You Don’t Have to Believe in the Sacramento Kings

Every move the Kings made this off-season was met with stifled laughter at best and outright guffawing and derision at worst. How can this team, owned by a meddlesome technocrat, built by a first-time GM, coached by a legend coaxed out of a cushy TV gig, and headed by a head case superstar, possibly be successful? Every time the Kings made news, their actions were framed by this narrative in the national media.

Granted, they made a lot of unconventional moves. They traded two massive contracts, their first round pick, a future first round pick and the rights to swap two further first round picks to the Philadelphia 76ers for an end-of-roster guy, some draft rights and a massive hole in the salary cap. They threw eight figures Rajon Rondo when nobody else was vying for his services.  Vlade gave Seth Curry a player option for his second year on a small contract, which means it’s likely he only exercises it if he isn’t playing well. They traded Ray McCallum for a Spurs second-rounder, which means for essentially nothing.

They also shored up the bench with Quincy Acy, Marco Belinelli, Kosta Koufos and Caron Butler. They also drafted an incredible defensive force in Willie Cauley-Stein. They also jettisoned two of their biggest albatross contracts to give them roster flexibility in the future. But that isn’t funny, so nobody cares. The national media will only look at the Boogie of it all, the powder keg situation that they won’t believe no longer exists between Cousins, Rondo and George Karl. Zach Lowe put them at five in his annual League Pass rankings for the rubbernecking factor, to watch the Hindenburg in slow motion.

Nobody wants to believe in the Kings, and that’s fine.

Before the introductions in their season opener, Sleep Train Arena was filled with a supercut of audio clips of pundits mocking the Kings’ moves. Players were named specifically. Fuel was added to the fire, and the flames stoked. It’s clear where the 2015-16 Kings are getting their drive. As owner Vivek Ranadive put it:

“It’s an ‘us against the world’ mentality.”

The Kings can’t turn around without finding prime bulletin board material. They aren’t turning away from the criticism, they’re leaning into it. They’re embracing it. They’re a team of ill-fitting head cases and underperformers, or so you say.

They were one of the best starting lineups in the league last year, and their bench let them down. They vastly improved their bench. They had one of the most tumultuous head coaching stories last season, and they settled with a Hall of Famer as their leader. They still have a top-three big man in the league in DeMarcus Cousins and a dynamic scorer in Rudy Gay. There is a lot to be excited out about this team, but nobody wants to see it.

In their opening game, the Kings fell down early to the Los Angeles Clippers, going down double digits based on numerous turnovers. All the work done, for nothing. Same old Kings. But they showed they weren’t the same old Kings. They came storming back and made it a game, they lost 111-104, but it was closer than that, as they even took the league in the fourth quarter. They ended up losing to a team that will be in the race for the Western Conference Finals, led by a modern-day Stockton and Malone. They showed that the moves may not have been rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, a Titanic that was declared by those outside the team. These Kings have a direction and a purpose. These Kings will get to the playoffs.

They don’t want your belief, they want to earn your respect.

Playing Catch-Up with the 2015-16 Sacramento Kings

The Sacramento Kings get started Wednesday night with the last home opener at Arco Arena Power Balance Pavilion Sleep Train Arena Arco Arena. There were an incredible number of off-season roster moves, so here is a primer on everything that changed with the personnel on-court between last season’s tipoff and this year.

First, the outgoing players.

Here is the final list of players who wore a Kings jersey last season:

Sim Bhullar                                          Andre Miller
Omri Casspi                                        Quincy Miller
Darren Collison                                 Eric Moreland
DeMarcus Cousins                           Ramon Sessions
Reggie Evans                                      Nik Stauskas
Rudy Gay                                             David Stockton
Ryan Hollins                                        Jason Thompson
Carl Landry                                          David Wear
Ray McCallum                                    Derrick Williams
Ben McLemore

Current free agents:

Sim Bhullar (contract ended at end of 2014-’15 season)
Reggie Evans (contract ended at end of 2014-’15 season)
Quincy Miller (signed to Detroit NBADL affiliate February 2015)
David Stockton (waived by Kings in October 2015)
David Wear (contract ended at end of 2014-’15 season)

Free agents, signed elsewhere:

Ryan Hollins (one-year, $1.3 million with Memphis Grizzlies)
Andre Miller (one-year, $1.5 million with Minnesota Timberwolves)
Derrick Williams (two-year, $8.8 million with New York Knickerbockers)

Trades!

