The 2010 version of the Sacramento Kings is setting up to be quite interesting.
And it is just 15 games into the 82-game regular season. Already, the Kings have had major defensive, offensive and on-court chemistry issues.
Word is they’ve got a bunch of young talents, who are not showing an inclination to listen to the coaching staff or showing a collective dedication to hard work.
Until there is an acquisition of those two required traits, it will be difficult for the Kings (4-11) to maximize their strengths.
They’ve got 10 losses in their past 11 games entering tonight’s home game against the Indiana Pacers as an example of what not to do.
Other teams are experiencing problems of a similar nature to those of Sacramento. Consider the Miami Heat, a team many believed capable of contending for an NBA title this season after the free-agent signings of LeBron James and Chris Bosh and the re-signing of Dwayne Wade.
The Heat’s problems aren’t exactly like Sacramento’s, yet attempting to mesh its considerable talent into a consistent force is very much akin to what is going on here.
Tyreke Evans, last season’s Rookie of the Year, is struggling. Of all the problems one would have imagined, Evans having difficulty scoring was not one.
Yet, that’s been a major problem early into his second pro season.
First-round draft choice, DeMarcus Cousins, was tossed from practice Monday afternoon, reportedly for running his mouth to the coaching staff. Like Evans, Cousins has had problems scoring and is shooting just 38 percent from the field.
It’s likely these players are experiencing these difficulties for the first times in their lives.
The Kings are coming off a weekend home loss to the Chicago Bulls that displayed their season in a microcosm. Sacramento was superb during the first half while establishing a 57-44 lead.
The Kings held a 71-57 advantage with 3:23 left in the third before their game disintegrated into basketball mush.
Then their fourth-quarter performance was so putrid it had to be seen to be believed.
Sacramento made just three of 21 field-goal attempts, committed eight turnovers and was outscored, 27 to nine.
That nine-point mention is not a typographic error. The Kings scored nine points during 12 minutes despite having 29 possessions.
Coach Paul Westphal still is attempting to find the right combination of players to invest in basics. Moving the ball to the open man, covering for teammates defensively and following the team’s principles would be an excellent beginning.
No one is expecting the Kings to consistently perform at a playoff level. Yet, the Kings clearly can play better than they have.
Antoine Wright was waived Monday and Hasaan Whiteside was sent to the NBDL to play with Reno.
Kings president Geoff Petrie said the team doesn’t plan to add any more players in the short term.
“We’ve got to find a way of playing better together,” Petrie said Monday. “We’ve got to generate a more consistent offense.”
There is another one of those basics the Kings must adopt.
Showing posts with label Antoine Wright. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Antoine Wright. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Friday, November 12, 2010
The painful education of growing up - the Sacramento Kings
It has been disappointing watching the Kings in their past two games. Collectively, they’ve stunk up the joint.
When Sacramento meets Phoenix Friday night, it’ll be a match up of two of the NBA’s worst defensive squads, so look for many, many points to be scored.
However, the Kings are youth-laden while the Suns are a veteran crew. When in doubt, take the experience.
When you can’t take care of the ball (19 turnovers in a 98-89 loss Wednesday night to Minnesota), you can’t muster consistent offensive production and you can’t find a way to keep an admittedly ultra-talented Michael Beasley and clearly improved Sebastian Telfair from dominating your squad, disappointing is the word that comes to mind.
Here’s another: $#@@&%%!!
Once again, the basics of Basketball 101 in Marty Mac’s World are a team usually needs four or five players doing what they do to snatch a victory.
It would be a good thing if one of those players was your best player.
However, Tyreke Evans was as terrible against the T-Wolves as Minnesota’s defense was determined to keep him from the basket. Omri Casspi scored 17 points in 27 minutes, but he was the first victim of Beasley’s assault.
Beasley treated Casspi as if he were his little brother. The second-year forward is an amazing talent but he was allowed to get off early, as almost every Kings opponent has been.
By the time, Donte Greene, yes, that Donte Greene, came off the bench for 3:40, Beasley was so hot, he’d have lit up an in-prime Dennis Rodman, the 6-foot-8 forward who already should have defended and rebounded his place in the Basketball Hall of Fame.
Francisco Garcia, Samuel Dalembert and Antoine Wright followed in the procession of torches, uhh, defenders to get some from Beasley on the way a career-high 42.
