[Game] Kings vs. Grizzlies - 3/18/2024 - 7PM PST/10PM EST

Status
Not open for further replies.
Caruso is drastically overrated. I sure hope Keon develops into a much better all-around player.

There’s a faction of fans here that always seem to covet and overrate that which our team doesn’t have. Once this team has ‘em, many of those same fans want ‘em traded due to the flaws they finally get to see up close and personal on a nightly basis.

If this team was a defensive juggernaut that had major problems scoring, the fans would be coveting one-dimensional offensive scorers.

Like it or not, in this current era and rule set of basketball, players that are proficient at putting the ball in the basket (and are a bit underwhelming on the other end of the floor) are more valuable than players that are considered defensive stoppers (and are a bit underwhelming on the other end of the floor).

That said, Keon gives the KINGS a bit more balance on the floor (with the starting 5) than they get with Huerter. They end up with at least 2 plus defenders (Ellis, Keegan) with Swipa being a 3rd defensive wildcard depending upon his offensive focus from game to game. And an argument can be made that the offense isn’t taking much of a hit with Ellis over Huerter, considering how Kevin has played much of the season (and even back to the final months of last season).

IMO Coach Brown has been loyal to Huerter to a fault. With the way the KINGS had been playing lately when Keon was starting, I don’t understand the rationale of going back to #9.
How is Caruso overrated? Have you ever watched him play?

Dude pops in every defensive metric on earth and pops off the screen when you watch him defend. He's incredible.
 
Some positive stuff from this rollercoaster of emotions match:

Kings made most of their free throws. 26/32 but those 2 missed ones from Keegan could cost us, luckily we got the rebound.
Memphis hit "only" 33.3% from the 3 point line, still better than the Kings did but much lower that we are used to watching visitors at G1C hitting lights out every damn match.

Some negative stuff:

Grizzlies had no point guard in their roster and we couldn't force them to turn the ball over so easily. They had some bad shots but we could have taken advantage of that. On the other hand Kings that had 6 turnovers till the middle of 3rd quarter, had 3-4 turnovers in a row after a time out and were really careless with the ball letting Memphis score 27 points after those turnovers. That mistake from Sabonis at the end... geez. Fox was also quite sloppy, and HB lost the ball twice in a row before missing that easy shot that benched him till the end of the match.
Also the offensive boards, 15 for Grizzlies with the majority coming from... Konchar, LaRavia and Jemison, 11 the 3 of them. Kings had also 15 btw, 7 from Domas.

Regarding JJJ, I think he had huge issues with Domas when he was attacking, and scored most of his points when facing Len. But he stopped Domas several times when Kings were feeding him inside the paint. We don't usually see him going 6/17 from the field. Good that he made a career high on made free throws (13/15 the previous one was 12). I would still give the DPOG to Keon but I think the prize went to Domas to boost his morale (after how the match vs NY ended and the Aldama steal today) and to motivate Keon even more to keep up in the next matches.

The whole DPOG thing started in Denver with Jordi and is still going on there as well (I think they have more awards and not only this), also Washington I think gives something like a "belt", I remember seeing something similar last year when searching the twitter for a DPOG for the Kings that took a while to be "announced".
 

pdxKingsFan

So Ordinary That It's Truly Quite Extraordinary
Staff member
How is Caruso overrated? Have you ever watched him play?

Dude pops in every defensive metric on earth and pops off the screen when you watch him defend. He's incredible.
Caruso would have been a fine pickup if we traded what we wanted to trade for him.

He would have been terrible if we traded what the Bulls wanted for him. Thus he is stuck on a team that seems certain to be the 9 seed out East and probably loses night two of the play-in unless there's an injury bad luck component to the two teams that wind up in 7 and 8, and falls further down the standings next year.

@KingsFanSince85 is right though about how we undervalue our own role players. I really do think if we give Keon some run in the starting lineup and Kevin settles into a bench role we'll actually be much better for it. Ultimately if we somehow luck into a solution that can push Barnes to the bench we'll win that whole keeping him thing as well.

For all our inconsistencies this season and apparent lack of All-Star talent (lol) which doesn't get a friendly whistle even on home court, we have one of the deepest rosters right now. We might even have a few guys in Stockton who will be NBA players next year.
 
Good thing - we got a W.
Domas personal best 13 made free throws? Cool. By this time though it should be more like 20+. Domas was with Pacers and made his first All-Star selection. After the break, for 2-3 weeks refs called him pretty fairly. Resulting on average to 10+ trips to the line per game. Domas was ~80% shooter then, that made small market Pacers life much easier. Though, nothing is fair in life. Refs got a memo from the league to cut the crap and things went back to "whack a mole (whack Domas)". The way Domas plays, his role on the team and Kings play overall - he should be averaging 8+ trips to the line per game without any favoritism. Sadly, not in Kings land :)
 
Duarte with another great showing off the bench.

Weird game for Fox. It was like he was drunk out there. Couldn't dribble the ball at all. Luckily he had that stretch where he hit three 3s in a row and the final shot to tie it in regulation because nearly everything else outside of that was clown world stuff last night.
 
Sloppy game by the Kings. The silly turnovers need to stop now - and the passing needs to tighten up. The Kings are best when the ball is moving.

But I am encouraged by how gritty they have been playing of late.
 

pdxKingsFan

So Ordinary That It's Truly Quite Extraordinary
Staff member
If only we had the chance to have drafted him….
On one hand the org was so pig headed they didn't even consider anything but MBIII on the other it was said JJJ would not work out for us. I was all in on Luka but if we were insistent on going for a big he would have been my pick.
 

Kingster

Hall of Famer
Very sloppy win against a decimated team. The turnovers were atrocious and the word careless doesn't even cover it. This is not the kind of game that engenders great confidence for the play-in (or maybe playoffs). The hero ball worship at the altar of Monk isn't going to cut it against better teams, so it would seem to make sense to learn how to play good team basketball at the end of games instead of the four-and-one offense we saw last night - four players standing and one player doing his one-on-one "bag" moves.
 
Probably. But he's about as ideal a fit next to Sabonis as there is.
He is when he's not playing like he did last night.

Really not a fan of the drive, throw the ball up wildly, scream, fall down and complain that there should have been a whistle game. He must have done that about 15-20 times last night. The NBA just needs to get rid of that trash completely. Driving and jumping sideways into the defender is not entertaining basketball.

His interior presence is still there though. Just him being near the paint negatively affected the Kings ability to score inside all night. So bad that even HB stopped and pulled up for a midrange shot even though the dunk was available, just because JJJ was in the vicinity of the paint.
 

pdxKingsFan

So Ordinary That It's Truly Quite Extraordinary
Staff member
Fans would make terrible GMs other than drafting. I think this board collectively could do a better job drafting than half the GMs in this league.
I actually agree with this. Trades, personnel decisions, contracts, etc, not so much. But strictly the draft? I can't recall the last time this site went down and lost historical data, but at one time there was well over a decade and a half of old conversations to prove that many of us here would have fared a lot better in the draft over the long haul than the KINGS actually did. Hell, for a large stretch of time -- it would have been hard to do worse.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.