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.

In yet another strange turn of events, the struggling Sacramento Kings  have decided to move fourth year power forward Carl Landry to the bench in favor of last year’s starter Jason Thompson.  Landry opened the door when he overslept and missed shoot-around before Saturday night’s loss to the Bulls.  Thompson took advantage, tallying 18 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists and a blocked shot while playing 33 minutes in Landry’s absence.  During his first two seasons in the NBA, Thompson had started a total of 114 games for the Kings at either the power forward or center position, and he appeared much more comfortable as a starter than he has off the bench.

Coach Paul Westphal was slightly non-committal yesterday when asked about the situation, but here is what the coach had to say:

I haven’t spoken with those players yet so I don’t want to get too into it, we have another day to talk about it.  It certainly looked good (Jason Thompson as a starter) and Carl obviously wasn’t himself last night, I don’t know if it was because of his back of because he never got in the flow of the game but we do know that Carl can produce big time off the bench and I think it’s something we’ll look at real hard.

Jason Thompson has been a good soldier through this entire situation, but his desire to play more has been apparent for some time.  During training camp, Thompson was considered one of the stand-outs, coming into camp in great physical shape and making the power forward spot a real competition.  But since the season began, Thompson’s minutes have been inconsistent even leading to the first DNP-CD of his career on November 12th against the Phoenix Suns.

Carl Landry had only started one career NBA game before his trade last season to the Kings.  Since then, he has manned the starting power forward spot, making 42 starts alongside a myriad of centers including Jason Thompson, Spencer Hawes, DeMarcus Cousins and Samuel Dalembert.  As a member of the Houston Rockets, Landry was considered a strong candidate for the NBA six man of the year award.  Hopefully he will have no trouble transitioning back to that role with the Kings.  Here are his thoughts on the subject:

I’m just a player and I just want to win.  At the end of the day I just want to win games.  I don’t care if I’m playing 5, 10- it doesn’t matter how many minutes I’m playing, I just want to compete.  It was really fun the first three quarters of that game.  I was up, I was excited, cheering seeing Jason have a great performance and the rest of my teammates.  That was fun.  Even though I wasn’t playing, it was fun and that’s the kind of basketball we need to have back here- fun basketball.

It has been a very busy day around Arco Arena.  First, the announcement that veteran swing man Antoine Wright was waived, followed by the news that there will be yet another starting line-up come Tuesday against the Indiana Pacers.  Lastly, the Kings have announced that rookie Hassan Whiteside will be joining the Reno Big Horns of the NBDL which puts the roster down to 12, one below the NBA minimum.

*** Correction.  Hassan Whiteside counts as an inactive member of the roster during his stint in the NBDL so the Kings do not have to make a roster move.

How We Feeling?
Totally awesome and then SOOOO the total opposite of awesome.

The Kings came out with energy. Evans came out destroying the Bulls and their staunch defensive efforts after he frustratingly missed his first two layups of the game. Samuel Dalembert and Jason Thompson controlled the paint. Donté Greene was the right kind of aggressive on offense. Omri Casspi was the right kind of shooter to swing the ball to. The Kings were taking care of the ball with their only two first half turnovers coming on offensive fouls.

Then the second half happened.

While the third quarter wasn’t killer for the Kings, it showed an outline of how the rest of the game was going to go for the Kings. While the Kings still shot the ball and scored relatively efficiently in the third quarter, they had turnover issues and it all started with the Bulls defense. It would be nice to say the Kings just got sloppy with the ball but the Bulls defense crippled everything the Kings wanted to do. They started by swarming Tyreke with double teams and traps whenever he got the ball in the half court. They pushed him away from the basket, forced him to give up the ball and then retreated defensively to get back to taking away passing and driving lanes.

Watching the Bulls work on defense was pretty special. With the Kings, it’s not hard to get them out of their offensive flow – usually because they don’t often have an offensive flow. Get Tyreke to have to go left and you’ve already stalled the offense. His passes over the top are slow and looping; they give the defense time to recover. But overall, the Bulls match up well with teams like the Kings. Rose is good enough athletically to stay with guys like Beno and Head defensively. Deng can stay with slow small forwards that aren’t strong at dribbling. Taj Gibson is just a damn good defender that can guard quicker 4s or be big enough to handle more massive power forwards inside. And Noah is just all over the place in a good way. He can guard just about anybody while still helping everywhere on the floor.

