I am with you, Gunks. Look at what Quinn Snyder has done with the Jazz and Donovan. Thats a good (great) coach! If Joerger had Mitchell he'd be averaging 8 PPG on 18 MPG.
Snyder lost Exum, he's been without Joe Johnson, he lost his Gobert for like 10 games and he has these guys playing .500 ball and they recently went into BOS and smacked the Celtics!
Do you think Joerger could do with the Jazz what Snyder has done? Similarly what could Coach Snyder do with the talent on the Kings?
Snyder has even had Ricky Rubio (a player who I think is highly overrated) perform competently for awhile! They run the 1-4 flats, they have excellent spacing, the middle of the floor is always open.
This is how you cater to a team whose strength is speed and shooting so you can get action going to the basket drive and kicks.
The talent on that Jazz is hardly extraordinary but it meshes it fits and this is reflection of the coach and the GM who assembled the personnel.
Meanwhile our genius GM passed on AG Anunoby, Donovan and gave away the most talented player in franchise history for peanuts.
Then he got super lucky in the lottery and retention of picks and unless Harry Giles in the Second Coming might have botched that too.
The measure of team competitiveness more so than W/L is point differential per 100 possession:
- Jazz (105.3 - 103.2) >>> +2.1
- Kings (98.5 - 109.1) >>> -10.6
The Jazz are 12.7 points better per 100 possessions than the Kings.
Now are you (collective you, not you specifically) going to tell me this is based in talent differential in the two teams??? I don't think so!
What did Joerger do besides take the system he ran with the Grizzlies and Randolph and try to duplicate it here? Wow, how inventive.
Now the players share the blame particularly, Willie (absolutely awful against the Wolves) and SKAL (weak and lost) for not commanding the front court minutes and proving definitively their value over Z-Bong to not only beat him out for playing time, but to overcome the inherent bias of the coach. In fairness to this coach, they have NOT done that.
Then there is Joerger saying he thinks some of his players have HIT THE WALL at the 30 game mark. I have NO doubt he was referring to Fox. There might be some merit to this.
We also have guys floundering as afterthoughts:
Whose seasons so far have collectively amounted to a waste while Vince Carter runs up and down, George Hill mostly goes through the motions and Garrett Temple launches another brick.
The debatable issue is how much of the struggles are related to underperformance of the players and how much is due to a system that hinders their potential?
Take Justin Jackson. I am souring on this guy. He's a finesse scorer who doesn't score that well. Wait, what? We spend the #13 pick on this?!?
Justin Jackson is an old rookie who shoots floaters and bricks wide open looks. Now think about this. If you listen to Grant and Jerry tell it, the fact he can shoot a floater is a positive. But the floater is something you add to your arsenal when you cannot get all the way to the hoop. Its Basketball 101.
James Harden shoots the three or goes all the way to the rim. He shoots a floater only when he cannot get a lay-up or dunk. Does Jackson have this attack mode mentality? No, he's soft. He's a baby kitten not a pit bull. He bails out the defense if he's not looking to attack with force. This is what Joerger has at his disposal? This is the prudence of the GM and part of the return from Boogie?
Then we have Buddy who has definitely found his groove off the bench and showing his potential and ability and laser like shooting.
But it is also disappointing he did not command those starting minutes against better competition. He flopped as a starter.
If Buddy Buckets had proven his worth against top line SGs then he takes shots and usage away from Z-Bo. But that didn't happen.
So we go back to the question about the shortcomings of the players OR shortcomings of the system not conducive to their ability.
If before the season started you told me the Kings would have a point differential in the double digits and their best player would be Zach Randolph, even the pessimistic side of me would have been surprised.
The positives on this team are:
- Mason
- Boggy
- Buddy off the bench
- Fox in flashes
And the performance in the clutch in close games has been hopeful with the execution and guys stepping up making for exciting finishes and us escaping with wins we probably didn't deserve.
Besides that there is not much to get excited about and that is reflection of those calling the shots at the top (GM, coach, scouts) all the way down to the man at the end of the bench.
I would like to express a little more holiday cheer, but I don't see it, and I expect us to get thumped again today with Z-Bo scoring 20 (allowing 25) and Carter getting his minutes. And OG showing us what could have been.
I exempt no one related to the Kings from this rant except Harry Giles , JaVarr Sampson and the Sign Lady.