February 2015:
Traded: Ramon Sessions to Washington Wizards
Received: Andre Miller

July 2015:
Traded: Carl Landry, Nik Stauskas, Jason Thompson, 2018 first round pick, swap rights for 2016 & 2017 first round draft picks to Philadelphia 76ers
Received: Duje Dukan, rights to Arturas Gudaitis & Luka Mitrovic

Traded: Ray McCallum to San Antonio Spurs
Received: 2016 second round pick

So that’s everybody who was on the squad in 2014-15 that no longer wears a Kings jersey. Only six of the 19 2014-15 Kings are still on the active roster (Gay, Cousins, McLemore, Collison, Casspi and Moreland). Let’s take a look at your 2015-16 Sacramento Kings!

The Incumbents:
DeMarcus Cousins, PF/C
Mercurial, generational talent. Has repeatedly made attempts to rein in his now-famous temper. He’s easily a top-fifteen player in the NBA, but many fear his inability to control his outbursts will stunt the Kings’ ability to succeed. He gets knocked for his defense, but he is actually a great defender. To whit, a few surprising statistics: Cousins was second in the NBA in defensive rebounds per game, and was one of only two players (with Anthony Davis) to average 3.0 blocks + steals and 20 points per game. The Kings truly will go only as far as Cousins will take them, as he is one of the best-rounded players in the league and given the season is fewer than two months after his 25th birthday, Cousins has nowhere to go but up.

Rudy Gay, F
The trade that brought Gay to Sacramento was the first big head-scratcher of the new regime, and many people never got over it. In his time in Memphis and Toronto, he got a reputation as a low-efficiency chucker, and those outside the organization panned trading bits and pieces to get a player of Gay’s talent. In his time in Sacramento, Gay has been the best version of himself. His eFG% is the highest of his career without taking any fewer shots. He’s getting his, but his shots are better in Sacramento. He has a now-below-market-rate contract that will prove to be a steal. He is the premier scorer to Boogie’s elite talent.

Omri Casspi, SG/SF
On his second stint with the Kings, Casspi has become more of a mascot than a real player. Sure, he contributes a bit, but his main talent is running around like a person with his hair on fire. He’s Boogie’s personal headband straightener and the backup small forward. Like I said, he has a high motor but he epitomizes the Kings’ tradition of going too fast for your own good and things subsequently getting sloppy.

Ben McLemore, SG
Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben… Hyper-athletic and can dunk out of the gym. He took a step forward last year after an up-and-down rookie campaign. Coming out of college, he looked to be a dynamic scorer, but his energies have slowly moved towards being an athletic defensive wing player. He takes way too many outside looks for his talent level, which could quickly find him on the bench if Marco Belinelli proves to do the same thing but at a much higher clip. Reports out of Kings camp are that McLemore is “behind the curve,” which could mean that my favorite King since Peja may find himself coming off the bench anyway.

Darren Collison, G
A really, really good point guard last season who I once called “the platonic ideal of a backup point guard.” He sure showed me, averaging 16 points, 5.5 assists and 1.5 steals in just about half the season before he went down with injury. It looks like he will start the season as the backup, which means that he’ll be the sixth man (doubly so if Belinelli starts).

Eric Moreland, PF/C
Moreland was a Summer League standout last year that had his 2014-15 campaign cut short with a labral tear in his left shoulder. A bigger Omri Casspi in that he is high energy and low efficiency. He’ll be fighting with Quincy Acy for minutes behind Cousins, Willie Cauley-Stein and Kosta Koufus. He is a definite upgrade from Ryan Hollins in this same position in 2014-15.

The Free Agents:
Rajon Rondo, PG
When many people point to why this iteration of the Kings won’t work, one of the names that comes out of their mouth is Rajon Rondo. Rondo was an incredible point guard in his day, turning the big three of Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce into the big four. He was traded to the Mavericks part-way through last season, and it ended in disaster. He and head coach Rick Carlisle feuded, and Rondo was benched and forgotten while the Mavericks were bounced from the playoffs. People point to that as a reason why he won’t work with George Karl in Sacramento. Here’s the thing: he wanted to come here, he wanted to play with Boogie. He wants this. He was traded to the Mavericks, he didn’t want that. Rondo is famously difficult to work with if you get on his wrong side, but the Kings are exactly the side he wants to be on. His pass-first mentality is almost to a fault, and will give up open jumpers to get the assist. This will be frustrating, but he’ll make some sweet passes to make up for it. People will want to point to his time with the Mavericks as the new Rondo, but in the first 22 games (with Boston), he was averaging 8.3 points, 10.8 assists, 7.5 rebounds and 1.7 steals per game.

Marco Belinelli, G/F
A journeyman with his sixth team in eight seasons, Belinelli is a three-point specialist and a scorer first and second. His defense is a bit suspect but when he’s draining dead-eye threes, Kings fans won’t care. He has a low career PPG because he is only averaging just under 23 minutes per game. Offseason interviews with George Karl indicated he craved a shooter like Belinelli, so I expect him to get a good amount of run. Unfortunately, it appears as though this will come at the expense of Ben McLemore.

