Casspi out. Hickson in. Kings improve but still have questions.

"Crispy Crusty", as one caller called him,
brings energy and transition finishing skills. 

The Sacramento Kings were busy up to the NBA lockout deadline with a last day trade of Omri Casspi and a conditional first round pick to Cleveland for J.J. Hickson. I like the deal. I'm sorry to see Casspi go but I too would have pulled the trigger on this trade. Hickson is younger (22), more efficient, and higher ranked at his position than Casspi (23). But this is not to say that I think Casspi won't be a legit player in the NBA.

I believe with extended minutes - which he should get in Cavs-land, Casspi will become a more efficient player. To achieve that however - Casspi must become better at sharing the ball. He is passionate and energetic, and very self-confident. He moves well without the ball, and he reacts quickly, playing at NBA speed. On the other hand, Casspi needs to have more confidence in his teammates (and coaches).

In my opinion Casspi WAS justified in thinking he should be playing more while with the Kings. The inefficient Donte Greene ate into Casspi's minutes, particularly late in the season. Casspi only appeared in three April games - averaging not even five minutes per contest.

Hickson shows promise as a young BIG that, had he stayed in college, would have just completed his Senior season. Instead - he will have three years in the NBA under his belt whenever there is NBA action again. Hickson has excellent hands, a strong base, and enough athleticism to get rebounds outside his area. He can also score on the low-block; absorbing hits and powering though. Hickson has improved his assist-to-turnover ratio in each of three NBA seasons but, in my opinion, decision making is still his biggest weakness. His 67% free throw percentage could obviously improve as well.

Hickson is a Power Forward.

I've heard that Sacramento may play Hickson some at Center which I am not sold on. In my book - Hickson is strictly a classic Power Forward. He can block some shots but he is not an NBA caliber rim defender. He would be giving up too much size on a consistent basis playing the FIVE.  Honestly - Sac still needs to sign a defensive presence down low if Samuel Dalembert is not returning (and most guesses are that he is not). I don't think you can expect Hassan Whiteside to go from being a non-factor to suddenly being a rotation player.

In case you were wondering - by efficiency rating the Kings BIG's break down in this order based on their play in the 2010-11 regular season: DeMarcus Cousins .534, Hickson .529, Jason Thompson .478, Darnell Jackson .385 (yuck).

The John Salmons deal probably helps the Kings in one way. Defensively. Salmons actually is not even as efficient as Casspi or Francisco Garcia. But Salmons certainly moves his feet one-on-one more quickly than Garcia. I've often thought Garcia has been unfairly described as a poor defender. True - his initial foot movement is not top-tier. But Garcia recovers as well as any wing player. He has uncanny timing and an ability to 'dig back' and get his fingertips on many balls. Garcia has averaged 45 blocked shots per season (including 09-10 when he played just 25 games). Tyler Honeycutt, a Kings second round draft pick from UCLA, is as good or better than Garcia in the shot blocking area.

Greene is ONE with Kings fans. 

Back to Salmons, the unspoken benefit of his return could be if he takes whatever minutes Greene was getting. That is, if Greene continues to ignore his own obvious gifts of size versus the rest of the NBA Small Forward talent pool. Greene has to learn to take his game inside-out rather than outside-in. He had mismatches and size advantages throughout last season but rarely, if ever, hurt shorter defenders in the mid-post.

Despite Greene's ability to accept a defensive challenge - the truth is he wounded the Kings on many nights with poor shots. To be specific - Greene needs to turn down some of the three-point shots he jacks in favor of getting a closer look at the hoop. To do that - he will need to improve his ball-handling ability and come up with a few basic low post moves. This past season he had more turnovers than assists which is a now a career theme. We are three years into Donte Greene the NBA player and he is at 32% from three-point range. He seems to shoot it well enough from the corners but from straightaway he struggles.

While I am critical of Greene - he is also one of my favorite players in the NBA. He genuinely connects to the fans. His borderline O.C.D. pre-game routines are pure entertainment. He cheers for his teammates as much as any guy since M.L. Carr.  And I still believe when I look at Greene's mobility on a 6'11" frame - that he can raise his efficiency and become the player that so many envisioned he would be. He has the tools.

Sacramento's Small Forward efficiency looks like this: (based on the 2010-11 regular season): Garcia .390 (41st at SF in the NBA), Salmons .366 (41st at Shooting Guard), Greene .301 (67th at SF). ...Honeycutt is another possibility.

Evans is proof that playing Point Guard doesn't mean you

ARE a Point Guard. 

