Big Penny

They could be higher if we had an offensive system. Obviously with this roster they're never going to be phenomenal but it's a mix of playing and coaching. As a coach you should be able to. Cousins knows what to do as a primary option. The problem lies after that because nobody else has any idea what to do. Difference being there has to be 3-4 defenders all with guns before Bynum will even think "Maybe I should pass...." whereas Cousins is a willing passer. Also, from the games I've seen there is no way Drew gets more attention than Cousins on a consistent basis. Teams are content with throwing defenders at Cousins because who's going to beat them from the outside? John Salmons? Tyreke Evans? Lol. Cousins is one of the best ball-handling bigs in the NBA and is a terrific passer out of the high post. He showcased that during his rookie season. Westphal then took him out of the high post to start this season. Naw. #Playoffs2013 IJS, Cousins is in his 2nd year and has had one of the toughest paths (basketball wise) imaginable. Yes the team is bad. I was slinging mud at Westphal because of the way he treats his players. The way he treated Payton, the way he treated Hawes, the way he treated Cousins. He was interested more in making sure everyone on the Kings knew he was "the man". If Cousins and Tyreke had been drafted to a team with Keith Smart as the coach, they would've progressed a hell of a lot more. I wasn't expecting any fireworks from the team this year, even if Phil Jackson decided to coach them. Westphal never ran an offensive system. Westphal never established a rotation. Westphal would then talk shit to the press and suspend players if they complained about this. I showed you hard evidence of this. What do you expect Smart to do? He took over a team that had NO GAMEPLAN, NO ROTATION, NO SYSTEM... during the season! He can't just take 2-3 weeks out of the league to establish his system. I am willing to put any money on the numbers being drastically higher next season. Larry Brown was a tough coach. Westphal was a bellend. I would've loved Larry Brown to come to Sacramento and set these guys straight. He was my first choice when Westphal was fired. You want me to admit I was wrong? Okay, I was wrong. He played awfully with Sacramento and seemed more concerned with getting his numbers. Like almost everyone on the team. According to me and anyone who has any knowledge of the Kings.... Fine. Really? Because I saw Hibbert get overrated as [expletive] during the playoffs against the Heat. I was comparing their FG% on inside shots, not overall players.

Similar inside % to Roy Hibbert, but okay. No, but they need teammates who are willing to give them the ball and not feed off scraps. Have you ever watched the Kings play? Cousins receives double/triple teams inside. No, that's not what I said at all. Cousins needs a finesse post game... like every single great center has had. Yes you can, if you're a good coach. Thornton and Tyreke can't play together. I know it. You have clearly noticed it. Bring one off the bench, that's not difficult. Smart also should've figured that out tbh but he's not a great coach either - just better suited for a young team. Cousins leads the NBA in FG attempts at the rim, I don't know why you're obsessed with him being a finesse power forward... every good center has had to have a finesse post-game. Shaq is the only one who was a perennial all-star without one and Shaq makes DMC look like a rag doll. Thompson had such few shot attempts because he's not a big-time scorer. He will have a big game every now and then, but the reason he's such a good fit on the team is because while everyone else is running around thinking "I'm gonna get 50!!!" (Which they will do, since they would have done that at every previous level of competition, and when they got to the NBA they weren't told otherwise because Westphal never established a pecking order or a gameplan) Thompson is quite comfortable to sit back and take what the defense gives him. Also worth noting that Westphal started Hayes and Hickson over Thompson. Worth noting that with Westphal coaching this year Thompson averaged 6 PPG on 5 FG attempts. Of course they would play through Cousins. He's the best player on the team. The reason for those low stats is the players they have. Out of the 10 players who lead the 2010 team in FG%, only 2 of them (Jason Thompson and Tyreke Evans) remain... so unless Cousins is also the GM of the team, you can't rationally blame him. The only two consistent outside shooters on the team are Thornton and Thomas. There aren't any consistent good perimeter defenders - Greene is a good defender but can't concentrate, Tyreke is a good on-ball defender but an atrocious off-ball defender. All our "at the rim scorers" (and that's Cousins and Tyreke only) play under the rim and aren't gonna jump over anybody. The team has no pecking order so everyone wants to be the #1 guy which doesn't help with the Assists. You can use that argument for any team. What if. Doesn't change what happened. He became a regular rotation player after Smart's first 2 games. Because Cousins takes a lot of shots? I don't get this thing you have with Cousins... when a guy comes along who is good enough to be taking 15+ shots downlow and grab double digit rebounds, people are gonna get less shots. Also because he was injured pretty much all season his 2nd year (Opted to play through a condition that should've had him sitting out 2-4 months), but yeah, let's blame Cousins some more. Well he does get a bunch of defensive attention. I don't know where you got the idea that he doesn't. "Playing the way he does" You do realise it's his SECOND YEAR right? He came into a team with - whether you think Westphal was good or not - no rotation, no gameplan and filled with chuckers. He was then not allowed to have a proper off-season coming into his sophomore year, and had to deal with a coaching change weeks in. Yet he still had an 18/11 2nd year and looks to have an extremely bright future. Come back to me if he's still shooting 45% in 4-5 years. I don't know what you were expecting from him lol.