Kosta Koufos, C
If Darren Collison is the platonic ideal of a backup PG, Koufos is the same for a big man. He’s a beefy plus defensive player who will knock opposing players on their rears, given the opportunity. He grabs rebounds and gets the shots given to them. He played for a few years under George Karl, so he likely made his way back to Karl’s tutelage, where he averaged a double-double per 36 minutes played. A hard worker but unspectacular in any way, he will be getting the starting nod as rookie Willie Cauley-Stein works into game shape. He’s a high-floor, low-ceiling guy.

Quincy Acy, PF
The once and future King, this is Acy’s second stint in Sacramento after he was traded in a salary dump following the 2014 season. Acy’s high energy, big beard and bigger dunks made him a fan favorite the first time around, and he’ll do the same thing this time. He’s moved down the bench from the last time he was here (thankfully), but he should still produce some posterizing moments with his athleticism.

Seth Curry, G
Brother of NBA MVP Seth Curry and guy-who-makes-fake-brother-of-Steph-Curry commercials awkward. He is a poor man’s version of his brother. The Kings curiously signed him to a two-year deal despite him getting almost no other buzz. He blew up Summer League, but so did Ray McCallum. Ideally he gets almost no minutes, because that means something bad has happened to Rondo and/or Collison. At some point this season he’ll have a ridiculous sixty-second stretch of like three three-pointers made.

James Anderson, G/F
A former Spurs first-round pick, but had the unfortunate distinction of playing shooting guard and small forward, which was all gummed up. He hardly got any time in San Antonio (about 11 minutes per game), but got 29 MPG last season for a tanking Philadelphia team. He did very little with that time. There are rumors that he could end up starting over McLemore to get Belinelli to be the scorer of the bench. That’s silly.

Caron Butler, SF
Butler’s best years are long behind him, and he is on the team mostly as a mentor. There will probably be long stretches where he barely plays and times when he will be unavailable for back-to-backs. The former All-Star will provide the Kings with the vaunted veteran leadership, but is firmly behind several players in the SF depth chart.

The Draftee:
Willie Cauley-Stein, PF/C
Defensive monster, UK Wildcat like half the Kings. Reportedly was the player that Cousins wanted, which is why it was immensely stupid that national pundits called his draft pick one to replace Boogie. He is a defensive monster in college and has the athleticism to stop slower guards in a pinch. He isn’t great defensively, but his offensive rebounding and defense are why he was drafted. He will fit in perfectly next to Cousins and will crack the starting lineup when it becomes clear to the team that he can’t keep him out of the lineup. He’ll be fun to watch, at least.

The Trade:
Duje Dukan, PF
Rights acquired in the big ol’ Stauskas for salary relief trade.
I know literally nothing about Duje Dukan. Here is what ESPN has to say:
“Dukan signed a two-year, partially guaranteed deal with his first-year salary fully guaranteed (and $200,000 for the second year), which gives us an indication Sacramento intends to keep him on the roster for the entire season. Having said that, expect him to spend some time down in Reno, as he's an extremely raw prospect, having played fewer than 1,000 minutes in his entire collegiate career. He has got good size and a decent shooting touch, but as it is, he's not ready to contribute on the NBA level, and there's a good chance he'll be receiving a membership card to the "stretch bigs who don't actually shoot all that well" club (32 percent from college 3-point range, 25 percent on 2-point jumpers last season).”

Cool.

The Kings had tremendous overhaul this season, and many think there are too many off-court issues to have any success on-court. In any evaluation, this is the most exciting team since the Webber-Vlade-Peja years. Personally, I see them as the eighth seed and an over-.500 record. They’re going to send Arco out with a bang.

Yahoo! is Already Better at the NFL than FOX, CBS & ESPN

Yahoo! Sports paid $20 million to have exclusive rights—outside of Buffalo and Jacksonville markets—to stream the Bills/Jaguars extra-early London game today. Anybody who has used Yahoo! Fantasy Sports services has had their hearts fill with dread as the servers were down at 9:55 AM on a Sunday Morning. I expected more of the same, given that Yahoo! also had trouble bringing me Community earlier this year. As I type this, I’ve watched the entire football game in HD with limited stuttering and buffering.

I live on the west coast, so this was an early game for me. Last night I saw that you could stream the game directly from the Yahoo! Fantasy Sports app. So I intended to test this… I’m an early riser but being up and coherent at 6:30 AM on a Saturday was going to be a stretch. As I awoke this morning I fumbled for my cell phone and headphones that I left on my bedside table. I opened the app and there was a button for the game, I hit it, fully expecting to sit and wait for it to buffer. The feed popped up immediately, and after gaining its footing, in full HD.