The Kings just don’t have anything to battle a defensive team like that with the current lineups they’re running. Cousins played way too much in this game, considering how ineffective he is on his right now and how ineffectively they’re using him (elbow jumpers instead of planting him on the block). I understand that Luther Head gives them so much defensively right now but they’re basically playing 4-on-5 out there on offense, and Dalembert isn’t always a viable offensive option either.

The Kings really gave this game away with their atrocious fourth quarter. Great starts by Tyreke Evans and Omri Casspi, and a great overall performance by the combo of Jason Thompson and Samuel Dalembert just couldn’t correct all the wrong that happened in the final 12 minutes of the game. The Kings broke down offensively and allowed themselves to be taken out of this game.

Key Sequence in the Game
Can the entire fourth quarter be considered a sequence of the game? It can? Awesome. Let’s go with that then.

Kings made three shots in the entire fourth quarter and turned the ball over seven times. I’m not basketball expert but I do know that you put your team at an extreme disadvantage when you have more turnovers than field goals made. If the Kings looked stagnant, it would have been a big upgrade from how they played offense in the fourth quarter.

Donté Greene made two of the Kings three baskets and Cousins made the other one. Outside of that, not a single player made a bucket. Evans got to the free throw line for two attempts, but those were the only attempts of the quarter. It was a lot of one shot and done. Kings scored just nine points in the quarter. NINE!!

The Kings had no space to operate on the floor. After the Bulls tied it up in the fourth at 76-76, Tyreke finally found some room to operate. The Bulls stopped trying to force the ball out of his hands and Evans had spacing on the floor. He ended up getting to the free throw line and then on the next time down the floor, he found Donté for a wide-open 3-pointer that he knocked down. Those were five of the Kings’ nine points in the quarter in a span of about 39 seconds. They’d only score four points in the remaining 7:39 of the game.

A Big Concern
The comments coming out of the Kings locker room after the game are actually a big concern to me. This isn’t just a team that is trying to figure out how to get over the hump. This is a team that is embarrassing themselves and having a hard time getting their collective games together to be a team right now.

Here are some of the quotes (via Jimmy Spencer of NBA.com):

- Westphal on team’s inability to stay focused: “… it could be selfishness … it could be not trusting your teammates”

- “We’re going to have to watch the tape. Coaches are going to have to watch the tape and figure out things.” – Omri Casspi on 1st vs 2nd half

- “We were down and it looked like I was supposed to make a play every time.” – Tyreke Evans after home loss to Chicago

The coach is saying trust and selfishness could be issues. Omri is saying the players and the coaches have to watch tape and the coaches need to figure it out. Tyreke sounds frustrated that he’s the only creator. These are not good things to hear 15 games into the season.

Advanced Stuff

The weird thing about this game is Tyreke was pretty neutralized in the second half (after a great first half of 13 points and six assists) and yet still ended up with the only positive plus/minus for the Kings in this game. He was +2 for the game and everybody else not named Pooh Jeter (who was an even 0) had a negative plus/minus.

A lot of people like to discount the idea of plus/minus but I’d like to offer up that it means just as much as how many points a player scored in this game. You can’t take everything from this statistics but you also can’t take everything from just how many points were scored in a game (just look at how Monta Ellis racked up points while poisoning his team last year).

Tyreke was so bad in the second half and yet still remained a positive overall. And keep in mind that Tyreke was on the court when the Bulls pulled away during this game with a 16-2 run.

Player of the Game
Jason Thompson is easily the player of the game for the Kings.

Carl Landry overslept and it opened the door for Jason Thompson who should be in the starting lineup anyway. JT isn’t the consistent scoring option that Landry is advertised to be, but he’s also not the ball-stopping force that Landry has shown to be this season. JT moves the ball really well and did a nice job of flashing to the middle of the floor to get open shots against the Bulls.

On the boards, he was active in tipping the ball away from guys like Noah and Gibson, while managing to grab some for himself. He was also a pretty good defender in this game. He and Sammy did a great job of challenging shots and making things difficult for the Bulls inside.

Thompson ended up with 18 points on 6/12 shooting, 6/7 from the free throw line, nine rebounds, four assists, one block, three turnovers and three fouls.

On to the Next One
Kings play the Indiana Pacers at Arco Arena on Tuesday, the 30th. Tip-off is at 7pm PST. The Pacers are currently 7-8 after dropping two straight to the Thunder and Lakers.

