The "Lets keep Boogie" thread
- Thread starter King Baller
- Start date
The point I'm trying to make is that when a player has immense talent an organization needs to find a way to "utilize his strengths", (Bill Walsh - See quote in my Sig)
The Kings need to help Cousins realize his potential by building a good organization around him. Instead of trying to tear the young man down as some of the Coaches have done.
The Kings need to help Cousins realize his potential by building a good organization around him. Instead of trying to tear the young man down as some of the Coaches have done.
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In 2004-2005 Tim Duncan, peaking all time great best of his generation Tim Duncan, had a TS% of .540. They won the title.
Cousins this season was .538. And this was an off season. He was better than Duncan's .540 the two previous seasons.
Saying you can't win with a star big man with TS% of .538 is just wrong. You can. Many have.
If people want a real discussion we have to start from a more reasonable place.
Cousins this season was .538. And this was an off season. He was better than Duncan's .540 the two previous seasons.
Saying you can't win with a star big man with TS% of .538 is just wrong. You can. Many have.
If people want a real discussion we have to start from a more reasonable place.
I don't think Cousins has a real go-to move on offense. His FG% has been low his entire career. One year, he did almost reach 50%, but it immediately regressed again. While it's great the he can be an all-around scoring big man, I think he needs to change a bit of how he plays. At this point, he's not a great post-player. He's more of a face up and attacking guy. I think he just needs to focus on 1 strength and really work on it.
I think that's completely true, which is why I think he needs to change his game a bit this year...and actually do less. I think the Kings need to take the ball away from his hands a lot more. His usage was way too high. However, his fg% has always been low. He did reach 1 year where it was almost 50%, but it went back down again.
What do you mean? I purely brought him his TS% because his fg% is horrible for a big. I brought up TS% to say, maybe this stat will help him out a little more? It didn't. So both of his FG% AND TS% is extremely underwhelming.
Duncan's FG% was still around 50%, despite his ts%. His lowest fg% was 48.4% in his prime. After that, he's never dipped below 49% FG in his prime. Duncan has a career 50.6%FG. Cousins is at 46%FG.
So what do you say about Cousins' low FG%? Especially mixed in with the fact that he takes so many shots?
I think that's completely true, which is why I think he needs to change his game a bit this year...and actually do less. I think the Kings need to take the ball away from his hands a lot more. His usage was way too high. However, his fg% has always been low. He did reach 1 year where it was almost 50%, but it went back down again.
What do you mean? I purely brought him his TS% because his fg% is horrible for a big. I brought up TS% to say, maybe this stat will help him out a little more? It didn't. So both of his FG% AND TS% is extremely underwhelming.
Duncan's FG% was still around 50%, despite his ts%. His lowest fg% was 48.4% in his prime. After that, he's never dipped below 49% FG in his prime. Duncan has a career 50.6%FG. Cousins is at 46%FG.
So what do you say about Cousins' low FG%? Especially mixed in with the fact that he takes so many shots?
it's disingenuous at best to point so strenuously towards FG% as an indicator of efficiency when we now know that there are much better measures of efficiency with which to evaluate nba talent. you don't use TS% to suggest something about FG%. you use TS% because it renders FG% irrelevant, for the most part. demarcus' TS% is considerably lower than i'd like to see, but it's certainly a much greater indicator of his efficiency than FG%. and as chubbs pointed out, there are even historical markers to suggest that a less-than-ideal TS% is hardly damning for a superstar-level two-way big, as long as his team effectively complements his skill set...
that said, it remains to be seen if this franchise will ever be able to construct a strong, complementary roster around demarcus cousins, because he's never going to be able to do it on his own. personally, i don't doubt that the kings will start winning more often if they hire a capable, adaptable head coach and surround demarcus with perimeter players who can shoot better and defend better. until the kings take the defensive side of the ball seriously, demarcus' offensive efficiency doesn't really matter much, because even if the kings were able to score 110 per game on the back of a more efficient cousins, they still too readily give up 111...
it's really a simple formula: coach defense. play defense. shift demarcus away from the perimeter. acquire perimeter talent that can shoot and defend with consistency. and the wins will come. this last season, the kings didn't coach defense. they didn't play defense. they placed demarcus on the perimeter far too often. and the perimeter players in their starting unit were inconsistent from range and couldn't play a lick of defense. so, the wins didn't come. yet the team still saw a five-game improvement on the last two seasons despite all of these elements working against their favor. fix those problems (glaring though they may be), and the playoffs become a much more realistic goal...
that said, it remains to be seen if this franchise will ever be able to construct a strong, complementary roster around demarcus cousins, because he's never going to be able to do it on his own. personally, i don't doubt that the kings will start winning more often if they hire a capable, adaptable head coach and surround demarcus with perimeter players who can shoot better and defend better. until the kings take the defensive side of the ball seriously, demarcus' offensive efficiency doesn't really matter much, because even if the kings were able to score 110 per game on the back of a more efficient cousins, they still too readily give up 111...
