers from the past few years. But in reality, those situations are far more unique than a lot of other teams that rebuild with youth and organized chaos.

I know there are problems with this team. Namely, there are defensive problems all over the place. The Kings still don’t defend the paint all that well. It’s not like Spencer Hawes is back there any more, but it’s also not like Andrew Bogut is protecting the iron either. The reason the Kings paint defense might be so bad is because the perimeter defense is so bad.

Aside from a great second half stretch against the Raptors, Tyreke’s defense has been about as consistent as his 3-point shot. Beno can’t guard anybody at any time and despite the outcry for wanting to get Donté Greene more playing time, there is not a single defender on this roster who is going to fix the issues at hand. The Kings can’t close out on shooters and when they do, it’s often sloppy and allows easy ball movement or drives to the basket.

During this current five-game losing streak, everything appears to be coming apart at the seams for this team.

- The defense has been terrible. Other than posting a respectable 101 defensive rating against the Wolves, the rest of the efforts have gone 116.7 against the Lakers, 105.3 against the Grizzlies, 118.4 against the Suns and 106.8 against the Pistons.

- While the Kings have only had one bad game in this stretch giving up the 3-ball (Lakers outside assault), they’re still allowing their opponents to shoot a very good percentage from the field overall. In this stretch, the Kings are giving up an efficient field goal percentage of 52.4%. For comparison’s sake, the league average is 49.5% and the Kings rank last in the league at 52.62%.

- The Kings are allowing far too high of a percentage of shots at the rim. Yes, we all know the Kings are bigger and better, but aside from the loss to the Wolves in which they allowed just 58.4% of makes at the rim, Sacramento has allowed at least 73.7% of the shots at the rim to be good in the other four games and twice allowed 83.4% or higher.

- The Kings are also making it a custom to shoot themselves in the collective foot whenever they can. At the free throw line, the Kings have shot over 70% just once during this stretch (75% against the Grizzlies). The other times, they’ve posted 66.7% or lower at the charity stripe.

For the most part, this all seems like correctable stuff. Stop giving up so many points. Protect the basket like your new moniker and sales pitch says you will. Close out on shooters properly and rotate defensively. Make your damn free throws.

And it hasn’t been all bad during this stretch. The Kings are outrebounding their opponents 222-206 and are plus 20 on the offensive boards. They’ve shot the ball relatively well with their 41% against the Suns as the only poor shooting night. And they made up for that with a monster effort on the offensive boards.

It’s just a matter of getting the young guys to commit and play like a team. Right now, there is far too much isolation in the offense that results in poor 2-point jumpers instead of getting into the interior of the defense and finding open shots that are dying to be knocked down. Defensively, the effort just has to be better. With a young team potentially reading their press clippings before the season starts, this is probably to be expected.

They played with no expectations last year coming off of a 17-win debacle. Now they have two potential building blocks, a bunch of young role players trying to find their roles and some glaring deficiencies in the defensive and offensive perimeter parts of this team.

It’s up to Paul Westphal to get this thing headed back in the right direction, like it appeared they were headed when they started the season 3-1 with a relatively cake schedule. The season isn’t over and it isn’t time to fire the coach or trade all of the young guys not being consistent.

It’s just for a little foresight and effort to avoid the inevitable.

Let the horse piss on somebody else.

How We Feeling?
Is it time to trade Tyreke Evans?

Of course not.

But it was fun to see the Kings play so well without him and find a way to pull out a rare road win. The way the ball moved throughout the night was pretty fun to watch and it was a nice change from the ball dominating we usually see with a Tyreke-led offense.

That’s not to say Tyreke is bad for the team, bad for the offense or a tough player to play with, by any means. I don’t buy any of that nonsense that is probably being floated around by someone who has the same motives in promoting guys like Ricky Rubio and Kevin Martin (now who could that be … ?). It’s just the Kings didn’t have a guy that could really break down the defense with penetration and it showed. So they adjusted, whipped the ball around and got quality shots.

Long-term, it shows the Kings can adjust to life without Tyreke on the court. And being able to switch up the tempo, gameplan and offensive attack with or without him on the court could prove to be invaluable, especially when the fourth quarter of a tight game comes along. Experiences without Tyreke like this one help the team grow and find an identity without him. This is a good thing because there will be nights in which he has foul trouble, sore ankles, or just isn’t in the flow of the game. The Kings learning how to adjust to that is huge.

