The new-look New Orleans Hornets come to Power Balance Pavilion this evening for a New Year’s Day match-up against the struggling Sacramento Kings.  Gone is superstar Chris Paul and all-star David West, but the Hornets still have a deep and formidable line-up, including former King Carl Landry.  The Hornets have gone 1-1 without Eric Gordon, who suffered a bruised right knee in the first game of the season.  Jarrett Jack has stepped into the bulk shooter role in Gordon’s absence, hoisting up 17 shots per game but is shooting just 38-percent from the field.

The Kings are in disarray.  Following the team’s loss last night to the Knicks, both Tyreke Evans and DeMarcus Cousins let comments fly to the media, questioning the direction of the offense.  The team has had moments of quality play, but overall, there is a clear lack of cohesion that must be remedied quickly.  After playing three games in four nights to start the season, the Kings are now in game number two of a five-games-in-six-nights set. Tonight’s contest is crucial with a daunting back-to-back-to-back string of games beginning Tuesday.

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A home game sell-out used to be a foregone conclusion for the Sacramento Kings.  19 out of 26 seasons, the Sacramento region flocked to Arco Arena to watch basketball – regardless of how well or how poorly the team played.  Of those 19 sell-out seasons, the Kings made the playoffs only 10 times, eight of those coming in one stretch beginning in the late 1990s.

The team has struggled mightily for more than half-a-decade now, lining up each season for NBA lottery handouts.  Last year was supposed to be the start of anew.  Armed with Tyreke Evans and DeMarcus Cousins, two top five picks in 2009 and 2010 respectively, the team mantra was Here We Rise.

The promise of improvement quickly faded as the Kings finished 2010 with six wins and 23 losses.  Gone was the Arco Thunder.  Gone was the crazy fanbase that carried this franchise through good times and bad.  And all of this happened before the fans learned the team was considering a move to Anaheim.

A normal fanbase would wane.  A normal fanbase would show disapproval for a team threatening to leave, by clearing out the building and leaving their team to play for a few thousand die hard loyalists.

But that is not the Sacramento way.

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With all of the golf coverage from this last weekend, we got away from the morning cup o’ Kings.  Today, we are back and since it’s his birthday, we will look into some old footage of Kings power forward/center Jason Thompson as a senior at Rider University.

Kings President of Basketball Operations, Geoff Petrie, became known for his ability to mine talent in Europe through the late 90′s and early 2000′s.  Peja Stojakovic and Hedo Turkoglu became crucial pieces during the glory years of Kings basketball, both drafted as young European prospects by Petrie and his staff.  Following the European invasion, Petrie turned to players from small U.S. colleges such as Western Carolina, Rutgers and Rider.  Like his European picks, Petrie found success, first with Kevin Martin and most recently with Jason Thompson.

Thompson started out hot as a rookie, joining Spencer Hawes in a promising front line.  But the hope that a Spencer Hawes/Jason Thompson front court could return the Kings to the playoffs dissipated quickly.  Before last season, Hawes was traded to Philadelphia with Andres Nocioni for center Samuel Dalembert, clearing minutes for rookie DeMarcus Cousins.   Lost in a four man rotation of Dalembert, Cousins and Carl Landry, Thompson struggled in his transition to a role player.  After starting 114 games his first two seasons, JT started only 39 games last season and saw his minutes drop from 31.4 in year two to just 23.3 in his third year as a pro.

More after the jump…

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Following the Kings unbelievable victory over the Orlando Magic on Wednesday night, I was able to steal a few more minutes with Coach Paul Westphal while the team is on the road.  The Kings have two more games on its seven game-all-star break-interrupted road trip that has seen some pretty high high’s and low low’s.  It doesn’t get any easier for the team in purple and black as they play back-to-back games in Charlotte and Memphis before returning home to what has become a fire storm of controversy with the team’s ownership pondering relocation.  Coach Westphal and I talk victories, trades, rumors and relocation in yet another candid interview.

JH: With all that is happening with your team right now, how proud are you of the effort that they brought tonight against a very good Orlando Magic team?

Coach Westphal: It’s a very satisfying win.  I’m happy for the players because when you take everything into account, you know, the trade deadline with its uncertainty, the losing streak we have been on, the injury to Tyreke, the upheaval with DeMarcus and Donté last week, just the specter of uncertainty with the arena situation and all the rumors surrounding that, and anybody’s personal situation you know, players are wondering how their career is going, and in the midst of all of this stuff to be able to focus and play that well together and to really lay it out there like that and have success is quite a nice thing for these guys.  They had to play hard, and they had to play together, and they had to focus – I’m really happy for all of these guys.