it's really a simple formula: coach defense. play defense. shift demarcus away from the perimeter. acquire perimeter talent that can shoot and defend with consistency. and the wins will come. this last season, the kings didn't coach defense. they didn't play defense. they placed demarcus on the perimeter far too often. and the perimeter players in their starting unit were inconsistent from range and couldn't play a lick of defense. so, the wins didn't come. yet the team still saw a five-game improvement on the last two seasons despite all of these elements working against their favor. fix those problems (glaring though they may be), and the playoffs become a much more realistic goal...
why? i'm hardly an advanced stats guru. in fact, i generally disapprove of front office strategies that place the majority of their emphasis on advanced statistical models. but some of those advanced stats do have utility in helping us better understand the performance of players on the court. in 2016, we now know that statistical measures like eFG% and TS% much better reflect our understanding of a player's scoring efficiency. so take issue with demarcus' eFG% or his TS%, because they're still lower than they should be. but as a raw statistic, his FG% doesn't tell us much, because it doesn't consider his high rate of usage, his high rate of free throw attempts, his conversion rate of those free throw attempts, or his newfound ability to hit three-pointers, which are obviously a higher value shot. in fact, demarcus cousins is perhaps one of the best examples of a player for whom FG% tells us very little, because unlike big men of previous eras, he can hit his free throws with consistency and he can shoot the three-ball with consistency...
well, good for you, i guess. but that's like saying you put a lot of stock into early computing technologies, when we now recognize that even the average contemporary smart phone is more powerful than the computers first used to send man to the moon...
so you can keep hammering away on old macintosh models from the mid-80's, but the rest of the world will have passed you by. likewise, we simply have better models for understanding scoring efficiency in the nba circa 2016. you're free to dismiss them, but you do so at the cost of ignorance...
and again, this is coming from someone who's been notoriously hard on the advanced stats movement, so it's not like i'm over here worshiping at the altar of david morey. i just know when i have to adjust my argument to suit a new paradigm...
so you can keep hammering away on old macintosh models from the mid-80's, but the rest of the world will have passed you by. likewise, we simply have better models for understanding scoring efficiency in the nba circa 2016. you're free to dismiss them, but you do so at the cost of ignorance...
and again, this is coming from someone who's been notoriously hard on the advanced stats movement, so it's not like i'm over here worshiping at the altar of david morey. i just know when i have to adjust my argument to suit a new paradigm...
no, not at all. i'm engaging critically in this discussion, while you're being deliberately evasive. in fact, in my initial post to you, i said, "take issue with demarcus' eFG% or his TS%, because they're still lower than they should be." and why are they still lower than they should be? well, demarcus has a tendency to force the issue against the double-team, which results in bad or forced shots. demarcus also doesn't make use of his half-hook often enough, which is a devastatingly simple move when he catches the ball in the post and in rhythm. but is he able to catch the ball in the post and in rhythm often enough? i'd say no. until rajon rondo was signed, the kings had nobody who could throw a quick, crisp entry pass into the post (i still have nightmares of isaiah thomas literally having to jump into the air to try and dump the ball into cousins down low). the kings are also slow to initiate their half court offense, and they run few plays to create easier looks for either demarcus or any of his teammates. they place very few effective screens and run very little misdirection off-ball, which provides demarcus with fewer opportunities to kick out to open shooters when he does catch the ball in the post, which results occasionally in forced shots and turnovers. and george karl preferred to utilize demarcus in a face-up position out on the perimeter, which just plays into all of demarcus' worst habits as a ball handler and playmaker...
these are just a few factors that contribute to demarcus' lack of efficiency. he's got a couple bad habits that can be ironed out with greater systemic discipline, but an honest assessment of his efficiency and the surrounding context of his teammates and the offense itself reveals that cousins isn't exactly a kobe bryant type of player who will take any shot anytime anywhere without consideration for the consequences. how many times do the kings dump the ball into cousins and just stand around, waiting for something to happen? isn't that a failure of creativity on the part of the coaching staff? don't his teammates need to move and cut and make themselves easier targets? aren't others also accountable in a team sport like basketball, especially when it's played at the highest level? there are certainly valid criticisms to levy at cousins, but those criticisms need to be situated into a proper context--and the proper context always accounts for issues of system and player personnel. i'm uninterested in wholesale criticisms of demarcus' efficiency that fail to take account of the necessary context with which to understand the statistics that measure efficiency, because no statistic exists in a vacuum. it's not enough to say, "but FG%!!" or to say, "but demarcus isn't a winner!!"