Only Dalembert, Darnell Jackson and Beno Udrih (other than those four turnovers) played well.
That’s not enough to overcome missing 12 of 32 free-throws, committing 19 turnovers (many sloppier than unforced) and making just five of 20 three-point field-goal attempts.
That left the Kings with three straight home losses during a stretch eight home games in nine. It’s extremely early in the season; however, this is where habits are formed.
This is where identities are created and established.
Remember, identities can be negative. It’s important for a team to establish difficult-to-discern and measure qualities like toughness, confidence, teamwork and chemistry.
Yet, without those qualities, a team has no shot at success.
Right now, the Kings have none of these qualities.
And it’s the team’s composition that is most responsible for that status.
Minnesota assistant coach Bill Laimbeer was discussing talented young forward Kevin Love and working with a young team.
He was speaking of the Timberwolves and Love, but his words equally could be applicable to the Kings and Tyreke Evans and DeMarcus Cousins.
Laimbeer was asked how Love can improve.
“By learning the game, how to get more involved in a team structure, which all of our young guys have to learn,” he said of the T-Wolves. “Defensive wise he has to learn how to short cut things and take away other guys opportunities and discourage passes coming into the post because he’s not the tallest guy or the strongest guy.
“He has to do his work early in order to discourage his guy from getting the ball.”
Laimbeer, one of the league’s great intangible players as well most despised, said many dynamics go into team and individual growth.
“When you don’t get to grow up as a unit,” he said, “it can be frustrating. That takes a few years. As far as Kevin, he’s going to learn his way. When you are young like this, you are thinking about how I’m going to get mine and how I’m going to establish myself as a player. And unless you are surrounded by intense veterans who are winners, you are going to stub your toe along the way and these guys are no exception.
“He’s very young, yes, and that’s a positive and a negative. You are so young you want to get out of the bad habits you pick up because you don’t know any different. And quite frankly being on a team where he hasn’t won that’ll wear you down and you don’t want to get into that rut early in your career.”
Youth means learning how to make the most of one’s ability and skills. It means avoiding one’s weaknesses and mostly, how not to defeat yourself.
We have yet to see how long this process will take, or if will occur. And tonight against a veteran Phoenix team, we’ll get one more indication.
When Sacramento meets Phoenix Friday night, it’ll be a match up of two of the NBA’s worst defensive squads, so look for many, many points to be scored.
However, the Kings are youth-laden while the Suns are a veteran crew. When in doubt, take the experience.
When you can’t take care of the ball (19 turnovers in a 98-89 loss Wednesday night to Minnesota), you can’t muster consistent offensive production and you can’t find a way to keep an admittedly ultra-talented Michael Beasley and clearly improved Sebastian Telfair from dominating your squad, disappointing is the word that comes to mind.
Here’s another: $#@@&%%!!
Once again, the basics of Basketball 101 in Marty Mac’s World are a team usually needs four or five players doing what they do to snatch a victory.
It would be a good thing if one of those players was your best player.
However, Tyreke Evans was as terrible against the T-Wolves as Minnesota’s defense was determined to keep him from the basket. Omri Casspi scored 17 points in 27 minutes, but he was the first victim of Beasley’s assault.
Beasley treated Casspi as if he were his little brother. The second-year forward is an amazing talent but he was allowed to get off early, as almost every Kings opponent has been.
By the time, Donte Greene, yes, that Donte Greene, came off the bench for 3:40, Beasley was so hot, he’d have lit up an in-prime Dennis Rodman, the 6-foot-8 forward who already should have defended and rebounded his place in the Basketball Hall of Fame.
Francisco Garcia, Samuel Dalembert and Antoine Wright followed in the procession of torches, uhh, defenders to get some from Beasley on the way a career-high 42.
Only Dalembert, Darnell Jackson and Beno Udrih (other than those four turnovers) played well.
That’s not enough to overcome missing 12 of 32 free-throws, committing 19 turnovers (many sloppier than unforced) and making just five of 20 three-point field-goal attempts.
That left the Kings with three straight home losses during a stretch eight home games in nine. It’s extremely early in the season; however, this is where habits are formed.
This is where identities are created and established.
