Meanwhile in Reno...

#61
Love those two guys Skal will be very good with Cousins and Popa a good back up. Popa is hitting 3s already and nobody saw that coming at all. And he has a nice half hook.

Actually, after the Kings drafted PapaG it circulated that he rose in the draft via the private workouts where he demonstrated his shooting prowess from behind the line. It's nice to see that it doesn't appear to have been just a fluke or purely workout greatness.
 
#62
Actually, after the Kings drafted PapaG it circulated that he rose in the draft via the private workouts where he demonstrated his shooting prowess from behind the line. It's nice to see that it doesn't appear to have been just a fluke or purely workout greatness.
That is true and when you have a young center taking 3s like that off no hesitation it huge. One of the things about shooting is confidence and he has it to take 3s in games.
 
#63
The two big rooks had another good game.

Skal: 17 pts, 12 rbs, 1 ast, 3 stls, 1 blk, 5 TOs in 31 minutes.
Skal still needs to get a little stronger but he's (a) fighting to get rebounds, which is never a bad thing, (b) has a Dirk-esque lean in his shooting stroke that makes him almost impossible to block, (c) is still a little raw, (d) fun to watch.

Papa: 16 pts, 9 rbs, 2 blks in 29 minutes.
I think we're finally starting to see Papagiannis get acclimated to the pace of American basketball. He's got nice touch around the rim and overdribbling aside, looks to have nice overall awareness. He's also got a fairly nice shooting stroke on the perimeter so he's already beating Kosta in that regard. Is he going to be a superstar? Not likely. But he's nowhere near the bust people were proclaiming him to be after summer league.

In other Reno news, Lamar Patterson continues to look like D-League LeBron and the 4th draft pick from the summer (IC) is averaging 12 pts, 5 rbs, 4 asts for the season. It's impossible to bring either guy up without cutting someone from the roster at this point but Lamar could probably contribute for the team right away off the bench and Isaiah Cousins could be useful depth down the road.
Personally I would send Malachi back to Reno to get playing time and send Patterson up to see what he can do. I don't think he's considered a legit prospect but I can guarantee you he's better than Ben right now for sure. Would be nice to have a SG with some rebounding and handling abilities. No idea what his defense is like though.
 

dude12

Hall of Famer
#64
Personally I would send Malachi back to Reno to get playing time and send Patterson up to see what he can do. I don't think he's considered a legit prospect but I can guarantee you he's better than Ben right now for sure. Would be nice to have a SG with some rebounding and handling abilities. No idea what his defense is like though.
I like Patterson a bit.....IIRC, he started early in the season last year for ATL.....or at least played meaningful minutes. I raised the question during our preseason games that I thought Malachi and Patterson both might be better than Ben at that point. Patterson seems to definitely have the qualities that Joerger is looking for.

Same may be true of I Cousins too. Personally, if we can't move Ben at trade deadline, I just waive the guy and pick up Patterson and let Malachi get minutes with Patterson a deeper sub
 
#66
Personally I would send Malachi back to Reno to get playing time and send Patterson up to see what he can do. I don't think he's considered a legit prospect but I can guarantee you he's better than Ben right now for sure. Would be nice to have a SG with some rebounding and handling abilities. No idea what his defense is like though.
All of the Kings roster spots are full. They would have to wave someone to make room for Patterson.
 
#69
Looking promising in the DL.

My biggest grip against Papagiannis is his lack of strength for his size. Since he has trouble backing them down 1 on 1, what we see him do instead, is establish his post position before he gets the ball. I think the bright side of him in the DL is that his conditioning looks improved by a lot. I'm not calling on for the Kings to fail, but I definitely wouldn't mind if Papagiannis got heavy real NBA minutes towards the end of the season. I really want to see how he'll be able to adjust to the speed of the NBA.

Skal still needs to put more onto his frame. Hope the Kings have a good diet+lifting program for him in the offseason.
Again, wouldn't mind Skal playing real NBA minutes either. I'll like to see him adjust to the physicality of the NBA. I'm still not sure what position he guards right now. Looks to be too frail against PFs, but not quick enough vs. SFs. I think once he bulks up, it'll become clear.

question: what are your guys' thoughts on Skal's funky stance? It looks better than it was in Kentucky...but it's just awkward, and I'm 100% sure it's affecting his game a bit.
 
#70
Looking promising in the DL.