these are just a few factors that contribute to demarcus' lack of efficiency. he's got a couple bad habits that can be ironed out with greater systemic discipline, but an honest assessment of his efficiency and the surrounding context of his teammates and the offense itself reveals that cousins isn't exactly a kobe bryant type of player who will take any shot anytime anywhere without consideration for the consequences. how many times do the kings dump the ball into cousins and just stand around, waiting for something to happen? isn't that a failure of creativity on the part of the coaching staff? don't his teammates need to move and cut and make themselves easier targets? aren't others also accountable in a team sport like basketball, especially when it's played at the highest level? there are certainly valid criticisms to levy at cousins, but those criticisms need to be situated into a proper context--and the proper context always accounts for issues of system and player personnel. i'm uninterested in wholesale criticisms of demarcus' efficiency that fail to take account of the necessary context with which to understand the statistics that measure efficiency, because no statistic exists in a vacuum. it's not enough to say, "but FG%!!" or to say, "but demarcus isn't a winner!!"
if by "more of the same bulls#!%," you mean an abysmal team-wide commitment to defense, then yeah, you're right. but that has less to do with demarcus cousins and much more to do with ownership, the front office, and the coaching staff. here's some more analytics for you. these are defensive efficiency rankings across the entire nba:
http://espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/teamstats/_/sort/defensiveEff/order/false
notice anything about the top 13 teams? nearly all of them are in the playoffs, excepting utah, who just missed the cut as a ninth seed. notice anything about the bottom nine teams? all of them are in the lottery, including the kings. dallas, memphis, portland, and houston are the only teams in the bottom-half of defensive efficiency to make the playoffs, and it's certainly not a coincidence that they also happen to represent the bottom-four seeds out west, as well as the four worst records among all playoff teams this season...
you can trot out a below-average offense and find ways to win in this league if you have an exceptional defense, but it becomes much harder to stay above .500 if you have a below-average defense. the kings' "very talented yet extremely volatile" superstar has become one of the best defensive bigs in the entire nba despite his team's overall defensive ineptitude. the kings were in the top-half of the league this season in offensive efficiency, yet they remained eight games out of the eighth seed when it was all said and done. so what does that tell you? offense isn't the problem in sacramento, and big cuz himself is so far from the problem that i remain utterly baffled by fans' inability to understand what is actually holding this team back...
see, i'd ask you the same question you posed to everyone else: have you actually bothered to watch the games? cousins isn't out there losing. the team is out there losing. and why are they losing? because they don't play defense, and because this franchise hasn't proven a damn thing when it comes to valuing defense at any time across the last decade. when the kings begin to value defense beyond the standard start-of-the-season lip service, they'll win with greater consistency. until then, they'll continue to miss the playoffs even if demarcus cousins magically transforms into the glowing angel of peace and stoicism that fans wish he was. he can keep his emotions in check. he can argue with the refs less often. he can cut back on his technical fouls. he can wipe the scowl from his face. and all it will amount to is a nice bed time story to tell the kids. none of it will actually make a meaningful dent in the win/loss column if the kings fail to improve defensively...
http://espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/teamstats/_/sort/defensiveEff/order/false
notice anything about the top 13 teams? nearly all of them are in the playoffs, excepting utah, who just missed the cut as a ninth seed. notice anything about the bottom nine teams? all of them are in the lottery, including the kings. dallas, memphis, portland, and houston are the only teams in the bottom-half of defensive efficiency to make the playoffs, and it's certainly not a coincidence that they also happen to represent the bottom-four seeds out west, as well as the four worst records among all playoff teams this season...
you can trot out a below-average offense and find ways to win in this league if you have an exceptional defense, but it becomes much harder to stay above .500 if you have a below-average defense. the kings' "very talented yet extremely volatile" superstar has become one of the best defensive bigs in the entire nba despite his team's overall defensive ineptitude. the kings were in the top-half of the league this season in offensive efficiency, yet they remained eight games out of the eighth seed when it was all said and done. so what does that tell you? offense isn't the problem in sacramento, and big cuz himself is so far from the problem that i remain utterly baffled by fans' inability to understand what is actually holding this team back...
see, i'd ask you the same question you posed to everyone else: have you actually bothered to watch the games? cousins isn't out there losing. the team is out there losing. and why are they losing? because they don't play defense, and because this franchise hasn't proven a damn thing when it comes to valuing defense at any time across the last decade. when the kings begin to value defense beyond the standard start-of-the-season lip service, they'll win with greater consistency. until then, they'll continue to miss the playoffs even if demarcus cousins magically transforms into the glowing angel of peace and stoicism that fans wish he was. he can keep his emotions in check. he can argue with the refs less often. he can cut back on his technical fouls. he can wipe the scowl from his face. and all it will amount to is a nice bed time story to tell the kids. none of it will actually make a meaningful dent in the win/loss column if the kings fail to improve defensively...
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