SB Nation User Blog: rbiegler

A Small, Good Thing

rbiegler — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 21:27:59 -0000

I am bad enough at enough occupations that it’s often more efficient for me to list those things I’m actually good at. I am good at getting girls who were supposedly interested to ignore me. I am good at working while hung over (in fairness I work for the State). I am, as any number of readers of this blog can attest, very good at referencing quotes, titles and motifs I remember from college English courses. And I am, occasionally, able to accurately predict the outcome of a given sports’ franchise’s season. This last one in particular isn’t particularly a talent, particularly when the team whose performance you’re prognosticating is your team. I would guess of the percentage of people who had George Mason in their Final Four nationally, 99.9% of those people were either George Mason enrollees or alumni; the other .01% confused George Washington with George Mason or were lying.

The above is relevant, and admittedly its relevance is relative, only because a year ago I knew going into October that the Kings’ season was going to be a special kind of disaster. I would say the majority of Kings’ fans knew the year would be bad, but for a variety of reasons; the continued ascent of Kevin Martin, the departure of Ron Artest, the surprisingly competent job Reggie Theus had done, there was some general level of hope. Not playoff hopes, mind you, but "drafting in the late Lottery again isn’t so bad" kind of hope. My reservations at the time were simple. A team whose only identity was "let’s watch Artest dribble the ball for 22 seconds before he tosses up an off-balanced jumper" the season previous wasn’t suddenly going to develop a more sophisticated identity with subtler talent. Petrie is a master of drafting the subtly talented. Reggie Theus, who possesses all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, was never the right coach for that – or any other – roster. And so the first quarter of the season played out with the awkward inevitability of a contentious couple drunk at the wife’s sister’s wedding. And by December we’d already all convinced ourselves that the only thing that could save this franchise was a 17-year-old Iberian who once had three assists in an Olympic medal game.

Sacramento is a factory town. We tend to forget this because there isn’t actually a factory in town. But make no mistake; Sacramento is as dependent on its dying industry as Detroit is on theirs. That industry is bureaucracy. And while calling it dead is in deed overstatement, from furloughs to general fund layoffs to a flurry of calls for benefit reforms, it has been a particularly disquieting year for an employment class used to quiet consistency. Now I don’t expect anyone to feel sorry for the state worker (I read the comments at SacBee, I know those individuals are few and far between), particularly not those that work (or worked) in Sacramento’s other cottage industries of commercial real estate, residential real estate and redevelopment. Contrarily I would say simply that we have all experienced a little over a year of mutual misery. And adding to, even exacerbating, that misery has been our NBA team. Ideally a diversion, from the Maloofs’ financial struggles, to the unending, seemingly unsolvable arena issue, to the perpetual threat of their abandonment, the Kings’ woes last season in many ways underscored our own. The draft lottery was the high point of these low lights.

I bring none of the above up to alternately gloat or make us all more miserable. I remind all of us of the situation we were in a year ago because I feel the situation we are in now, while objectively maybe worse, is subjectively so much better.

In finance in recent months there’s been a lot of talk about green shoots. Green shoots are the sprigs of growth that sprout from the apocalyptic landscapes of deserts and fire ravaged woods. They are signs of new life, of a tentative return to the new normal. Goldman Sachs’ lofty profits, investors willingness to buy debt other than U.S. Treasuries, the incremental rebound of the housing market, these are all green shoots. This is a season of green shoots for Sacramento. In fact they’ve already started sprouting, just not necessarily, as is often the case, where or how we thought they would. No the Kings didn’t end up with Kurt Rambis as coach, but if assistant coaching staffs are a reflection of the head coach’s basketball mentality we’re probably better off with Westphal. Petrie drafted Tyreke Evans, which, to say nothing of said guard’s talent, saved Sacramento from a role in Rubio’s off-season melodrama. The arena issue remains irresolvable, but at least we know the Maloofs aren’t moving the team.

This won’t be a good season. But it won’t be last season. This is a year of growth – for both team and town – however incremental, inconsistent and awkward. The Kings are still a fairly young team, but as any parent will tell you, the most rewarding steps are often those learning ones taken in infancy.

