This guide exists because I wanted to figure out what our free agent possibilities were for the next few years under various scenarios and decided to subject the rest of you to my inane ramblings.  It also helps that I am pissed off I have to work today and Friday which has motivated me to be more productive in terms of FanPosts than actual work.

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I was interested in trying to determine what we are doing on offense, so I rewatched the 2nd, 3rd and 4th quarters of last night's Utah game and made some notes.  I was real interested in determining how often we are getting the ball to a post player, and whether it was working or not.

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Well, we waitied all summer for this, here at the NBA Masochist Forum.  No wins, three losses, but some items worth noting and getting excited about.  Note that I'm giving out these grades based on my (hopefully) reasonable expectations, not comparing players to each other.

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The emotional transition from a fan's perspective is one of the best things about sports, especially as a long-term fan.  From the team coming to Sacramento (yes I'm that old), to the reality of bad basketball, but our bad basketball.  The excitement of getting the number one pick, the reality of Pervis Ellison; years of misery balanced by the pleasure of watching a true pro, the Rock.

The rejection of a young prima donna who doesn't want to play for your team.  The disbelief of the turnaround.  Witnessing a revolution, seeing a young point guard bring art back to basketball.  Revelling in the beauty; watching the development of a contender.  The excitement of rooting for a team that is truly your contender for years, the disappointments, rooting for the ultimate anti-hero Chris Webber.

The decline, pretending there isn't a decline, when its plain to see.  The apathy knowing your team is "ok" but really has no chance; hitting bottom.  So why am I as excited now as I have been in years to watch our team? 

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A lot has been said about the draft, we've been through the roller coaster, everyone's coming to terms with where we are going as a team.  There have been dozens of opinions posted; we should have taken Rubio, Evans will be John Salmons, Evans will be the Big O.  Cutting through all the opinions, there's only one thing we actually know:

Given the chance, Petrie selected Evans over Rubio.

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Now that we know where our #1 pick is (boo/hiss) I thought it would be interesting to lay out my hopes and expectations for the summer and see how many (if any) our beloved GM achieves.  I also think its much more fun to do this now, and then look back on it, rather than just second guess later. 

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A few months ago, intrigued by Mr. Thompson's growth, I looked at his compiled statistics in his rookie year up to then and tried to figure what NBA player those statistics resembled.  I thought the same kind of exercise with resident star Kevin Martin might be interesting.

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(Great analysis from ForThree. -- TZ)

No, I'm not talking about his potential career in underwear ads ala Roger Craig, I'm talking about looking at his year to date and seeing if we can find player(s) he resembles to give us an idea of his possible career trajectory.  I'm trying to answer the question, given what we know, how good do we think he might be?

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While its fun to look backwards and evaluate the job performance of a GM over time, I think by and large the availability of 20/20 hindsight makes it easy to be pretty hard on GMs.  Instead, what I want to do is try to figure out what we should do now, given what we know and the available assets we have.  What should Petrie do between now and the trade deadline?  What opportunities will we have during the summer?  I think its interesting to try to answer these questions now and then be able to look back and see how wrong we were six months or a year from now.

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Dear Santa, I can explain…

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Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end. – Semisonic

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Play the Kids!!

Its the warcry around here.  Everyone loves them and is excited for their future, including me.  I'm going to argue though that benching Brad Miller and/or Mikki Moore aren't the right move right now.  You guys can start sharpening the knives and finding rocks to throw now.

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I think the general feeling has been no, but I think we may be underestimating his contributions.

First everyone's favorite measure Hollinger's PER rating so far this year, for players averaging at least 25 minutes:

Lebron, Kirilenko, Granger, Caron Butler, Pierce, Prince, Howard, Wallace, Marion, Salmons

John is 10th in the league, and two things really stand out on his stat line: he's really a bad rebounder for a small forward and is an extremely efficient scorer (3rd in true shooting percentage).

