The Official We're Talking Playoffs Thread

Because of the Gay injury, and because they've mortgaged future first round picks, the Kings have no valuable asset other than Cousins to trade The Cousins or bust strategy has ended in a major BUST. Instead of waiting like this front office did with Gay, they better start taking phone calls about Cousins and meet with Cousins to discuss the future, or lack thereof, of this organization. Heaven forbid if Cousins ended up with a major injury; then you're left in Hell for another decade.

Years ago the Lakers got Magic Johnson and then James Worthy in deals that gave them future #1 pick two and three years into the future from the time of the respective transactions; the Johnson deal involved Cleveland; the Worthy deal involved the NO Jazz. I thought the NBA made rules to prevent stupid short-sighted GMs from making such deals, but I guess not.

It may be time to stop talking about playoffs and start playing the younglings to see if there is potential with any of them. They are really the primary (maybe only) hope of building around Cousins because I just do not see much of an opportunity to trade for talent or sign high value FAs. We do not have a great draft future and we maybe drafting the kind of prospects that "are 2 years away from being 2 years away."

What youngins do we even have? Might as well keep pushing. Gay hasn't been much of a help anyway

I ride or die with Cousins. Him and Casspi are the only two players to show any kind of loyalty to this franchise and Cousins has shown a ton of it. I'm with Cousins until the bitter end whether we win or lose.

I don't know how everyone can keep blaming Cuz for not being in the playoffs by now and saying that he is not a capable superstar to take a team to the playoffs. If you watch playoff teams regularly you can see the talent required to make the playoffs and we have never been close to having that talent level. One man can't solely make the playoffs in the western conference it takes an entire competent organization, something that we are far from.

The real answer is we don't know, we can guess but he has never been put in a situation to from an organizational standpoint.

Based on shortsightedness from ownership we are in a position that might be worse than the Nets. We hung on too long to a team that had no shot. The sixers were a solid playoff team and still blew it up. Build from the ground up and get hinkie asap in here to run the show, Vlade can keep his VP title in an ambassador type role.

If Hinkie were the GM, his first order of business would be to trade DMC. NO THANKS. If you have a top 10 player, you build around him.

The issue was that we kept losing our talent for nothing, during Pete D'Assandro tenure. Isaiah Thomas and Tyreke Evans left for nothing.

What we needed was to add some solid pieces around DMC, and Rudy would have netted us something of value, but that is out the door now.

We have to hope the rookies pan out next year and Bogan comes over and is legit.

Who knows, maybe the Kings will rally behind a fallen teammate (Rudy) and make a solid push for the playoffs!!!

Stranger things have happened and the Kings actually played pretty well when Rudy was out with that hip injury!!!

To be fair the team was already spiraling before Rudy injury.

I really didn't want to attend your funeral, but now I'm taking out the black wardrobe.

How do you purpose we build? Theres no way to build, we have no assets, no free agent is coming here, I'm honestly interested in hearing how we can build quick enough to take advantage of Cousins peak prime years.

Oh and we didn't just lose assets for nothing under Pete, we continue to do it now(Rudy injury, Philly trade), I love Vlade for PR purposes but I would love even more if a proven guy took over the draft and took the wheel of the tank, maybe a more patient guy.

Rookies can't even buy court time right now and are most likely in the two years away from being two years away club in regards to impact players who can get us into the playoffs and thats if they aren't busts.

The rally thing is cool and Im sure the guys will come out inspired but these are paid professionals they are going up against and eventually the rah rah stuff becomes violently overtaken by teams that are actually talented.

We played well because Cuz went God mode and an easy string in the schedule, now teams design defenses specifically to take him away and although he gets his most nights, it seems to be much tougher and uglier(turnovers and more perimeter play).

Give Joeger and Cuz a week or so to try to muster up some kind of rally around the fallen Rudy, then once it fails, start a fire sale. Cuz will have to be looking 3 years down the road, if he is really down to sign the extension. Because it's going to be hard to sign veterans to keep competing for the 8th seed next year.

Cuz/Papa
WCS/Skal
Leftover SF/New young player
Temple/Richardson
Lawson/New young player

At least we can watch Cuz make a run for the scoring title with his "rest days" sprinkled in. Oh boy.

To be fair, he was banking on being better than the 76ers, which is why all the previous talk about this season not being about wins and losses is untenable. Of course wins matter when a potential draft swap is looming.

Rudy going down doesnt change the trajectory of this season either way imo. This team was always destined to be a 33 win team. Basically we will probably see the team rally a little but still will end up in the low 30's in terms of wins.

The way Philly is playing, how legit Embiid is and with Simmons nearly coming into the fold, it is still very conceivable they make a run at the eight seed.