Key Matchup – Samuel Dalembert vs. Roy Hibbert
Roy Hibbert is becoming a formidable force inside for the Pacers and it will be up to Sammy to shut him down. Keeping him off the boards could be the biggest thing because Hibbert’s 3.4 offensive rebounds per game could be big in keeping Indy’s offensive game flowing.

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.

How We Feeling?
Not and good.

Six straight losses is not a way to convince your fan base that you’re on the way up, especially this early into the season when the majority of your losses have been at home. In fact, the Kings are currently 1-5 at home this year and look incapable of closing games out at Arco right now.

In this game, it was a great start as the Kings came out firing with their unconventional starting lineup (Luther Head, Tyreke Evans, Jason Thompson at the 3, Carl Landry and Samuel Dalembert) and held the Knicks to just 14 points on 21.7% shooting from the field. The Knicks missed all six of their 3-point attempts and only had one assist in the first quarter. The Kings led by as many as 15 and looked like they might be ready to play some good basketball at home.

Then the second quarter happened and the Knicks shot the lights out. They missed just four of their 17 shot attempts and poured in 40 points, fueled by 15 second quarter points by Danilo Gallinari. They scored just as efficiently in the third quarter with 12/17 shooting and then closed out the Kings with a 9-2 run late in the game to push the Kings’ deficit to nine points.

The frustrating thing about this game wasn’t that the Kings lost. The Knicks are a better team and certainly capable of taking down lesser opponents, even on the road. The reason you hate this game as a Kings fan is because the overall effort and sense of urgency seemed to be lacking. It’s not like the Kings came out and got destroyed on their home floor. It wasn’t a complete and utter lack of competitive nature. They just didn’t seem to care enough to make the final push when the Knicks were teetering on the border of being competent and attempting to give this game away.

The Kings made so many dumb mistakes on defense (like jumping into Gallinari on jumpers late in the game… twice!) and had horrible possessions on offense. They wasted key moments of the game throughout the entire contest. And it sort of started and ended with the way Tyreke Evans was playing.

Tyreke was terrible in this game. Yes, the stat line looks not too shabby, but the performance I saw on the court lacked the kind of fire you would like to see in a young star that the franchise is building around. Sure, he got a couple of meaningless layups to go in at the end when the game was pretty much in hand for the Knicks, but you never saw a sense of urgency or got the impression that he actually gave a damn.

It’s fine if the excuse of his bum ankle is going to be thrown around. But you can look like you care even if your ankle is bothering you. You can make better decisions with the ball, even if it means you have more of a limp at the end of games. The fire you expect from a young team to have just isn’t there right now and it showed in this game. Donté Greene cared at times. DeMarcus Cousins seemed to genuinely give a damn. Beno Udrih fought to keep the Kings alive at the end. But the collective team spirit was not there tonight.

Key Sequence in the Game
Key part of this game had to be near the end of the game when the Kings were desperate to fight back (or should have been). With the Kings down six and just over a minute and a half remaining, Tyreke Evans had the ball in his hands. Normally, that’s exactly what you want because Reke can generally do whatever he wants in clutch situations.

He ran a pretty soft pick-and-roll with DeMarcus Cousins on the left side and instead of attacking the paint or pulling up for a jumper, he threw up this weird push shot runner from about 10 feet. It was probably the worst shot I’ve ever seen Tyreke take. It was such a bad shot that when it caromed off the rim and DeMarcus saw the result of his screen, he looked completely defeated and disappointed that this was the shot they settled for.

Reke had Turiaf awkwardly standing between him and the basket when he came off the screen. If he attacks the basket, he’s definitely getting a good layup attempt off and maybe even a foul to stop the clock. Instead, he settled for a horrific shot that was so bad, his teammates looked completely disappointed in the effort. That pretty much sealed the game right there.

A Big Concern
Defense. Defense. Defense.

The Kings just didn’t really play any defense after the first quarter and it makes me wonder if the Knicks slow start was a result of the Kings coming out with much energy or the Knicks just having an off night in the first 12 minutes of the game.

After the first quarter, the Knicks made two-thirds of their shots for the rest of the game. Two-thirds!!!! How does that happen? You shouldn’t even care about the Kings giving up 40% on 3s to the Knicks or letting them get to the line 39 times. They made 32 of their 48 shots after the first quarter. Some of that is hot shooting and you just can’t account for it. But way too much of that is because of poor defensive effort. Plenty of teams get hot from the field, but not two-thirds hot.

