gay's only 27 years old, so i suppose all hope isn't lost that he can be reformed into a productive player who knows when to pick his spots. but it's unlikely; bad habits are hard to eradicate from a pro in his eighth year. he's had a couple seasons of solid efficiency from the field, but mostly he's been a chucker who the defense can very easily force into a bad shot. again, it doesn't bother me, because i expect the losses to keep piling up, i expect a high draft pick, and i expect the kings' front office to either flip the asset of gay's enormous expiring contract for better-fitting pieces next season, or allow it to expire so they can become major players in the '15 free agent class. i just see a lotta kings fans attempting to rationalize gay into a player he is not. an inefficient chucker doesn't cease to be an inefficient chucker just because he puts on a kings uni. purple-colored glasses, and all that...
The hope for me is Malone is able to set a hierarchy similar to what has been done in GS which he was a major part of. Our system would have to be different as our main guy is Cuz while GS's is Steph, but to make this work the roles would have to follow as:
Cuz fills the Steph role as the clear #1 option who the ball goes through on most possessions. Touches are maximized.
Gay fills to Lee role, the second fulcrum so to speak of the offense that we'd play through. Lee offers the post presence next to Steph's perimeter oriented game. Here we'd need Gay to be more of the wing/iso threat next to Cuz's role as the post threat. Basically the other guy we can play through in different spots on the floor.
Then MLM fills the Klay role. Now I don't think MLM is ready for as big a role as Klay has and until then more of those touches go to Cuz/Gay. But it'd be the idea the 3rd option is an off the ball player who plays off our top two options.
Of course, that doesn't leave much offense for IT, he'd seriously have to take a huge step back and be a facilitator, and that doesn't mean a ball dominant PG who racks up assists but rather a PG who comes down and feeds it to our top options and steps back into an off the ball role. Something similar to the role Iggy filled when healthy where he'd be the secondary ball handler and come down and facilitate the offense, getting it into the key guys. The roles wouldn't be identical obviously, IT wouldn't be the secondary ball handler but the same idea as being the 4th option who doesn't look for his shot all that often unless the ball is swung and he attacks off the attention Cuz/Gay draw, and Iggy would generally attack or shoot the open jumper off the attention Steph/Lee/and sometimes Klay would draw.
But anyone pointing to IT's assist numbers is missing the point. To get assists you need the ball. IT has a high usage rate. Assists aren't the issue it's the usage rate. With Cuz/Gay we can't have a ball dominant PG. Assists don't matter, it's getting the ball to our top two options early in the shotclock and playing through them. Can't do that if IT is dancing up top for half the shotclock, whether that ends in an assist or not.
Not perfect. Not ideal. But it can be done. Malone does have his work cut out for him though and I don't think this is a longterm solution either, just a way to make this work in the interim.