Some may say - why not run Tyreke Evans as a Small Forward? The answer is simple to me. He doesn't shoot the three-ball well enough to honestly stretch defenses. Evans is at 27% for his NBA career from beyond the arc. Even though Evans is listed at 6'6" - which is small for a SF, he has a standing reach of 8'8" which would put him solidly in the SF pool. (Garcia's standing reach is an inch shorter than Evans').

So Tyreke would be best served as a Shooting Guard. He can play Point Guard. He may not be the pass-first, all-sharing Point Guard that everyone wants but his 1.83 to 1 career assist-to-turnover ratio is not horrible either. It just isn't in the range of guys you would call "pure Point Guards". For example - if you don't know this stuff off the top of your head - here are the assist-to-turnover ratios for ten really good Point Guards on teams that win:

The assist-to-turnover king is CP3

• Chris Paul 4.42 to 1
• Rajon Rondo 3.25 to 1
• Kyle Lowry 3.16 to 1
• Andre Miller 2.87 to 1
• Raymond Felton 2.77 to 1
• Ty Lawson 2.75 to 1
• Tony Parker 2.57 to 1
• Chauncey Billups 2.42 to 1
• Derrick Rose 2.24 to 1
• Russell Westbrook 2.12 to 1

(Again Evans is at 1.83 to 1.)

The point of all this is that the Kings are headed into a season (whenever that is) with Evans, Marcus Thornton (also a TWO), and draft pick Jimmer Fredette as the guards that figure to play the most. Fredette's highest assist-to-turnover ratio ever at BYU was 1.71 to 1. Last season it was a very non Point Guard like 1.22 to 1. It is undeniable that Fredette has a great chance to raise his assist-to-turnover ratio playing with NBA caliber finishers. But it is also a bit of a gamble to think you can win in the NBA with a three-guard rotation of all TWO guards. 

A couple of players that don't figure to get major minutes are Pooh Jeter and Isaiah Thomas. Jeter boasts "real Point Guard" numbers at 3.18 to 1. Isaiah Thomas had his best season in three years at Washington in 2010-11 with a 2.05 to 1 assist to turnover ratio. 

JT ain't no 3.

We finished our last racing assignment of the year  - which means until mid January it is all basketball and music over here. ...Of course, I’ve been watching as much hoop as I can get away with while still doing my racing gigs professionally; I just haven’t been blogging about it. I do “Tweet” with regularity so if you are one of the three or four people who reads this space and you want to keep up with my most timely thoughts—you can follow me on twitter. The account name is @BasslineSpin.

Where to start? Well - nothing has boiled by blood pressure like the Sacramento Kings inability to correctly use their personnel and establish some sort of dependable rotation. I lost my Twitter cool when Sac began trying Jason Thompson (pictured) at Small Forward. At times, JT was on the floor with Center Samuel Dalembert, and Power Forward Darnell Jackson.

There are but a handful of rules in the NBA that I see as unbreakable truths. One is that your “THREE-man”, or SF must have the ability to either shoot the three-point shot or be capable of taking his man off the dribble to make a play. Jason Thompson does neither. He is 1-18 from beyond the arc for his career. As for playmaking, JT has more turnovers than assists, and his ball-handling is nothing you ever want to see more than two dribbles (if that) of. True, there are a few SF’s in the NBA that he CAN match up with defensively. But I will continue to maintain that WINNERS make the opposition match up with them—not the other way around.

It is particularly troubling to me that Thompson has been forced into this situation because after an off-season of hard work that saw him improve his upper body strength—I really believed (and still do believe) that JT could help this Kings team if given a steady diet of minutes at PF or C. The monkey wrench in this deal (aside from the questionable coaching) is Darnell Jackson, who has played well at times. Jackson “forced” the Kings coaches to find him some minutes which, I can only imagine, was the impetus for the JT position juggling.

But that is no excuse. Thompson simply NEVER, EVER should have been trotted out at SF. What happens from a floor spacing standpoint, when a non-threat from the perimeter plays SF, is you wind up with a clogged middle. Defenders do not need to worry about running all the way out to the three point line - so they smartly cheat toward the middle of the floor.

Having a clogged middle is especially bad for Sacramento. Tyreke Evans’ game (and most backcourt scorer’s games) is largely dependent on dribble-driving through the paint. The baffling part is that I know the Kings coaches HAVE TO KNOW THIS. So why did they play JT at SF?

The Kings margin for error relative to the rest of the NBA is still very small. Teams with losing records cannot have hiccups while experimenting. ...Which leads me to this… A big NBA fallacy is the thought that a “good” defender deserves playing time even though that same player is not offensively gifted.