Advanced Stuff

I don’t know how advanced the stat is here but Danilo Gallinari had a perfectly Kevin Martin type of second quarter. He didn’t have a single rebound, steal, assist, block, turnover or foul. He DID score 15 points in his 12 second quarter minutes on 3/3 shooting from the field, 2/2 shooting from 3-point range and 7/7 shooting from the free throw line.

Overall, Gallo got to the free throw line 17 times. 17! How does this happen? He had a fantastic game but I feel like the Kings were just careless in the way they defended him. Granted, he got four free throws by jumping sideways into a defender while trying to do his best Paul Pierce/Dwyane Wade impersonation but the Kings still did him way too many favors in this game.

Here is where the Kings stand in the Four Factors after Game 10 of the regular season:

Player of the Game
Carl Landry probably had the best game of any Kings player. I wanted to go with DeMarcus Cousins here because I thought he played excellent. He was very good in how he decided to attack the Knicks, and even though he didn’t finish well inside 10 feet, he still attempted 12 of his 15 shots inside of 10 feet. But the five turnovers were just too costly.

Landry on the other hand was very succinct and systematic in the way he dismantled the Knicks weak frontcourt defensively. 21 points on 13 shots and he also grabbed nine rebounds. He didn’t turn the ball over once and seemed very comfortable in the way he was used offensively. When the Kings can get this kind of production out of him, he’s almost a perfect complementary weapon to anything they do on the floor.

On to the Next One
Kings stay home to face the New Jersey Nets (4-7) on Friday at 7pm. The Nets are 4-7 coming off a loss to the Utah Jazz in SLC last night. The Kings lost to them earlier in the season in New Jersey when they couldn’t guard Devin Harris down the stretch.

Key Matchup – Tyreke Evans vs. Devin Harris
Harris killed the Kings last time and almost single-handedly won the game for New Jersey. Evans has to bring it this time and really put the pressure on the Nets.

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.

How We Feeling?
There’s no way you can feel good about what you saw from the Kings against the Wolves.

The Wolves are probably the worst team in the NBA. Maybe Detroit or Toronto are worse but a team like the Kings needs to take advantage of facing one of the easier opponents, especially when they get to stay home to play them. Instead, the Kings came into this game with some defensive issues and lack of energy to start the game. They ran into a buzzsaw game by Michael Beasley and never had anybody step up and take over with smart, intelligent basketball to counter the offensive barrage Beas was throwing at them.

The Kings just didn’t make smart decisions for the most part. And it looks like they’re going to struggle to guard athletic wing players this season. They were torched by Rudy Gay, Kobe Bryant (understandable) and now Michael Beasley over the last three games. In this game, the Kings threw whatever they could at Beasley defensively and just couldn’t keep the ball out of his hands and out of the basket. The Kings tried five different guys (Omri, Donté, Cisco, JT and Antoine Wright) on Beasley and nothing worked. They tried a zone and he still destroyed them. The Kings never had that one guy who could just buckle down and keep him from being in comfortable positions to score.

The Kings shared the ball extremely well in this game. They just couldn’t capitalize from 3-point range or the free throw line and they couldn’t take care of the ball. They missed 15 of their 20 3-point attempts. They missed 12 of their 32 freebies. The starting backcourt of Tyreke and Beno turned the ball over nine of the 19 times the Kings turned the ball over in this game. There was just a lack of execution on a night in which they needed a defensive adjustment to stop Michael Beasley and a couple of momentum swings on offense to get the game in their control.

Again, you can’t take much good from this game because these are the few gimme type of games the Kings have to take advantage of throughout this season. Now they have lost three straight games at home and fallen below .500.  

Key Sequence in the Game
After cutting the deficit down to a very manageable and winnable three points with 5:11 left in the game, the Wolves went on a 6-0 Kevin Love run to push the score to 91-82. Kings had hung around enough to have one more push in them if they could play a little defense. But Kevin Love ended up coming out of nowhere (seriously, he was nonexistent almost the entire game) to give the Wolves the final push to get a little distance.

Even though this 6-0 run only spanned about a minute and a half, it was at just the right time for the Wolves to get a little comfortable before the final stretch of the game. Kings couldn’t get stops when they needed to in order to take this game back over.