Small forwards below Salmons in PER: Thaddeous Young, Magette, Carmelo Anthony, Rudy Gay, Al Thornton, Richard Jefferson, Hedo.

We know Salmons plays a completely different style than Speed (to the frustration of many), but I would argue there's room on a team for a slasher.

When you think about it, Miller/Mikki/Salmons has to be the worst rebounding frontline in the NBA.  Fast-forward a year though, Hawes/JT/Salmons could be perfectly servicable as a defensive and rebounding frontline.  Hawes/JT is starting to look formidable once they learn to play without foulding and stay on the floor.

Its easy to say you don't like something, the proverbial grass is always greener situation.  I'm starting to think, I can see Salmons fitting into this team when its good.  Even his detractors have to admit, he's played pretty well recently.

So I've watched way too much of these first four games, and need to vent a little, here are my impressions:

Beno

Its been really painful.  His ball handling has been terrible, and he really looks completely overmatched by the likes of Jameer Nelson & Mario Chalmers.  I never was a huge fan (I know that's easy to say at this moment), but he was so much more confident last year.  He looks overwhelmed by the speed and intensity of the game this year.  My hope is, he's still not 100%, and we'll see better.  Honestly, its difficult to imagine how we could see worse.

Speed Racer

He certainly struggled, but his struggles are more understandable.  Unlike Beno, I have no long term worries; Speed's figuring it out.  Not a great start, but its one week in a long season, and there's be definite progress.

John Salmons

I know he's easy to pick on around here, but I don't have as many problems with his style as others.  Yes, he pounds the rock too much at times, no question about it, but he hasn't been too bad about that this year.  He's a slasher, he needs to dribble some, and honestly this team needs someone to do it.  We're short of players that can create shots, Salmons can do it, but he needs to probe the defense to do so.  My biggest disappointment so far has been his lack of intensity and leadership.  We've seen a little of it, and it has to be tough when the team has been this terrible, but JS has to be one of the leaders, both offense and defense, and I haven't seen it.  He needs to see this is it, its his shot to be a starter and he needs to do more.  Either that or he's just not good enough and should be a back-up whether he likes it or not, which is a distinct possibility.  I think he's probably the 5th best starter on a really good team, and I am not sure he'll get the chance to be that here, we need more.

Mikki Moore

He's a backup player forced into starting due to circumstances that aren't his fault.  Don't hate the payer, hate the circumstance.  He won't be in our lives much longer, give the guy a break, he plays hard, and is just a limited player.

Spencer Hawes

Wow, one of the two positive revelations of the season so far.  There's three things that really stand out for me:

He's so much more comfortable this year.  Fewer dumb fouls, better rebounding, it seems he's caught up to the speed and intensity of the NBA.

Spencer is scoring around the rim much more effectively.  The complaints I had last year, about him not doing the basics big guys are supposed to be able to do he has fixed so far this year.  He's scoring with either hand near the basket and doing a great job.  He obviously has difficulty with really athletic big men (Greg Oden and Dwight Howard), but I can't hold that against him.  Experience will help some there, and honestly, there's only so many of those guys.

Spencer's decision making has also been light years better.  He still makes some dumb plays, but he really seems to be starting to get it.  He's been our best or second best player on the floor most of the time so far, tremendous progress.

JT

Once again, what more do you want from the guy, he's been tremendous.  For everyone that wants him to start...patience please.  Let him come off the bench and destroy backups for 20 minutes a night.  That's working, in not too long he'll get 25-30 minutes and some of those will come for decent stretches against Carlos Boozer, Elton Brand, etc.  If he's still playing well, then move him into the starting lineup.  He's been ridiculously successful so far, let him grow, but let him do it at a reasonable pace.  He'll get his chances, but we want him to have the best chance of success.  That means building confidence, give him and the coaches some time.

To: Kings Management

From: Concerned Fan

Please pass on the notes that follow at your earliest convenience:

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