After I got my act together, I switched to my computer. The feed popped up on the Yahoo! home screen, no sign in, no nothing. It was right there. No BS.  I like to run a feed on one half of my screen and work on the other half. Work is usually Twitter/posting on a sports forum. This usually involves a bit of finagling the size of the stream in the other window. Yahoo changed size immediately.

I’m watching and there is a regular commentating crew going on, spouting the normal platitudes about who wants it more and about how a person is a “coaches’ coach” or a “players’ player,” or other pointless nonsense. Then I was alerted to the Fantasy stream. I like fantasy, I play & write about fantasy, I thought it would be fun just to be something different.

It took the game to another level. They didn’t say who they were, but from what I could gather, it was Brad Evans and a couple of Yahoo bloggers. Cursory research could have found me their names, but this isn’t well-researched sports opinions. This alternative commentary track was like a Mystery Science Theater 3000 take on the Jaguars best attempts at giving the game away.

Whether it was repeatedly calling out Jaguars cornerback Dwayne Gratz, cheering big hits and touchdowns or the gem “Blake Bortles gonna do what Blake Bortles gonna do” after a Bort interception, the Fantasy audio feed kept me glued to the game. It was early, part of me wanted to go back to bed when the Jags were running wild on the Bills. The only thing that kept me watching was the commentary. It took me, as a half-awake disengaged watcher to someone actively excited to watch the game. It was incredible, like I was watching the game with a group of friends instead of next to a sleepy feline through headphones to not wake up my fiancée.

Overall the Yahoo! experience can only be described as a complete success. The streaming was great, the commentary was exceptional. My only gripe is that there wasn’t great integration of statistics on the feed page, but that can be easily remedied.

I sincerely hope there’s more of this in the future.

2015 San Francisco 49ers: Unacceptable

The 49ers have seen this a lot this season.

Torrey Smith said it, Jim Tomsula said it, Jed York has said it. Unacceptable. They keep saying it and the impotent admission of defeat behind it is frankly, unacceptable. Everything about this team is completely unacceptable right now and those running the squad keep pounding the table in faux-outrage, but the problem is really that there are no answers. There is nothing that can be done at this point. 49ers brass shake their heads and mutter unacceptable like this team wasn’t destined to be lucky to win six games this year. To think otherwise, to think this was a contender, was unacceptable. At this point, the team is a culmination of terrible decisions.

Leaking before the 2014 season that there were interpersonal issues between the front office and Jim Harbaugh? Unacceptable.

Inconsistent application of discipline of players’ off-field issues leading to your star pass rusher on a rival team up the road? Unacceptable.

The phrase “winning with class?” Unacceptable.

Trying to whitewash the Harbaugh departure as a “mutual parting of ways?” Unacceptable.

Insisting that head coaching candidates utilize Jim Tomsula as their defensive coordinator, causing them to balk at the prospect? Unacceptable.

Losing your offensive and defensive coordinators, both of which are flourishing, due to your insistence that your defensive line coach be promoted? Unacceptable.

Promoting your quarterbacks coach, whose responsibilities were the impotent red zone playcalling, to offensive coordinator? Unacceptable.

Having almost no useful graduates of the All-ACL Team? Unacceptable.

The entire 2012 draft class? Unacceptable.

Burning $5,000,000 in cap space on two defensive players who never played a snap? Unacceptable.

Spending a fifth round pick on a punter who can barely crack the top 25 (of 32) in terms of average punt distance? Unacceptable.

Drafting a player so early he was shocked he was drafted in that spot? Unacceptable.

Knowing Anthony Davis was pondering early retirement during the draft process and doing nothing to replace him? Unacceptable.

You could list essentially every player on this team but Aaron Lynch and point out how unacceptable their performance has been. What now? How often can you spout unacceptable before turning your gaze inward, and you try to fix what is happening?

The offensive line is garbage, yet you continue to start Jordan Devey, Marcus Martin and Erik Pears. Unacceptable.

The offense is directionless, as you continually eschew the little things that would help your beleaguered quarterback. He performs better from under center, yet inexplicably he ends up in shotgun repeatedly. He plays well when you roll him out, yet you have him stand there as a pocket passer. Unacceptable.

The last two should be laid at Jim Tomsula's feet, but that man is completely over his head. It was evident from his first press conference that the job was too big for him. He is failing spectacularly and thoroughly. You can't blame him though, more than you can blame a child for crashing your car when you force him to drive it.

Jed York and Trent Baalke bear the brunt of the blame for this unacceptable display, yet both have lifted up Tomsula as their fall guy. Their sacrificial lamb. His great story will have a terrible end, and both York and Baalke will continue on without repercussions. They are the orchestrators of this unacceptable team, yet they bear none of the responsibility.

Frankly, that is unacceptable.