Of course, it helps immensely to being playing a bad defensive team like the Wolves. The Wolves are improved from last year in the fact that their athleticism allows for more rotation. However, their rotations seemed late because of getting lost out there before they had to rotate.

Key Sequence in the Game
For the most part, this was a very even game. The Wolves took control in the second quarter and the Kings responded with a great third quarter that including a big 16-2 run to start the second half. The run happened in the first four minutes of the period and it went a little something like this:

- Francisco Garcia mid-range jumper curling off of a screen. 2-0
- Donté Greene contests a missed jumper by Michael Beasley off the dribble.
- Cisco with a really weird travel after not being able to decide on a shot or jump pass.
- Beno contests a jumper by Ridnour off of a screen.
- Carl Landry makes a jumper over Love, plus the foul and the free throw. 5-0
- Ridnour makes a floater off the glass after Beno gambled to double the post and then rotated almost as poorly as he closed out on Ridnour before the drive. 5-2
- Beno passes up a 3 to make the extra pass to Garcia in the corner for his own jumper. 7-2
- Landry tips a pass by Kevin Love and creates the turnover. Beno ends up making the pull-up jumper in transition. 9-2
- Beasley jump pass goes out of bounds when Love cut to the basket instead of looking for the pass.
- DeMarcus Cousins turn-around jumper in the post. 11-2
- Cousins helps and takes a charge against a driving Love.
- After loose balls and blocked shots, Cousins cleans up the play with a dunk inside. 13-2
- Donté Greene blocks a jumper by Beasley.
- Offensive rebound by Landry inside and gets fouled on a shot attempt. Makes 1/2 free throws. 14-2
- Kings pick up the loose ball and Beno knocks down a pull-up jumper in transition. 16-2

The energy out of halftime in this sequence was just incredible. The defense was contagious with the Kings. Four different players in this four-minute stretch tipped passes. Cousins was all over the place on both ends of the floor. Greene was locked into his role of stopping Beasley. The ball movement was crisp and flowing well. It was just an all-around good effort for the Kings to take control of this game when they could have easily come out flat on the road and laid an egg.

A Big Concern
How did nobody pick up on the fact that Luke Ridnour is deadly in transition with his pull-up jumpers? It’s like his calling card. Not only was this not something the Kings were prepared for, but they also never adjusted to it. Wolves got a lot of easy buckets because the Kings simply didn’t adapt.

Advanced Stuff

My favorite stat from this game was the percentage of assisted made field goals. Last season the Kings had assists on 53% of the shots they made. In this game, that number was 64%. Yes, it’s just one game but I love to see the ball moving the way it did.

Player of the Game
I’m going to go with Francisco Garcia. He finished with 22 points (7/12 FG, 6 assisted, 6/6 FT, 2/2 3FG), 4 assists, 3 rebounds and 3 steals.

He set the tone throughout the game with his play on the court. He tipped passes, stayed in front of his man and stayed active the entire time he was on the court. He was also ready to shoot, didn’t hesitate (aside from that weird travel) and moved the ball extremely well.

On to the Next One
Friday at 4pm PT in New Jersey. Nets are 1-0 with their win over the Pistons.

Key Matchup – DeMarcus Cousins vs. Derrick Favors
DMC couldn’t believe Favors was selected over him and it makes sense. I’m excited to see what Cousins will do to show the Nets they messed up.

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.
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I must warn you – I can’t speak of Pooh Jeter without obvious bias trickling out in every word.

He was by far the most entertaining bro on my beloved Hapoel Jerusalem squad last season, and personally speaking, he was my second favorite player (the first was Uri Kukia, an undersized, unathletic forward with no discernable basketball skill except for the fact that he was clearly the smartest player on the court at all times). It wasn’t your idle, “OH GODZ BRIAN SCALABRINE IS SO AWESOMEZ” kind of love, either – Pooh is a baller, in every which way, and if he had another 3-4 inches, he would have never gotten to Israel in the first place.

However, to me, Pooh is also a representative of a system. Being an international NBA fan, I am constantly faced with both the need to defend the NBA against FIBA enthusiasts, who say the NBA is just an iso-laden, defenseless, sorry excuse for a pick-up game, and the need to defend European ball to NBA xenophobes, who say Europe is the kindergarten playtime to the NBA’s varsity.