Remember, identities can be negative. It’s important for a team to establish difficult-to-discern and measure qualities like toughness, confidence, teamwork and chemistry.
Yet, without those qualities, a team has no shot at success.
Right now, the Kings have none of these qualities.
And it’s the team’s composition that is most responsible for that status.
Minnesota assistant coach Bill Laimbeer was discussing talented young forward Kevin Love and working with a young team.
He was speaking of the Timberwolves and Love, but his words equally could be applicable to the Kings and Tyreke Evans and DeMarcus Cousins.
Laimbeer was asked how Love can improve.
“By learning the game, how to get more involved in a team structure, which all of our young guys have to learn,” he said of the T-Wolves. “Defensive wise he has to learn how to short cut things and take away other guys opportunities and discourage passes coming into the post because he’s not the tallest guy or the strongest guy.
“He has to do his work early in order to discourage his guy from getting the ball.”
Laimbeer, one of the league’s great intangible players as well most despised, said many dynamics go into team and individual growth.
“When you don’t get to grow up as a unit,” he said, “it can be frustrating. That takes a few years. As far as Kevin, he’s going to learn his way. When you are young like this, you are thinking about how I’m going to get mine and how I’m going to establish myself as a player. And unless you are surrounded by intense veterans who are winners, you are going to stub your toe along the way and these guys are no exception.
“He’s very young, yes, and that’s a positive and a negative. You are so young you want to get out of the bad habits you pick up because you don’t know any different. And quite frankly being on a team where he hasn’t won that’ll wear you down and you don’t want to get into that rut early in your career.”
Youth means learning how to make the most of one’s ability and skills. It means avoiding one’s weaknesses and mostly, how not to defeat yourself.
We have yet to see how long this process will take, or if will occur. And tonight against a veteran Phoenix team, we’ll get one more indication.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Kings just work now - progress to come later?
Early NBA preseason games often provide more questions than answers.
There were times during Sacramento’s game Sunday night in Oakland against Golden State when it seemed as if the Kings didn’t want to play.
Now, we always must be careful of what we think we see and be capable of maintaining an open mind to all the circumstances involved.
Confusion can appear to be disinterest.
Coach Paul Westphal during his post-game comments did not implicate his team’s effort or lack thereof. He pointed towards his team’s lack of experience on the floor and indicated at times it made his team appeared disorganized.
“It’s hard for us to find the rhythm with a lot of key players out that we need to have on the floor,” Westphal said. “But that’s part of training camp. So it looks disorganized like we’re trying to learn our offense, so our offense is not effective at all.
“We’re not functioning smoothly. We’re not getting the ball inside. And that’s a problem.
I’m sure we’ll get better. We’ll get on the same page as we start getting some guys back.”
Center Samuel Dalembert, who has the NBA’s third-longest active games played streak with 354, has yet to play during the preseason because of a left adductor strain. The Kings miss him dearly at the defensive end.
“I don’t go to the trainer for an update every day,” Westphal said after Sunday night’s game, “but I’m hopeful to see him this week. I really don’t want to rush him, but at the same time, you can see that we can use him.”
The Kings Sunday also played without forward Carl Landry (eye injury) and guard Beno Udrih (sprained right shoulder). Westphal said he thought both could return to action this week.
Sacramento begins the regular season Oct. 27 in Minneapolis against the Timberwolves. It has four preseason games remaining, with tonight’s return engagement against Golden State at Arco Arena the only one at home.
Tonight’s contest should provide a more realistic indication of what the Kings will be working with this season. However, these upcoming games are dwindling opportunities for players (Luther Head, Darnell Jackson, Joe Crawford and Marcus Landry) to show they belong on this team.
Neither Marcus Landry nor Omri Casspi nor Donte Greene nor Antoine Wright has distinguished himself enough to win the wide-open starting small-forward position. The entire training camp body of work will be considered, yet making due with the minutes received during the next two weeks likely will go a long way to claiming that position.
Then again, Westphal has numerous frontcourt options. He could opt to go with Dalembert at center, Jason Thompson at power forward and Carl Landry up front. Francisco Garcia also factors into the mix at small forward.
It may not be fair to call this a work in progress at this juncture.
We must wait to see how it evolves.
There were times during Sacramento’s game Sunday night in Oakland against Golden State when it seemed as if the Kings didn’t want to play.