My biggest grip against Papagiannis is his lack of strength for his size. Since he has trouble backing them down 1 on 1, what we see him do instead, is establish his post position before he gets the ball. I think the bright side of him in the DL is that his conditioning looks improved by a lot. I'm not calling on for the Kings to fail, but I definitely wouldn't mind if Papagiannis got heavy real NBA minutes towards the end of the season. I really want to see how he'll be able to adjust to the speed of the NBA.

Skal still needs to put more onto his frame. Hope the Kings have a good diet+lifting program for him in the offseason.
Again, wouldn't mind Skal playing real NBA minutes either. I'll like to see him adjust to the physicality of the NBA. I'm still not sure what position he guards right now. Looks to be too frail against PFs, but not quick enough vs. SFs. I think once he bulks up, it'll become clear.

question: what are your guys' thoughts on Skal's funky stance? It looks better than it was in Kentucky...but it's just awkward, and I'm 100% sure it's affecting his game a bit.
What do you mean stance?
 
#71
What do you mean stance?
Skal has a hunch-back. You can see that he tilts his head forward a lot, and it'll take correcting. I've noticed that it's not as bad as it was in college, but it's still pretty bad.

He also has a weird bend overall. He needs to sink into his hips and keep his back straight. I suck at explaining, but it affects his balance and movements. This is why Skal has slower lateral quickness than you'd expect for someone as athletic and agile as himself.

Again, looks more improved than college, but it's definitely something he'll need to fix for the NBA.
 

kingsboi

Hall of Famer
#72
Skal has a hunch-back. You can see that he tilts his head forward a lot, and it'll take correcting. I've noticed that it's not as bad as it was in college, but it's still pretty bad.

He also has a weird bend overall. He needs to sink into his hips and keep his back straight. I suck at explaining, but it affects his balance and movements. This is why Skal has slower lateral quickness than you'd expect for someone as athletic and agile as himself.

Again, looks more improved than college, but it's definitely something he'll need to fix for the NBA.
so in other words, he has poor posture? that can be fixed with corrective stretching mechanisms and if he continues to add more bulk, that will only slow him down further because in this current era of basketball, you need your bigs to be mobile and agile and gaining more weight won't help his cause. Bigs don't bang around anymore like they used to, only a selective few do.
 
#73
so in other words, he has poor posture? that can be fixed with corrective stretching mechanisms and if he continues to add more bulk, that will only slow him down further because in this current era of basketball, you need your bigs to be mobile and agile and gaining more weight won't help his cause. Bigs don't bang around anymore like they used to, only a selective few do.
Just from inferring, I think it's a problem that the Kings are probably working on with him. I think Skal's lateral quickness is fine, but it's not as quick as it would be if he had an overall correct stance and posture.

Bulking up will be the best thing for Skal right now. He's not strong enough to guard most PFs in the league. I think he's listed at around 215lbs right now. I think 225 would be a good realistic goal for next season. Bulking up will also help his rebounding.
 

kingsboi

Hall of Famer
#74
Just from inferring, I think it's a problem that the Kings are probably working on with him. I think Skal's lateral quickness is fine, but it's not as quick as it would be if he had an overall correct stance and posture.

Bulking up will be the best thing for Skal right now. He's not strong enough to guard most PFs in the league. I think he's listed at around 215lbs right now. I think 225 would be a good realistic goal for next season. Bulking up will also help his rebounding.
There are a number of quality exercises and drills Skal can do to improve lateral speed and even agility and verticality.

As far as bulking up, I doubt that he is still at 215...based on watching those highlight reels, he looks like he added some pounds on his frame. If he has a knack for the ball and proper boxing out technique, his rebounding will be fine and he won't need to be 225+ to show his rebounding ability, especially since he has such long arms and reach.
 
K

KingsFan80

Guest
#75
Just from inferring, I think it's a problem that the Kings are probably working on with him. I think Skal's lateral quickness is fine, but it's not as quick as it would be if he had an overall correct stance and posture.

Bulking up will be the best thing for Skal right now. He's not strong enough to guard most PFs in the league. I think he's listed at around 215lbs right now. I think 225 would be a good realistic goal for next season. Bulking up will also help his rebounding.
Skal has a long way to go. He is probably the worst "one and done" to play for Calipari at Kentucky, in terms of HS ranking and where he is today. With that being said, he does have some potential and I would be more excited about him than Papa
 
K

KingsFan80

Guest
#77
You may have forgotten about Archie Goodwin.
Yeah he wasn't great either but it is close and we aren't talking about 3-4 guys, we are talking about at least 30? Goodwin was a better player at UK during his time there. I have said before, I am UK fan, and have many friends who are as well, I can tell you Skal was very frustrating at UK, but hopefully he comes around for us.
 