It Is Margaret You Mourn For...

rbiegler — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:40:30 -0000

As has been discussed previously on these pages, when I’m not not fulfilling my duties as Associate Editor of Sactown Royalty, I am "working" for the state of California. There are myriad reasons why working for the state is a sterling job. Four furlough days a month immediately comes to mind (and yes, I realize we’re all over paid anyway, I read the comments at the Bee, it should be noted my family writes a bulk of those comments) but in close competition is the painfully Catch 22esque bureaucracy I am forced to navigate on an hourly basis. Even if you aren’t in civil service you’re probably all too familiar to that which I’m referring. It’s the sort of painful Colonel Cathcart logic that comes down from Administration and tells you the soda machine in the basement that’s been broken for a decade can’t be fixed because of an outstanding contract or that your reimbursement request for the EconoLodge in Riverside can’t be processed because Econo Lodge is actually two words, not one. Think cover sheets on TPS reports. The point is no one likes a yard duty, or as Michael Scott’s relationships have shown us, only a Dwight Schrute likes a yard duty, and as a consequence I’ve always been a bit uneasy about being this page’s ombudsman, even if that title and task were self appointed.

I bring this all up as a roundabout way of addressing a site-wide issue. There is a fine line, a distinct but elusive discrepancy, between simply offering information and ideas and offering said information and ideas substantively. This is particularly an issue during the time from late-May through early August when our attention is focused on the draft and free agency. The reasons why this is an issue are obvious. During the regular season, when discussing games, playing time, substitution patterns, defense, a writer can point to tangible evidence to prove their point. They could be wrong, but in that case the issue of right or wrong is one of perception. I may think Thompson needs more minutes at small forward, K Fan in Korea may not, but at least we both have an educated opinion. Because so much of the information disseminated leading up to the draft and through the off season is some combination of speculation and speculating on speculation substantive discourse is impossibility.

This can be problematic. This page exists, after all, as a tonic to the other message boards and call in shows with their dozens of inquiries and observations like "Why don’t we just trade Garcia straight up for Devin Harris? New Jersey needs three point shooters!" Or "Geoff Petrie just destroyed this franchise for all eternity by not taking Henk Norel with the second round pick." And 89.9% of the time this blog accomplishes its intentions. However popularity breeds unfamiliarity. Newcomers to STR, while welcome in the warmest of ways, may not always be familiar with the page’s more cerebral tendencies. This doesn’t mean a post has to be as urbane as Section 214’s or exhaustive as Pookey’s, it simply means that as a rule of thumb the readers of this page would prefer something more informative than "HEY GUYS wE shld drft RUBIO!!!! wHat do you think?!?!?!?!" I don’t dispute the fact that post writing isn’t easy. It isn’t. That’s why my mine manifest quarterly. But that doesn’t change the necessity that if writing make sure there is there there.

As a template, reference Aykis 16, who has done an exceedingly good job, particularly lately, of writing pieces that add substance to speculation make sense of the nonsensical.

Until Autumn…

MÁRGARÉT, áre you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves, líke the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Áh! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow's spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

—Gerard Manley Hopkins

On Shirley Jackson's Sequel

rbiegler — Wed, 20 May 2009 19:41:24 -0000

Uncertainty is a particularly unique human emotion. Realistically it could be argued uncertainty isn’t an emotion at all, but for the sake of this, imagine if you will. Uncertainty’s uniqueness stems from the fact that it is a rather cohesive collection of other disparate emotions: apprehension, anticipation, fear, hope. It is uncertainty that makes often otherwise mundane activities consistently exciting: public speaking, sex, finance. And it is uncertainty that we were unfairly thrust into last night. What exacerbates this specific uncertainty is our inability to control it. We could not control the Lottery and we can not control the Lottery’s consequent results. These aren’t necessarily bad things, but to a fan base looking for some sort of cathartic outcome to a brutal basketball season in an otherwise brutal year, they sure don’t seem like particularly positive things either. But as the bitter disappointment of last night dissipates a bit let's sift through the wreckage and examine certain certainties.

This is not the end of basketball in Sacramento. Now I’m not saying the end of basketball in Sacramento isn’t a possibility. But it isn’t going to be because of last night. No offense to Blake Griffin, who is without question a unique talent, but missing out on him isn’t exactly missing out on LeBron. And no offense to Kings’ fans, who are some of the more adroit in the NBA, but there wasn’t going to be some sort of onslaught at the Arco Arena Box Office this fall to see some 20 year old kid from Oklahoma. This team and town’s issues are more complicated and deep seeded. It seems like the potential selling of Cal Expo or the collapse of the residential real estate market and consequent adverse effect on our discretionary income may be a bit more damaging. Kevin Durant didn’t exactly save basketball in Seattle. But wait, you’ll say, the Sonics issues weren’t related to attendance. Even with Sacramento’s attendance swooning, neither are ours. And unless Blake Griffin is an expert on urban infill development his presence wasn’t going to change that. If bad draft luck and subsequent attendance apathy expedited team moves the Grizzlies would have been sent to Austin 5 years ago.