I don't think Philly can make the playoffs in the East. They are 12 games below 0.500 and the 8th seed in the East will be at least a 0.500 team.

Philly may not finish last place, like usual, but making the playoffs will be pretty tough for Philly in the East this year.

They don't even have to make the playoffs for the draft swaps to occur. The 76ers have to be better than the Kings while the Kings miss the playoffs. With the 8 game road trip imminent, the Kings may dig themselves too deep a hole to climb out of. Then you have to take into account the overall morale of the team following the road trip and the loss of Rudy Gay.

Can anyone answer for me why cousins would Sign a long term extension with this franchise if he is so committed to winning? Especially after last night. If he really wants to win then he should want out of here. If he signs here all I can deduce from it is he is way to comfortable here and is settling for the paycheck. Nothing wrong with that, I just want to stop hearing about how committed boogie is to winning.

Boogie is committed to making Sacramento winning, not just winning anywhere. He was drafted by the Kings although by a different regime, so it's understandable there is some sentimental value for him to stay. He doesn't want to be like Durant or Lebron who jumped ship to join stars to take the easy way. He wants to literally do the impossible and take a perennial loser to success.

Also $$$$$ and lots of it.

there is a distinction worth making: i don't think boogie is committed to winning so much as he is committed to winning here. he has said repeatedly that he wants to spearhead the return of the kings' glory days. he has no apparent interest in jumping ship to join a superteam, or any clear desire to weasel his way to an organization with a greater history of success. he is loyal to the sacramento kings, for reasons that defy my understanding.

we can debate all day long about how crazy it is for demarcus to put his faith in a franchise that has given no indication that they can build a winner around him. across the last several seasons, i have questioned cousins' IQ on this point, because i just cannot fathom a legitimate nba superstar sacrificing his legacy on the altar of a losing team's inability to manage itself effectively. but that's demarcus cousins for you. he clearly places value on the kinds of things that other marquee players simply do not.

I'm really tired of people saying we don't have enough talent around Cousins. Sure, we do not have a star studded roster, but by all means, we have some savvy, capable vets, and we should at least be a .500 team. No, we're not going to contend for any championships with our squad but we should be at least be good enough to take the 8th seed, IMO. Look at the Jazz. Do you see any superstar players there? Hayward is a baller but what about the rest of the team? Solid but mostly unspectacular players, but they compete, play defense, and work as a team.

No, we don't have a roster that's capable of contending, but IMO, we have a roster solid enough to compete. And the fact that the roster and coaching fluctuations over the years have still yielded a horrible product year after year means something is broken. I don't know if it's Cousins, the coach, the FO, but if we can't even scratch the 8th seed with our roster right now, then I think it might be time to start over.

Look, losing Rudy is bad, but it is not the end of the world for the Kings.

Rudy had one foot out the door anyways and was most likely going to be traded by Feb 15th.

What losing Rudy now amounts to, is that we probably lost a player like Cameron Payne in a trade, which of course is better than not getting anything in return.

But, this season was never going to hinge on us getting someone like Cameron Payne in a Rudy trade. Payne would have been an nice asset a year or two from now.

What this season will come down to is whether the Kings can rally around DMC and the role players, play over their heads to make a run for the playoffs.

Something that may help save the season is the knowledge that the Kings can not just try and outscore the other team, because their second best offensive player is gone, the Kings will need to play tougher, hard nosed defense to win.

Good points.

The jazz have a much better roster. After Cousins, the Jazz are better at every spot. No other king would start on the jazz.

We were banking on Lawson and Afflalo to bounce back, and at least one of Ben or WCS to take a step forward. Not to mention the magical improvement in a coaching change.

Unfortunately, that's our biggest problem. Other than Cousins, virtually none of our players (not including Gay) would start on the clear majority of other NBA teams.

We have 1 nba starter on the roster, 3-4 guys who might be out of the league in a year or two(Affalo,Barnes, Casspi) 2 bench players (Temple,Koufos) Collison/Lawson might get 2nd string run in some spots but that is about it the rest are busts or kids.

What? The Jazz have a comparable roster? Are you serious? We have one guy that would start on that team and probably only two others that would even make their rotation.

With Rudy and Casspi out quite for some time, I hope Dave would not hold back on giving lots of minutes to Malachi instead of Affalo.
The kid can play and he is DMC's boy. DMC won't shout at him or shot down his ego if he ain't making those shots.

On the Jazz, besides Cousins and Gay. Only Collison, Temple and Koufos would be bench rotation guys and honestly no one else on our team would get run.

Cousins would probably have to change positions to start for the Jazz. He isn't putting Rudy Gobert on the bench.

Oh my.

But nonetheless the obvious thing anyway. Cousins already starts next to Koufos. You start your two best bigs, one for offense, one for defense.