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#78
Skal has a long way to go. He is probably the worst "one and done" to play for Calipari at Kentucky, in terms of HS ranking and where he is today. With that being said, he does have some potential and I would be more excited about him than Papa
Papa and Skal scare me for the wrong reasons.. I'm more excited about Skals' potential, but I think there's a high chance that he never becomes a legitimate NBA player(not many 28th overall pick work out anyways). With Papagiannis, I think at the very least, he's your 3rd C.
I'm not going to hype myself up with either player, because there's a good chance I'm setting myself up for disappointment...if only the Kings didn't already do enough of that for me!
Excited to see how both guys develop, but honestly...I'm more excited about Malachi than either of them. Malachi looks like he could be the 6'6 SG version of Lou Will...which might be Nick Young. Even though he's quiet on the floor, he does have a scorer's instinct. In his mind, he never takes a bad shot. He takes shots he knows he'll make. I think this is why his name popped up big time in predraft smoke screens.

You may have forgotten about Archie Goodwin.
Skal was almost "cringey" to watch at UK....his mental toughness alone made me scared to touch him as a prospect. There were a few times where Skal was straight up lost on the floor. I remember one time where he set a screen, then ran inside...but ran into his own ball handler......

Goodwin........well, the guy was actually really productive unlike Skal, and he did NOT lack mental toughness whatsoever........ he legitimately had the mindset and attitude of Kobe.

honorable mention to James Young, but I thought he would be better than he currently is right now.
 

Capt. Factorial

trifolium contra tempestatem subrigere certum est
Staff member
#79
I have said before, I am UK fan, and have many friends who are as well, I can tell you Skal was very frustrating at UK, but hopefully he comes around for us.
I wouldn't exactly disagree with that. I watched enough of Skal at Kentucky to be extremely disappointed. (You should see some of the nasty stuff I said about him in my draft notes!) That said, he came around at the end of the year and began to look like an actual basketball player - which he did not remotely look like in the early going. I suspect that a lot of that was being uncomfortable in the post on offense - it seemed like Cal wanted him to be a back-to-the-basket player and everything that we've seen out of him since college suggests he's much more comfortable facing up and playing on the perimeter as more of a stretch-4. He has a pretty intriguing skill set - height, length, athleticism, shot blocking, a jump shot out to three, passing, maybe a bit of a handle. He doesn't have strength and I think there's a question of whether he's got the mental fortitude to push through the adversity he will definitely find once he starts banging with the big boys. So yeah, hopefully he comes around, because he could be a really important piece if he gets near his ceiling. And if he doesn't, well, he was a #28 pick. You can't win 'em all.
 

Tetsujin

The Game Thread Dude
#80
Bighorns with another win tonight against the (Austin) Spurs.

Our two bigs both posted double doubles and had their flashes.

George Papagiannis had a ho-hum 10 pt, 12 rb, 2 blks, 1 steal performance in 36(!) minutes. I must say that he looks so much more comfortable out there now than he did in July. He also seems to have come to the realization that he is bigger than everyone else and is getting two or three baskets a night of the "big dude just slings it over a slightly less big dude" variety.

Skal, meanwhile, had a 12 pts, 10 rb, 1 ast, 3 blk, 1 stl game in 29 minutes while also picking up six fouls and committing three turnovers. On the subject of Skal's post moves, he's shown evidence of a hook shot ( a deadly move when you're built like Augustus Gloop post being stretched out) and at times tries to do a bizarro version of Demarcus's baseline deathspin to varying effect. On defense, he's got good shot blocking timing as an offside defender but he's still too weak to be all that effective as a man to man defender.