We’ve spent, in fairness I’ve spent, the past few years waiting for Petrie to become Petrie again. Since the Artest trade he has largely been unable to be that. Handcuffed by both Maloof meddling and his own questionable contracts. Now the coaching decision is his (and the Thibodeau interview shows reassuring flexibility in his own dogma) and that 4th pick has afforded Petrie the one thing he’s always thrived with, options. To Petrie this draft is now a blank canvas. Rather it is his blank canvas. And given the probable volatility of this draft (discussed quite insightfully and exhaustively in this space in the past two days) Sacramento’s situation is not nearly as Edvar Munch like bleak as it appeared last night. Rubio isn’t a certainty, but he’s not not a certainty either. Which makes his drafting a certain uncertainty.

Lastly we’ll all be here, working ourselves through this. All’s not lost. Of course I spent last night drinking my youngest brother's Natural Light while watching DeMar DeRozan clips on You Tube.

In fairness, though, that's how I spend most of my Tuesday night's, but yesterday it felt particularly poignant.

Ian Thomsen's Best Fits for Top Picks...

rbiegler — Fri, 15 May 2009 19:08:34 -0000

Ian Thomsen's Best Fits for Top Picks...

The best fit for Sacramento? B.J. Mullens!

Just kidding.

This Evening...

rbiegler — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 05:16:39 -0000

This Evening...

ESPN, inexplicably, re-aired the 2007 Powerade High School Jam Fest. Because I have no love life I watched it. It culminated with Blake Griffin completing a behind the legs reverse dunk and Donte Greene subsequently jumping into his arms exultantly.

It was the happiest I've been in three years as a Kings fan.

The Wall Street Journal on the NBA

rbiegler — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 17:02:40 -0000

The Wall Street Journal on the NBA

One can only assume were among the catastrophically bad...

Cabbie, Janitor, Basketball Coach

rbiegler — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 21:48:18 -0000

Cabbie, Janitor, Basketball Coach

I swear I'm working today.

Prospect Hip Check

rbiegler — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 20:51:22 -0000

Prospect Hip Check

Nothing groundbreaking, but probably as substantive an overview of potential prospects as I've seen so far in the media. If nothing else infinitely preferable to Chad Ford's "The GM I've been speaking to that I made up who reads my postings religiously...." ramblings

The Triumphant Return of the Ombudsman?!?

rbiegler — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 22:37:55 -0000

I’m sure many of you have wondered, and by many of you I of course mean none of you, why I am referred to as "Associate Editor" of this site. I write pieces sporadically, my comments are usually reserved exclusively for the contribution of double entendres and the only Kings jersey I own is of Jason Williams. Part of the reason, at least the part of the reason not related to under the table payouts, is that I am supposed to be this Blogs comment commentator. A job I have not pursued with the zeal necessary in part because of my actual job. But now my ass may be getting furloughed and, given that admission, the perception on this page will from today forward be that I don’t work anyway (isn’t State Worker an oxymoron?) so I’ve decided to attempt a State of the Mid-Season for this page’s participants. I am doing it today because next weekend I will be in Phoenix for the All Star break attempting to convince girls I’m Luke Ridnour. Which is a terrible idea, in part because I look nothing like Luke Ridnour, and in part because it’s Luke Ridnour.

I am breaking this down into relevant sections, lest it read with all the coherence of Pookey’s profile quote.

The Sycophant Rant

Perhaps the most asinine comment consistently made on this blog is the one that accuses STR’s frequenters of being sycophants to the Powers, or Power, that Be. Acknowledging that Kevin Martin is the best player on the current Kings roster is not an attempt to endear oneself to TZ. It is a statement of simple, statistical fact. To imply otherwise is insulting both to Ziller - as it insinuates he is accommodating only to those who mimic him - and to whomever the accusation is levied against. I have spent a considerable amount of time on this page and if I’ve been struck by anything it’s just how distinctly different everyone’s thinking is (unless, of course, it involves some combination of Kenny Thomas, Grant Napear and Kayte Christensen.) Besides isn’t there something innately counterproductive about creating a cult of personality on a fucking webpage? What exactly are the Ziller minions supposed to do? Collectively jump off Tower Bridge in the old gold Kevin Martin jerseys?

None of Us Knows Anything, so We Might as Well Live With It

Look, I’m not doubting you’ve watched hours of Pittsburgh game tape. And I’m sure the Little Dribblers you coach for the Parochial Athletic League have taught you an awful lot about what this Kings team needs to be relevant again. Maybe you played hoops in Junior College, or for your Law Firms rec. team. But I don’t need to know that in order to know why you’re suggestion of a Kevin Martin for Kwame Brown trade has merit. Spending excessive amounts of time defending a point is one thing. Spending excessive amounts of time justifying why the point was made at all is a nuisance.