The truth is that very few defenders are so “good” that their presence overcomes their offensive liabilities. There is a scoreboard which must be lit up with scor-ING to win a game.  Antoine Wright is a “safe player”. He defends his man and he doesn’t turn the ball over. We know this from his historical data. He’s played over 5,700 minutes in his career. What we also know is that he is not and most likely never will be efficient. It is my belief he is the current poster-child for what I just described above; a “good” defensive player that simply isn’t so good of a defender that it makes up for the stuff he can’t or won’t do on offense.

Efficiency always matters. The Kings are not at a level where they can afford to play one guy out of position and then give minutes to a guy like Wright, and expect anything but a five game losing streak.

To go further into nitpicking - Sacramento still has backcourt issues - and front court scorer Carl Landry has underachieved. Landry is not getting to the free throw line enough, and in my opinion, he has settled for his fall-away jumper too often. 

Beno Udrih and Evans should play until they drop dead based on their only backups being Luther Head, Wright, and Pooh Jeter. Apparently the coaches do not trust Jeter enough to play him. Jeter’s preseason numbers didn't do anything to help the staff believe he is ready for real NBA minutes.

Head might be okay as a 'fifth guard type backup' at Shooting Guard but his body dictates that bigger SG’s will always give him problems.  Head should not be looked at as a PG. Just because his body type says PG - that doesn’t mean his skill set agrees. Wright, ...I’m not sure should even be in the NBA. I still don’t really buy Evans as a PG. So that means Sac has Udrih as the only PG option. 

Francisco Garcia has spent time playing SG but that is not his natural spot. A good SG should be able to take someone off the dribble and create a shot on his own. "Cisco" excels more at spot shooting. He is a SF that DOES stretch the defense.  Garcia has outplayed Omri Casspi to date.

Bottom line. My fix for the Kings: play Udrih and Evans all that you can (or go get a real backup PG). Start Garcia at SF, with Thompson, and Dalembert up front. Landry has always seemed most comfy coming off the bench—so bring him in as the first sub for JT. DeMarcus Cousins spells Dalembert. I’d give Casspi the nod as Garcia’s backup, and Head (as the roster stands) would get a handful of minutes backing up at SG. If there is any experimenting done - I wouldn't mind seeing Casspi given a shot at SG. He moves well and his offensive aggression is sorely needed. He has proven he can’t guard a SF like Michael Beasley so maybe Casspi’s length, against the generally smaller players at SG, would be a better fit.

I too like what Jackson has brought to the table early in the season. He does simple things within his ability. But he too has holes in his game. He struggles as a free throw shooter, is just an average rebounder for his position, and he gets an assist about once every ten days. All that said - he is not (in my opinion) better than Thompson, Dalembert, Cousins, or Landry. So Jackson should probably just be getting minutes when the team needs a spark. If the Kings really believe Jackson is an answer going forward - then they should try to trade one of their BIGS to get that backup Point Guard that they need so badly.

Saturday Vegas report. Samb is the man.

Cheikh Samb was our Player of the Day for Saturday at the NBA Las Vegas Summer League. The Toronto big man scored 17 points with six rebounds, and seven blocked shots! He helped the summer Raptors remain unbeaten - concluding their Vegas run at 5-0. 


Our All LVSL Day Nine Team (with game efficiency rating): PG: Toney Douglas - NYK .666, SG: Mark Tyndale - DLS 1.000, SF: Omri Casspi - SAC .875, PF: Leo Lyons - NYK .952, C: Samb - NYK 1.238. Bench: Guards: Derrick Byars - CHI .650, Kevin Palmer - WA .647, Forwards: Trey Gilder - ATL .857, Ronald DuPree - TOR .857, Curtis Withers - DLS .821, Dante Cunningham - POR .814. Center: Patrick O'Bryant - MIN .888. 

Arrogance, ignorance or stupidity?

Our Player of the Day for day four of the Las Vegas Summer League was Scottie Reynolds. The undrafted Villanova All-American scored 16 points (4-6 FG, 6-6 FT), with three assists, and two boards in just 19 minutes for the summer Suns.

Our “All Day Four Las Vegas Summer League Team” (their game efficiency rating). PG: Reynolds - PHX .947, SG: Landry Fields - NYK .826, SF: Omri Casspi - SAC .750, PF: Richard Hendrix - ATL .809, C: Darryl Watkins - SA .545. Bench: Guards: John Wall (pictured at left) - WA. .678, J.R. Giddens - DAL .678, Deron Washington - MIL .620. Forwards: Darrell Arthur - MEM .807, Patrick Ewing Jr. - NYK .666, Alade Aminu - ATL .666. Center: Sean Williams - MIL .526.