Now, we always must be careful of what we think we see and be capable of maintaining an open mind to all the circumstances involved.
Confusion can appear to be disinterest.
Coach Paul Westphal during his post-game comments did not implicate his team’s effort or lack thereof. He pointed towards his team’s lack of experience on the floor and indicated at times it made his team appeared disorganized.
“It’s hard for us to find the rhythm with a lot of key players out that we need to have on the floor,” Westphal said. “But that’s part of training camp. So it looks disorganized like we’re trying to learn our offense, so our offense is not effective at all.
“We’re not functioning smoothly. We’re not getting the ball inside. And that’s a problem.
I’m sure we’ll get better. We’ll get on the same page as we start getting some guys back.”
Center Samuel Dalembert, who has the NBA’s third-longest active games played streak with 354, has yet to play during the preseason because of a left adductor strain. The Kings miss him dearly at the defensive end.
“I don’t go to the trainer for an update every day,” Westphal said after Sunday night’s game, “but I’m hopeful to see him this week. I really don’t want to rush him, but at the same time, you can see that we can use him.”
The Kings Sunday also played without forward Carl Landry (eye injury) and guard Beno Udrih (sprained right shoulder). Westphal said he thought both could return to action this week.
Sacramento begins the regular season Oct. 27 in Minneapolis against the Timberwolves. It has four preseason games remaining, with tonight’s return engagement against Golden State at Arco Arena the only one at home.
Tonight’s contest should provide a more realistic indication of what the Kings will be working with this season. However, these upcoming games are dwindling opportunities for players (Luther Head, Darnell Jackson, Joe Crawford and Marcus Landry) to show they belong on this team.
Neither Marcus Landry nor Omri Casspi nor Donte Greene nor Antoine Wright has distinguished himself enough to win the wide-open starting small-forward position. The entire training camp body of work will be considered, yet making due with the minutes received during the next two weeks likely will go a long way to claiming that position.
Then again, Westphal has numerous frontcourt options. He could opt to go with Dalembert at center, Jason Thompson at power forward and Carl Landry up front. Francisco Garcia also factors into the mix at small forward.
It may not be fair to call this a work in progress at this juncture.
We must wait to see how it evolves.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Kings add Wright and Jeter
It was late Thursday night when Kings President Geoff Petrie's words continued bouncing around my head.
'Pretty close to adding a couple of guards,' was how Petrie described the Kings situation.
That's Petrie-ese for having a deal done, but he's not discussing it until it is done.
The Kings signed swingman Antoine Wright and point guard Pooh Jeter Friday morning to hopefully bolster their backcourt.
Will it work? That will be an unanswered question until the fall. Jeter is an extremely quick, 5-foot-11 lead-guard capable of pushing the ball and increasing game tempo.
Moreover, since Jeter played with the Kings in the 2007 Summer League, he appears to have acquired a consistent perimeter shot. Combined with his speed and quickness, that could make him a major contributor coming off the bench.
Remember, there is little defense for athleticism and skill. Jeter is hungry to prove his worth and establish a place in the NBA. While playing with Cleveland during the recently completed summer league, Jeter consistently got into the lane and made plays for teammates.
Yes, if he can play at that level consistently - another unanswered supposition - Jeter is what the doctor ordered.
Wright is a player whom I've not seen enough to truly assess. He's played sparingly at New Jersey, Dallas and Toronto and yes, there is a reason for that.
His situation sounds eerily similar to that of Doug Christie.
Wright is a good defender at both shooting guard and small forward and the Kings hope he can add depth at both positions.
Said Petrie of the signings, "Pooh is a third point guard, while Wright is a 2-3 with a decent handle. He gives us depth and versatility at both positions.
Sacramento clearly is not down with spending its cap room on anything other than bringing in a major star. That's the way it should be.
The last time the team made a major score in free-agency was in 1999 following a lockout.
That's when Vlade Divac came walking through the door.
There is going to be a lockout following the 2010-11 season, so we'll see if history repeats itself.
Overtime
Petrie was asked about unrestricted free-agent guard Shannon Brown.
He said, "We've talked to everybody who is available. That's not something that's doable right now."
Translation: Brown wants more money right now than the Kings are willing to spend.
Things have a way of changing over the course of a summer as reality sets.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)