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention Tyreke’s foul situation. With 10:34 left in the fourth quarter, Reke picked up his fifth foul. Westphal left him in because he felt like he had just subbed back into the game and wanted to avoid losing a chance at winning this game by having Evans sit for a key stretch in the fourth quarter when the game could have easily been won with a strong showing.

One minute and 32 seconds later, Tyreke picked up his final foul on a fastbreak in which he ran over Sebastian Telfair and the Kings young star was done for the rest of the game. I understand the motive behind Westphal sticking with Tyreke but at the same time, you have to give yourself a chance to win at the end of games with your best guy.

A Big Concern
Where in the hell is Carl Landry? What happened to him? Why is he so nonexistent? Is he still on the team? Did the Kings keep the wrong Landry brother? Is it possible he’s in hiding? Did the Monstars steal his powers? These are all questions I’ll be tackling in an upcoming post.

Advanced Stuff

This isn’t an advanced stat but I was impressed with the Kings not giving up a single fastbreak point to the Wolves in this game. In the first game these two faced each other, the Kings gave up 35 fastbreak points to the Wolves and narrowly escaped with a road victory. In this contest, their turnovers were possession killers but not huge point swings. They got back on defense and avoided letting the Wolves get out and run, which is something they love to do considering they have the top pace in the NBA.

Here is where the Kings stand in the Four Factors after Game 7 of the season:

Player of the Game
Samuel Dalembert was probably the best King in this game with 14 points, nine rebounds, two assists and two blocked shots. The Kings involved him a lot more in the offense and did it in an intelligent way. They didn’t just post him up and hope he could figure out a good way of scoring in the post. They got him rolling to the basket and getting dunks and layups at the rim. This is the smart way to use him I chronicled in the off-season.

On to the Next One
Friday at Phoenix to face the Suns at 6pm PT. The Suns are currently tied with the Kings in the Pacific Division standings with a 3-4 record. They’re coming off of a loss against the Grizzlies in Memphis and haven’t played since Monday night. They’ll have fresh legs too.

Key Matchup – Tyreke Evans vs. Jason Richardson.
Reke has to be able to match Richardson’s scoring (21.7 ppg, 48% FG, 47.9% 3-pt) in an efficient manner and not let J-Rich get into any kind of rhythm early.

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.

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…

I may be the only one, but seeing Samuel Dalembert in a Kings jersey will be really weird for me. I guess Sammy isn’t the first thing to pop in one’s mind when he hears the phrase “Philadelphia 76ers”, but he has been around for quite a while, always popping up in trade rumors and disproportionate contract discussions and yet always manning the middle for the usually overmatched squad from Philly.

And now it’s over. Quietly, uneventfully, for Spencer Hawes and Andres Nocioni, while we were much busier thinking about the then still undecided NBA finals.

So forgive me if I stall, and bump the “what Samuel Dalembert will mean for the Kings” bit down a hundred words or so. As a basketball fan with no affinity what-so-ever with the Philadelphia 76ers, I’m not sure if Sammy in a different jersey will ever feel right.

Okey Dokey. Moving on.

Looking ahead towards Dalembert’s Sacramento days, we must first separate two equally intriguing parts of Sam: his 6’11″, 250 pound frame, and his 13.4 million dollar expiring contract. The former could – SHOULD – be a great help for a team that desperately needs what he gives. The latter could potentially provide the Kings with a massive upgrade, or could be proven irrelevant.

We’ll start with Sam the player.

First and foremost, Sam is a shot blocker. So much of a shot blocker that he tries too hard, spanning all those goaltending jokes that you’ve been reading ever since the Kings pulled off that trade with Philly. But despite his occasionally mistiming his leaps so that his opponent’s shot still counts, his tendency to send anything even approaching the rim he’s defending to the other side of the country is generally beneficial. And if you don’t believe me, take a look at some of Spencer Hawes’ defensive “highlights”. Heck, even the best defender in this league occasionally catches one of the shots he loves sending into the stands after the apex of arcs. It’s just something you have to live with.

Luckily, Sammy isn’t just your empty block extraordinaire. No, as far as interior defense, the large Haitian is the real deal. Sam finished third in the entire league at defensive rebound rate, posting a beastly 30.7. While that’s easily a career high (an upwards bump from 29.1 in 08-09, after ranging between 22 and 25.4 since his rookie year) and unlikely to be repeated, a third place, league wide finish is hardly fluky: the man can crash the boards with a vengance, a welcome sight after last season.

