Power Rankings, Week of 10/24

@PHX, vs. SAS, vs. MIN. What ya got?


  • Total voters
    55
#1
old_guys_6.gif
Yo! It's that time of year again.Why didn't i do this yesterday? It was my birthday, and people wanted to give me free beer. Simple enough. Anyway, new year, new building, new coach...new drama? Hopefully no drama. It'll be interesting to see how things shake out this season - national media seems pretty down on us, but that's the way I like it. On to the rankings!

NBA.com
#24

Six of the Kings' first eight games are on the road, three of them are the second night of a back-to-back, and all eight will be played without the suspended Darren Collison. That leaves Garrett Temple and Ty Lawson to run the point. Coach Dave Joerger's defense ranked 17th in the preseason, but was much better with rotation guys than with non-rotation guys on the floor. Maybe that streak of 10 straight seasons as a below-average defense (and a below-average offense) will come to an end this year.

ESPN.com
#25

Knowing that there's a vintage Tower Records sign hanging in the Kings' new Golden 1 Center is reason enough for the Committee to start plotting out its next trip to Sacramento. The basketball likewise promises to be more cohesive under Dave Joerger, who proved his resourcefulness last season with the Grizzlies. But this group has a lot of proving to do before we're ready to co-sign on the Kings' hopes of returning to 40-win territory for the first time in (gulp) 11 seasons.

Sports Illustrated
#26

The Kings proved this off-season that they are the best team in the NBA when it comes to being the Kings. Free Boogie.

NBC Sports
#23

With the Cubs back in the World Series, the Kings take over the dubious banner of “team who hasn’t been to its sport’s Finals for the longest time” in American major sports. The last time the Kings were in the Finals was 1951. Forget the Finals, the Kings just want to make the playoffs for the first time in a decade. Beautiful new building, but the Kings have no Darren Collison for the first eight games (suspension for a domestic violence plea bargain), and they face a tough road-heavy schedule without him to start the season.

CBS Sports
#27

I always have a bad feeling about the Kings because they're the Kings, but I have a really bad feeling this year. The roster is imbalanced, Cousins seems to be tiring of keeping up optimism and the Rudy Gay trade needs to be handled well. This could get bad.

Mean Ranking: 25

"All right people, we got 10 minutes 'till game time, let's all gather 'round. I'm not much for giving inspirational addresses, but I'd just like to point out that every newspaper in the country has picked us to finish last. The local press seems to think that we'd save everyone the time and trouble if we just went out and shot ourselves. Me, I'm for wasting sportswriters' time. So I figured we ought to hang around for a while and see if we can give 'em all a nice big crapburger to eat!"
 
#3
No one will give US the benefit of the doubt and they have been mainly right in the past. Right now there is barely any optimism left on my side. Only hope is, that Joerger proved last season, that he can make the Playoffs even with a suboptimal roster.
 

Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
#7
1-2

Lose a winnable Minny game do to lack of PG depth. Bench numbers with Lawson out will be atrocious.
Oh, I doubt Lawson will be out much at all. 40min a night kinda stuff until Collison is back. And Rubio really can't punish him for it. We'll have to see with Dunn who hasn't been off to the fastest preseason start.
 
#8
I'm excited for the season, but I voted 0-3 as we struggle to get out of the gate due to our defense still being a work in progress. The Suns, though not a great team, are strongest where we are weakest (guard play) and certainly will take advantage of that. The Spurs have been a guaranteed loss for us for a decade now, and I think the Wolves will outwork us, as their guards are better than ours and their big man is one of the few that can hang with our big man.

0-3 as Joerger realizes just what a task he has to handle. He has 10 straight losing seasons working against him and that losing culture will rear its ugly head in the beginning as we attempt to finally slay that beast.
 

Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
#9
I'm excited for the season, but I voted 0-3 as we struggle to get out of the gate due to our defense still being a work in progress. The Suns, though not a great team, are strongest where we are weakest (guard play) and certainly will take advantage of that. The Spurs have been a guaranteed loss for us for a decade now, and I think the Wolves will outwork us, as their guards are better than ours and their big man is one of the few that can hang with our big man.