The truth, as always, is in between – the leagues sport differents style of play, but while the NBA is obviously better, and Europe more team oriented, both display very high quality basketball, and a true fan of the game will find himself fascinated watching any one of the two.

There is one type of transition between the two leagues, though, that is rarely seen. Many European players have made the transition to the NBA, and almost every European team boasts multiple American key components. However, to my memory, there have been very few cases of American players moving to Europe to start off their pro careers, developing overseas, and then returning to the NBA as better players. Only Anthony Parker immediately comes to my mind – had a few uneventful NBA seasons out of Bradley, dominated in Europe, then returned as a key component on the Raptors before age caught up. While truly smart international basketball men such as ShamSports‘ Mark Deeks or Ball in Europe’s Os Davis (and dozens more who I’m regrettably forgetting) will probably find you more, I would like to hope that I know world-wide basketball well enough to successfully point out that this transition is rare.

However, the fluidity of trans-Atlantic basketball development seems to have become more of a two sided affair. Guys like Brandon Jennings and Josh Childress have already spent time in Europe during their careers, and promise to be good (Childress) to great (hopefully Jennings) going forward. Again, though – these aren’t players who made a name for themselves in Europe, but guys who made both the trip from and to the States as pretty much the same guys.

Pooh is of that other breed. He who spent his early years in the Old Continent, and returned in his prime. A breed that I don’t see too much of around the league.

Which is why what Pooh does for this team can go a long way. I’ve gone on record here before saying why I like the signing, and that hasn’t changed. Pooh is a great fit for this system because of his similarities to Beno Udrih, and while he is inferior to Beno, I think one can ably plug him in for the Slovenian without experiencing your typical “backup’s backup” drop off. And even in another system, this is a lightning quick guard who has the ability to be a strong change-of-pace scorer off the bench (think Will Bynum).

The upside, though, extends beyond the realms of Pooh Jeter. Europe is still very much an untapped market basketball wise, in the sense that most imports come through the draft. Returning American players who improved at their trade, or international guys who slipped under the radar when they were draft eligible and have since improved are much rarer. It might be because some recent cases were unsuccessful – Sarunas Jasikevicius, who was among the best point guards in Europe before moving to the NBA in 2005 and flaming out in Indiana, is a prime example. However, to me he was always an outlier, choosing a team who was an abysmal fit for his break neck style of play (the mid-decade Pacers. I’m telling you, had Saras gone to the Cavs instead of Damon Jones, the NBA would be very different right now).

And it’s a shame, because even through the very narrow perspective of Israeli basketball only, I can tell you for certain that there are many NBA level talents working their tails off overseas just to get into Sternville. Pooh is a step in the right track – even though I suspect that most of the Kings’ scouting of him came from his summer league stints. Moving ahead in that path could give the Kings more cheap talent to help round out a roster on the cheap. With the minimal resources needed to successfully watch European basketball in this day and age, there is no reason not to.

Keep this in mind when you watch Pooh this season. Whether he gets his shot at major minutes or not is a storyline of it’s own – it also depends greatly on whether Beno Udrih will be a starter or will come off the bench. But it’s the journey that brought Pooh to Sacramento which makes him an interesting case. A similar player with a similar journey will always be available if the Kings look hard enough.

So I was perusing the Sacramento Bee as I tend to do when I wake up and I came across this piece from Sam Amick about Beno and Westphal differing over playing time. In it, we are getting two different stories about the condition of Beno’s feet and the results on the court because of this injury.

Paul Westphal is saying the sore right foot and plantar fasciitis has slowed Beno Udrih down a step, which seems completely logical. Westphal kept Beno out of the game on Wednesday and instead played Sergio Rodriguez. But apparently, Beno said he was “fine” and okay to play basketball on the injured foot. He says he’s been dealing with it all season:

“I’ve been icing it after every game, playing with it. I didn’t say I don’t want to play because of my plantar fasciitis. I said, ‘I’m fine.’ He just decided he’s going to play Sergio. That’s his decision. Not mine.”