Of course, the picture isn’t entirely rosy. The goaltending issue is a real one, with his carelessness frequently awarding teams with extra points. He also fouls quite a bit – these past two seasons he was just under 6 fouls per 48 minutes – which combined with the Kings’ frontcourt depth, should probably ensure that his minutes per game remain around the 25 mark he’s been at the past two seasons. He’s also not your best one-on-one post defender, specifically struggling against this league’s most monsterous post dwellers – let’s not forget how Dwight Howard destroyed him in that 08-09 playoff series, and even Marcin Gortat posted an 11 and 15 when Dwight was suspended for game 6. However, very few men can cope with his Dwightness. All in all, he is a very good defensive big man, and should prove to be a coup for the Kings on that end of the court.

Offensively, my thinking at the time of the trade was that Sam would be the designated lob-finishier/tip-in-master/general-garbage-man. He is a strong offensive rebounder, though he isn’t as dominant as he is on the defensive boards (his offensive rebound rate last season was 13.0, a very solid figure, but not among league leaders), and his constant mobility allows him to get put backs and turn loose balls into dunks.

There has also been talk of him playing a bigger role in the offense than what we’ve seen in Philly. Zach broke down the prospect on this very cyberspace and came out with mixed feelings. Ultimately, there is validity to the sentiment of featuring Dalembert – he is very mobile for a man his size, and a strong finisher around the rim (according to Hoopdata he shot 67% at the rim last season). Having him constantly set screens for either Reke or Beno, then cutting to the basket gives the Kings a strong option on the roll part of the pick and roll, while keeping opposing big men honest when trying to cut off Reke’s penetration. If Tyreke and Sammy can develop a strong understanding of when Sam is open of these drives, they can be a force as a pick and roll combo.

As far as floor spacing, though, Sam leaves one wanting. His shooting from the 10 to 15 foot range has regressed over the past 4 seasons – from 48% in 06-07 to 43%, 40%, and 35.6% last year. This from a range that offers little spacing. The picture from 16 to 23 feet is even grimmer – Sam shot 38% last year after showings of 30% and 37% the years before – so he probably shouldn’t be counted on to shoot from there.

However, his constant movement should be enough to make sure that the paint isn’t crowded. While he isn’t the ideal big man to pair with either Landry or Cousins when they go down low, one can certainly envision him moving off the ball on the opposite side of the paint, cutting in to the basket, trying to capitalize on DeMarcus’ elite passing skills. Landry shows less promise in this regard, but should be able to work with Sam’s off ball escapades as well.

Moving on to the contract bit, this is where Sam turns from solid veteran help into endless mouthwatering possibilities. You’ve probably heard way too much already about the bleak and uncertain future of the league, with impending CBA threatening to forever alter the salary cap as we know it. Well, in such a state of financial overturn, contracts expiring before the new CBA comes into effect have immense value to teams looking to cut costs. Using Sam’s expiring contract, the Kings could allow themselves to take on long-term salary (they are currently on the books for just 26 million next year), thus upgrading the roster long-term without resorting to the financially unreasonable.

Or, if there doesn’t seem to be a long contract worth swallowing – a saddening yet very plausible scenario – Sam’s deal could be an immense help to the Kings just by running out. With so little money on the books for next season, the Kings have the flexibility to offer extensions to either Carl Landry, Sammy, both, or none of them – and still probably be a player in the free agent market. And while the class of 2011 isn’t nearly as impressive as the class we just saw this summer, there are some interesting prospects (specifically, allow me to officially start my campaign for the Kings to sign Marcus Thornton, who will be a restricted free agent after the season).

Though this may seem weird considering the guy has been in the league for 8 years and is a likely opening day starter (I find it hard to believe Westphal knocks the veteran for Cousins, even if that might be the right decision), this year will be somewhat of an audition for Sam. We know not what his market value will be with the new CBA in place and who could afford to get him – for example, in the current market, the Miami Heat would probably have knocked on his door with their MLE the second 2011 free agency starts – but we do know that his Bird rights belong to Sactown. Which means they could either sell them to the highest bidder, or use them to keep Sammy in purple for a few more years.

However, whether he sticks for a few months, the entire season, or beyond, Sam fills a clear need for this team. For the price of an overpaid, disgruntled veteran, and a prospect gone wrong, that’s a steal, even if he goaltends a potential Tyreke game winner.