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In case you missed it, the Sacramento Kings got taken to the woodshed by the NBA’s best team on Friday night.  The game was over before the first quarter expired as the 42-8 Spurs toyed with the Kings on their home floor for the rest of the game.

Sure-fire Hall of Fame power forward Tim Duncan played less than thirteen minutes as Coach Popovich was able to rest his stars after a tough win the night before in Los Angeles against the Lakers.  It was at this point that I started thinking -

How are the Spurs, as a whole, so much better than the sum of their parts?

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After not just a rough start to the season, but the happenings of this week, the Kings needed something to work in their favor.  If you remember back to Thursday, I asked Coach Paul Westphal if he thought that the Carl Landry situation might help to galvanize this team.  Here was his answer to that question then:

I think we’ve been fairly well galvanized anyway.  We have a very good group.  We’re pulling hard and we are always disappointed if we lose, and we are trying to figure out a way to get over the hump and I think we’ve been doing it together.

Before the game Saturday night against the New Orleans Hornets, after beating the reigning world champion Lakers the night before at Staples center, I asked him the question again.

Right now, I would say yes, and I hope it continues.

Low and behold, it did continue.  Mired in a stretch of games that would give Phil Jackson and Greg Popovich heartburn, the Kings are an improbable 2-0 in their last two games.  The schedule doesn’t get any easier with Boston, San Antonio, Utah, Dallas and Oklahoma City coming to town, followed by Phoenix, Oklahoma City, Dallas, Miami and Orlando on the road.

Galvanized, improved, or maybe just the laws of averages finally catching up- whatever it is, this Kings team looks different than the one that took the floor for the first half of the season.

Leading this charge?  Rookie big man DeMarcus Cousins, who is not just burning up the court with his play, but showing remarkable signs of leadership.  After posting 27 points and 10 rebounds against the Lakers on Friday night, the young center, who is often questioned about his level of fitness, posted 25 points 12 rebounds and 7 assists in the second night of a back-to-back on Saturday against the Hornets.

Impressive numbers for sure, but maybe more impressive was Cousins regulating one of the NBA’s superstars during the waning moments of the Kings’ victory Saturday night.  After a missed three point attempt by Marcus Thornton and the subsequent rebound by Samuel Dalembert and with just 31.4 seconds remaining in the game, Chris Paul flat out ran over Beno Udrih.  Cousins was going to have none of that.  Not only did he go to help scrape Beno off the floor, but he let Chris Paul know he wasn’t going to do that again.  When asked what he said to Paul, Cousins said “I told him to clean it up.”   Cousins continued, “I know that I kind of overstepped the boundaries and Chris texted me that, but I’m going to continue to do it.”  By “it”, DeMarcus Cousins means to protect his own, even against the stars of the NBA.

Coach Westphal was asked about the Cousins/Paul situation in his post game press conference and whether or not he liked the move by Cousins:

If he got a technical I wouldn’t have liked it, but he was protecting his teammate.  At that stage of the game, at all cost, you don’t want a technical – but especially your big fellas you want to protect your team.

Westphal continued about Cousins:

DeMarcus for the last several games, I wouldn’t know where to start the count, his leap in poise and competitive maturity has been phenomenal.  So yeah, I want to be on the lookout for an explosion, but he’s been extremely well-contained and his play has been reflective of that.

Call it a coincidence if you would like, but the Kings, after dealing with some local drama, have seemingly pulled together as a team.  Not only have they beat two extremely high quality opponents, but they are showing signs that they are one unit, ready to back one another up on and off the court.  The next ten games will test their resolve, but it’s starting to look like, win or lose, there will be no more taking this team lightly.

As for DeMarcus Cousins, he gets to try his hand against a group of NBA legends this week.  First up on the docket are Shaquille O’Neal and Kevin Garnett, but right behind those greats, an all-star caliber player in Al Jefferson and two more sure-fire hall of fame players in Tim Duncan and Dirk Nowitzki.  There is no rest for the weary in the NBA.

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.

NBA 2K11 can get boring at times.

Sounds crazy, right?

When you do marathon square-offs like my friends and I do, blowouts can be fun for the trash talking and buzzer-beaters are a daggerfest the likes a good NBA League Pass night can give you. However, whenever you have those games that constantly sway between eight and 12 points and your opponent can’t quite make a good enough run to make it interesting, sometimes you start intentionally giving up baskets and making questionable decisions to make it more of a game.

With the way the Kings played in the fourth quarter against the Warriors, it almost looked like that was their plan. This game was too in their control and they decided to make it more intriguing. Only it backfired on them and they ended up giving away a rare victory.