In Defense of Pookey

If you come across a post detailing a potential trade of Royal Ivey for a future second round pick that has 78 comments there’s a fairly good chance that most, if not all, of those comments will have been made by Pookey Guru. Pookey is the only person I know who will comment on his comments that he’s already commented on. There are those who may assume someone in my self appointed position may feel tempted to criticize Pookey. Contrarily I come here to praise him. For two reasons:

1) He is indeed prolific, but never, ever have I felt Pookey is writing simply to read himself. His comments are consistently topical, insightful and spirited. He is open to others input and respectful of their opinions. Criticism of constant commentary should stem from the intentions of the commentator, Pookey is nothing if not well intentioned.

2) This may be an issue reserved for those who work in bureaucracy, but there are few things more chronically irritating than the person who feels the need to criticize your grammar after every typo. Thanks, receptionist, for telling me that apostrophe shouldn’t be there in that e-mail I sent about buying fucking "Valentine Fun Bags" for the employee fundraiser. Anyway criticizing a person for commenting too much is the blog equivalent of that woman.

In any case while it is not my intention to cyber-fellate Pookey this page is lucky to have him and his absence would hinder this blog as much as a Ziller or Section departure.

A Brief Word on the Trolls

There’s no better indication of just how bad your team is doing then when, whether it’s out of sympathy or just general disinterest, the trolls don’t even bother harassing you anymore. Realistically it’s pretty difficult to be an out of town contrarian when a season like this turns even the most ardent Kevin Martin defender or Petrie apologist into a contrarian’s contrarian. Everything sucks presently. We don’t need a 13 year old from suburban Salem to remind us. So it’s nice to have Mr. Pappagiorgio over at Loud City to gleefully share in our misery with mutually assured destruction of an afternoon alcoholic. Cheers to you sir.

Speaking of futility…

Gallows Humor, Gallows Humor, Gallows Humor

I don’t think anyone realizes just what a labor of love this page becomes when your team is losing by 100 to a mediocre Suns squad or going into overtime against the Hornets at home. Seriously talking about a Greg Monroe game in December? Analyzing a Quincy Douby-Maurice Ager swap? (An underrated trade by the way.) This is what we’re reduced to? And yet we do it. We do it not because we want to. But because we have to. Someone needs to be a fan of this squad. And as opposed to this page’s popularity diving in syncopation with this season’s swoon it only appears to be increasing. Kudos to all of you, who have come here, been sincere, insightful and impassioned, but have been all of the above with a distinct tongue in cheekiness that indicates no, we’re not taking ourselves, or this season, too seriously

Now Ziller, about that Angela Tsai vs. Becca the Royal Court Dancer: Quien Es Mas Macho Post…

And All for the Want of a Horseshoe Nail

rbiegler — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 14:41:55 -0000

Know when I knew Theus wouldn't last through this season? Saturday. But not when the Kings were getting drubbed by Zach Randolph. Earlier Saturday, during the Georgetown-Memphis game, when I saw Greg Monroe dropping passes out of the high post like a junior Chris Webber and thought "God I wish the Kings had this guy. This is the quintessential Petrie player" and I subsequently wondered what exactly would he be doing on the Kings? Standing in the high-post watching John Salmons dribble for 23 seconds before receiving a handoff in just enough time to let off an errant jump shot?

Petrie has continued to draft his type of players, versatile, sweet shooting, solid passing guys that can execute his offensive vision with sophistication. But he has done so for a coach who I don't think understands the basic concept of any offensive system, let alone one with the subtleties of the Princeton. Which is why all this talk of eventually bringing in an Avery Johnson is so silly. Petrie is at his most savvy selecting offensively minded players. Kids with mental as well as physical tools. And we're as a fan base blessed by this, without Petrie we'd end up with a roster of Brandan Wright's and Mouhamed Saer Sene's. Petrie will never change his spots, and he shouldn't.

And Theus, ultimately, I think lacks the basketball sophistication to fully understand the value of said spots. He's a street smart, charismatic guy, a good leader, ingratiating with the media, and the reality is this roster would be good for 20 wins with a coaching staff of Bob Knight, Chuck Daly, Tex Winter and the ghost of Pete Newell. But Petrie needs someone who can appreciate the substantive presence of Pete Carril. And Theus is by all appearances a guy enamored with appearances. And that fundamental philosophical difference will not change no matter how healthy the roster, how high the lottery pick.