This is a point in which you’d like players to put the ego aside and gain some perspective. The Kings are a bad team right now and can’t seem to get a W to save their lives. When Kevin Martin came back, it meant that Beno’s starting spot was going to disappear. In fact, his minutes were going to be cut because now you had a player coming back and taking away starter’s minutes in the process. Add in Beno’s bad foot with a serious nagging injury and the fact that Sergio Rodriguez seems to get things done on the basketball court in his limited playing time and of course Beno is going to see a dip/hit in his minutes.

But instead, he’s going to pout a little and claim that he’s no longer being involved.

You remember this conversation he had with Carmichael Dave on Media Day?

This was frustration with the Theus/Natt regime (more Natt than anything) of throwing him in the corner and making him a spot-up shooter. But I don’t see that going on since Kevin Martin has returned from injury. Beno is still getting opportunities to run the point, run the offense and create like he loves to do. You’re still seeing pick-and-roll plays with him. You’re still seeing him come off screens and create mid-range jumpers.

So what gives?

Maybe this is Beno’s default complaint. When things aren’t going right for him, he decides that he’s just being thrown to the corner (literally and figuratively). Personally, I think it’s dumb for him to play through this plantar fasciitis. It’s a serious injury that can have damaging long-term affects if it isn’t treated properly. He needs to sit some games now to get his body right rather than try to play through it on a team that will be lucky to reach 30 wins.

With the money he’s signed up for, it’s better to fix the injury now with rest and treatment than feed his ego and need to prove the validity of his contract.

One of the more surprising moments for me on Media Day was walking upon an interview between Carmichael Dave and Mid-Level Exceptional point guard, Beno Udrih.

It’s no big revelation that Beno was the ire of a lot of fan’s frustration last season and rightfully so. At times, it appeared as if he didn’t seem to care much about basketball success because he hit the jackpot with his 5-year, $30 million contract during the 2008 off-season. The weird thing is by the numbers, Beno had a pretty comparable 2008-2009 campaign with the Kings as he did in the 2007-2008 season when he seemingly came out of nowhere and pleasantly surprised Arco attendees (back when people used to attend the games in person).

Here are his numbers from his two seasons in Sacramento:

2007-2008 Season: 12.8 ppg | 4.3 apg | 0.9 spg | 32 mpg | 46.4% FG | 38.7% 3FG | 85% FT | 2.3 topg
2008-2009 Season: 11.0 ppg | 4.7 apg | 1.1 spg | 31.1 mpg | 46.1% FG | 31.0% 3FG | 82% FT | 2.2 topg

There isn’t a whole lot of difference in the two seasons. But there was clearly something missing in his game. You could see it when you watched his movements and demeanor on the court. He just wasn’t the same confident guy. Tom Ziller did a great “deconstruction” of Beno in a post, showing a correlation between Udrih’s three-point shooting and his confidence as a player. And really, the three-point shooting is the only significant drop off in his production between the two years.

So why was Beno so down last year? Perhaps it was his frustration with feeling that he wasn’t involved with this team at all:

Beno Udrih Frustrated With Last Season’s Confusion from Zach Harper on Vimeo.

While I think a lot of this has to do with sour grapes because of his fall off in fan acceptance and feeling like he was unfairly ignored in the Kings offensive scheme, he could still have a valid point. Monday night, I went back and watched the January 14th game between the Kings and Warriors — a game that went to triple overtime and ended by the hands of John Salmons. The Kings were victorious 135-133 after 63 minutes of basketball. In that game, Beno Udrih played 56 minutes and finished with 17 points and 7 assists. He shot just 7/21 from the field and 0/5 from long range (part of that falling confidence) but there were moments in which he shined.

During his time on the court, Beno was involved in quite a few pick and roll plays. And in those plays, he looked extremely comfortable on the court — much more comfortable than I ever remember seeing him last season. Now, if the Kings ran a Stockton-Malone type of offense with Beno and either Spencer or JT, would Beno Udrih be worth his contract? Probably not. But perhaps, he’s been written off too early by everybody (including myself). I still don’t think he has any business starting in this league but if his role is defined and it’s as the backup point guard, does anybody think that he can be worth more value than frustration for this squad?

Personally, I would much rather watch the point guard combination of Tyreke Evans and Sergio Rodriguez. They have the potential for a lot more firepower and this team needs more than just a competent P&R point man. But this was an educational look into where Beno’s psyche is heading in the second year of an albatrossian deal.

By the way, Ziller’s NBA Fanhouse report of this interview.