Now, we know they didn’t ACTUALLY make plays to their detriment in order to make it more interesting. That’s the kind of thing we only find in segments of Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel or the movie Blue Chips. It would just be a much more believable scenario for why the Kings would turn the ball over nine times in the fourth quarter or fouling a 3-point shooter twice in the final 20 seconds of a game.

A lot of people are focusing on the choking gestures an exuberant (to say the least) DeMarcus Cousins was making right before he choked in grabbing key rebounds to help close out the game. But really the decision-making of the entire team should be under the interrogation lights.

Two turnovers by Cousins in the fourth. Two by Beno. Three by Tyreke. The Kings only made six shots in the fourth and one of those was assisted.

They just couldn’t execute and the Warriors shoved the fastbreak down their throats. They couldn’t execute all game.

Sometimes it’s just a matter of knocking down shots too. A trend for the Kings this season is not making open shots set up by the guards (or occasionally a big man who passes out of the post properly). They’re one of the worst in the NBA at it (ranked 24th according to Synergy).

This game was no different. Kings made six of their 23 spot-up shots. That’s a blistering 26%. And this is the problem of the team overall.

This team can’t shoot. At all. When Tyreke does create open shots for his teammates, they don’t seem to knock them down. The alternative appears for him to barrel into traffic like he did last season only he can’t finish anymore. Or he’ll shoot horrible jumpers off the dribble. Or Carl Landry will get the ball and waste possessions (most games, not this past one. He was fantastic against the Warriors). Or maybe Cousins will try to do too much driving to the hoop or Donté Greene and Omri Casspi will struggle to find a good shot they can knock down.

The point is the offense can’t go anywhere if you’re not making shots. And if the offense can’t go anywhere for a young team, they start rushing. When the Kings start rushing, the wheels fall off. They’re not a team that can weather their own storm. When things go bad, they go REALLY bad. Part of that is being young and learning how to grow together in this league and part of that is just not being good enough to win these games.

And that’s what is frustrating about this game for the Kings and their fans. The Warriors (ESPECIALLY and undermanned Warriors team) is completely beatable on every night. They have their own issues and inefficiencies. You saw that in much of the second and third quarters. Instead of the Kings gutting out a much-wanted victory, they made things interesting.

And it backfired.

Makes you wonder if it’s time to hit the reset button on this game.

Immediately after the Kings’ final possession against the Dallas Mavericks failed, Paul Westphal was under scrutiny from those who watched the Kings lose at home in probably their best game of the young season.

But after watching it a couple of times, I have to say there was nothing wrong with the play call. It was actually a very good play with tons of options to score. The ball was put in the hands of DeMarcus Cousins and he ended up failing. It wasn’t Westphal’s fault. Cousins just made a mistake.

Let’s break this down Sebastian Pruiti style and pretend we’re NBA Playbook for a day.

Play starts with a clutter of Kings between the elbow and the 3-point line with Francisco Garcia down by the baseline. Omri jets to the near corner, Landry flashes to the far corner and Garcia moves to the far sideline above the 3-point line. Cousins flashes towards Tyreke to receive the pass.

As soon as Tyreke inbounds the ball, he cuts through the lane behind Jason Kidd after he fakes towards Cousins for the hand-off. At this point, Cousins should have hit Reke with a good pass over the top. This is where the play begins to fall apart.

Once Cousins misses the opportunity, Chandler’s wingspan takes away the passing lane and closes off that option for DeMarcus. This gives Cousins the lane to drive, which he does.

Cousins has one more chance to pass to Reke once Chandler has to cut off the drive, but Kidd drops down. As DMC gets into the lane, Dirk helps off of Carl Landry. This is another misses scoring opportunity because Cousins did have a slight window to drop the pass down to Reke. He also could have just tried to score the ball himself.

Cousins opts to kick out to Landry at the 3-point line, probably out of nervousness. Dirk tips the pass and it gets Landry farther away from the basket but actually gives Carl a better driving lane on the baseline.

Landry drives the baseline but instead of just going into Chandler and trying to score over him or draw the contact, he goes deeper towards the baseline and gets caught behind the backboard.

Landry really has nowhere to go with the ball or the pass at this point. He forces one out to Garcia about 35 feet from the basket. Jason Terry cuts over to intercept the pass and seal the win for the Mavericks.

Sad Panda. Terry steals the ball and the Kings lose the game.

Here is the play in real time.

Overall, I think Westphal is unfairly taking heat for this final play. The play in theory was brilliant. It gave the Kings multiple opportunities to score and tie the game. Maybe you can rip him for putting the ball in the hands of a rookie, but that happened a few times last season and worked out fine.

Good play but poor execution.