0-3 as Joerger realizes just what a task he has to handle. He has 10 straight losing seasons working against him and that losing culture will rear its ugly head in the beginning as we attempt to finally slay that beast.
Quick note here: Arron Afflalo should be able to punish Booker in the post. And Ty Lawson, if indeed he is in a revival, is every bit as talented as Bledsoe and Knight. Its the bench minutes which will be a question mark, but their starters aren't intimidatingly on another level. Our starting backcourt are longtime vets that have started together on 50+ win teams. Our center is the best in the league. And we have a whole stack of veteran roleplayers. A bunch of gunning kids always have a punchers chance, but its the same chance we have had for the last decade, and you can see how much good that has done us over the years as vet teams have come in and put our sloppy asses to sleep.
 
#12
Quick note here: Arron Afflalo should be able to punish Booker in the post. And Ty Lawson, if indeed he is in a revival, is every bit as talented as Bledsoe and Knight. Its the bench minutes which will be a question mark, but their starters aren't intimidatingly on another level. Our starting backcourt are longtime vets that have started together on 50+ win teams. Our center is the best in the league. And we have a whole stack of veteran roleplayers. A bunch of gunning kids always have a punchers chance, but its the same chance we have had for the last decade, and you can see how much good that has done us over the years as vet teams have come in and put our sloppy asses to sleep.
I think it goes both ways with the guards since Lawson/Knight/Booker would take advantage of Lawson's poor defense and Afflalo didn't look great on that side of the ball lately (it will be interesting to see what role Temple will get).
Where I do see an advantage for us (outside of DMC being by far the best player on the court) is that with Tucker probably out, their SF/PF position consists of Dudley, Warren and the two rookies- Gay, Casspi and Barnes should be able to punish them there.
 

Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
#13
I think it goes both ways with the guards since Lawson/Knight/Booker would take advantage of Lawson's poor defense and Afflalo didn't look great on that side of the ball lately (it will be interesting to see what role Temple will get).
Where I do see an advantage for us (outside of DMC being by far the best player on the court) is that with Tucker probably out, their SF/PF position consists of Dudley, Warren and the two rookies- Gay, Casspi and Barnes should be able to punish them there.
Both guys looked perfectly capable defensively in the preseason. And the fact is that Afflalo at least always has been capable. Just need a defensive coach to draw it out of him.

Good vet teams don't fear the Suns backcourt actually beating them. Its like a lesser version of Cousins. Have talent, will get some of theirs. But they are sitting atop a stack of kids and washed up vets, and any quality organized veteran team should beat them more often than not.
 
#15
Oh, I doubt Lawson will be out much at all. 40min a night kinda stuff until Collison is back. And Rubio really can't punish him for it. We'll have to see with Dunn who hasn't been off to the fastest preseason start.
Brick if Lawson ends up being able to play 40ish a night, maybe we will be ok. But that's what it will take.
 

Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
#16
Brick if Lawson ends up being able to play 40ish a night, maybe we will be ok. But that's what it will take.
I know one year of being a drunken idiot seems to have made a lot of people forget, but these were Lawson's minutes/numbers for the 4 years prior to last season's disaster:

11-12: 34.8min 16.4pts 6.6ast
12-13: 34.4min 16.7pts 6.9ast
13-14: 35.8min 17.6pts 8.8ast
14-15: 35.5min 15.2pts 9.6ast

and that was playing at altitude too. Assuming he's sober playing 35-40min a night is not only no problem for Ty, its basically his norm.
 
#17
Sports Illustrated's rankings are sloppy journalism. Sheesh!
Same with CBS. Honestly, the cheap shots are lazy and easy ways to report in today's age. It's not very professional, IMO. It's more akin to the type of sophomoric drivel you'd find on, well, an Internet message board. Why not take the next step and just write "The Queens suck!"
 
#23
I think if we don't win against PHX, we'll start 0-3. The TWolves are going to be pretty solid this year. They have a ton of talent and a great coach.