Neither of the guys is exactly taking the D-League by storm but they'll show you flashes a couple of times a game where you can see why Vlade would've spent draft picks on them.
 

bajaden

Hall of Famer
#82
I wouldn't exactly disagree with that. I watched enough of Skal at Kentucky to be extremely disappointed. (You should see some of the nasty stuff I said about him in my draft notes!) That said, he came around at the end of the year and began to look like an actual basketball player - which he did not remotely look like in the early going. I suspect that a lot of that was being uncomfortable in the post on offense - it seemed like Cal wanted him to be a back-to-the-basket player and everything that we've seen out of him since college suggests he's much more comfortable facing up and playing on the perimeter as more of a stretch-4. He has a pretty intriguing skill set - height, length, athleticism, shot blocking, a jump shot out to three, passing, maybe a bit of a handle. He doesn't have strength and I think there's a question of whether he's got the mental fortitude to push through the adversity he will definitely find once he starts banging with the big boys. So yeah, hopefully he comes around, because he could be a really important piece if he gets near his ceiling. And if he doesn't, well, he was a #28 pick. You can't win 'em all.
As a person that watched every Kentucky game that year, it was obvious to me what Skal's problem was. Calapari had a plan for him, and that plan was to plug Skal into the role that Towns had played the year before. Unfortunately, Skal was a better player away from the basket. Calapari already had players to play away from the basket, so he kept forcing Skal into the post position where he didn't have the strength, or the experience to compete against players bigger and stronger than him. Anyone that knows Calapari, he's going to force you to be uncomfortable and learn.

I think in the long term, it helped Skal with some experience and also showed him the path he needed to follow if he was going to become an NBA player. He's a very skilled player and with a lot of work, and added strength, I think he may surprise people. I'd like to remind people that in highschool Towns played away from the basket more than under it, but at Kentucky, Calapari forced him to stay in the post and develop his game there. To some extent, he did the same thing with Cousins when he was there.
 
#83
Several people have mentioned their thoughts on the worst 1-and-done player in Kentucky Calipari history. The worst is Daniel Orton.

He was in the Wall, Bledsoe, Cousins draft and was drafted in the 1st round. He couldn't get on the floor at UK (13 minutes and they were all Boogie breather or foul trouble minutes) but sometime drafted him, lol. Obviously, it didn't work out.
 

Tetsujin

The Game Thread Dude
#84
Several people have mentioned their thoughts on the worst 1-and-done player in Kentucky Calipari history. The worst is Daniel Orton.

He was in the Wall, Bledsoe, Cousins draft and was drafted in the 1st round. He couldn't get on the floor at UK (13 minutes and they were all Boogie breather or foul trouble minutes) but sometime drafted him, lol. Obviously, it didn't work out.
People were also forgetting about the astounding NBA career of the lesser Teague Brother. The Bulls wasted a first round draft pick on the Dude and then wound up dumping him a year later. Calipari pumps out the NBA talent but he occasionally also somehow propels some really stinkers to be drafted.

Another overlooked guy from that Boogie/Wall/Bledsoe/PPat team is DeAndre Liggins, who's suddenly become one of the Cavs' better players this season. Sure he came out in the draft the next year on but yet another guy who fell out of the league and then got his stuff together when given another chance.
 
#85
People were also forgetting about the astounding NBA career of the lesser Teague Brother. The Bulls wasted a first round draft pick on the Dude and then wound up dumping him a year later. Calipari pumps out the NBA talent but he occasionally also somehow propels some really stinkers to be drafted.

Another overlooked guy from that Boogie/Wall/Bledsoe/PPat team is DeAndre Liggins, who's suddenly become one of the Cavs' better players this season. Sure he came out in the draft the next year on but yet another guy who fell out of the league and then got his stuff together when given another chance.
Has Liggins really changed all that much, or are teams just so desperate in their search for an athletic wing defender, that he has been given a try by a team with enough offensive weapons on their roster? Liggins always knew how to play D. I will never understand, why we didn't pick him up, when we had him on our SL roster.
 
#86
Has Liggins really changed all that much, or are teams just so desperate in their search for an athletic wing defender, that he has been given a try by a team with enough offensive weapons on their roster? Liggins always knew how to play D. I will never understand, why we didn't pick him up, when we had him on our SL roster.
He beats women that's why
 

kingsboi

Hall of Famer
#89

Popa a top it again 17-12-4blocks 8-13 shooting. He's really good at rolling and has shown his jumper so he'll be excellent in the pick&roll
The speed of the D-League is a different animal in comparison to the speed of the NBA. He is going to be overwhelmed for quite sometime IMO once he does step foot on a professional court. I do like his hook shots though so he can be useful in that aspect at the very least.
 
#90
The speed of the D-League is a different animal in comparison to the speed of the NBA. He is going to be overwhelmed for quite sometime IMO once he does step foot on a professional court. I do like his hook shots though so he can be useful in that aspect at the very least.
Well at most he'll be playing 15mpg behind Boogie so it's not like he'll be thrown to the wolves.