But Karl never pulled BS moves like that on Payton. Westphal has a history of suspending players and acting like a punk. The only team he didn't pull that kind of shit with was the Suns. DeMarcus Cousins' FG%. His biggest knock against him. Here are the facts: 1. Cousins leads the NBA in FGAs at the rim. He is assisted on a very low % of these which does nothing to help his FG% 2. His FG% on shots at the rim is fairly low - on par with finesse Centers such as Hibbert and Kaman. 3. Cousins is blocked more than anyone in the NBA. However, this is due to the large amounts of shots he takes at the rim. His blocked % is actually fairly average. 4. Cousins low FG% and Ast rate can also be explained by the fact he leads the league in offensive rebounds 5. He was 4th in Defensive Efficiency 6. Statistically, no other Center is as effective in the paint and out on the perimeter as Cousins. 7. His percentage is drastically let down by his shots from 3-9 feet out. Most of his post moves are aimed for him to be aggressive and get to the rim. He hasn't learned to play a proper finesse game yet, so this percentage is very low. 8. Cousins is one of the best shooting Centers in the NBA, statistically - he shoots a similar percentage to Bosh and Love on 16-23 footers, I can provide the source but it's from another website and the post is insanely long so I can't c/p it over. If you're OK with me sharing the link then I will, but if not just trust me. (His FG% at the rim is 56.7% on 7.3 per game, 30% on 3.4 attempts from 3-9 feet out, 35.1% on 0.9 attempts from 10-15 feet out, and 40.0% on 3.8 attempts from 15-23 feet out) his mid-range game is fine and his inside game is fine, it's the finesse game that lets him down. How do you explain what happened between Hawes and Westphal? That's a bitch move no matter how you spin it. And the Kings never won more game with Smart, that's true. Partly because that's when they realised it was hopeless, Smart played Reke at SF in order to prepare him for next year and also he was under instruction from the Maloofs to get the most out of Isaiah because he was their big money maker last year. I agree though, the Kings were awfully coached. I don't see how you can blame that on Smart and not on Westphal though. When Smart took over the Kings did not have a gameplan. They had no offensive system. They had no set rotation. They just went out there and were told to win. That's how you coach the '92 Dream Team... not how you coach a team filled with young egotistical guys. Just worth mentioning too, the Kings showed no progression in the Win column under Smart, but the progression in individual player's games was astonishing. Tyreke averaged 14/3/3 on 42% with Westphal as the coach, 17/5/5 on 46% with Smart. Cousins averaged 14/9/1 on 39% with Westphal as the coach, 19/11/2 on 45% with Smart. Smart put his confidence in IT and allowed him to take over as the starting PG. He got the best he could out of Jason Thompson. After a full training camp I'm confident they can put it together as a team and move out of the bottom seeds.

I agree. Tyreke and Thornton can't play together, it would be better for Thornton to come off the bench. Tyreke at SF was actually an experiment too... Smart moved Tyreke to SF in order to force him to play off the ball. It's certainly not permanent, it was just for the season to make him adapt and see the court differently.

Are you kidding me? Cousins has done nothing out of line this season. Nothing whatsoever. Crazy huh? Maybe if you followed the team you would know that. The Westphal incident? Let's rewind shall we. Remember when Westphal coached the Sonics? Him and Gary Payton had a heated argument. George Karl never had any problem controlling Payton. Pat Riley never had any problem controlling Gary Payton. Westphal has one argument and guess what happens? Gary Payton - the franchise player - gets suspended. Suspended for standing up to an awful coach. Westphal is fired, and some coach who is there to coach basketball and not control people is hired. Remember when Westphal coached the Kings? Remember when Spencer Hawes played for the Kings? Spencer Hawes stated that the Kings players were quite confused about their roles, and that there was no set rotation. He said this in the most politcally correct way possible. Wanna know what Westphal did about this? He placed Spencer Hawes on the Inactive list and said "“I saw where he’s having a hard time understanding his role, He should understand it (after) tonight.” What a great coach right? Wrong. That should've been the warning signs for the Kings. This guy is a cunt. Next. The Kings are frustrated. Frustrated because it's 2012 and they suck, as they have done for years. Tyreke Evans goes to the press and complains about the lack of offensive system. Cousins steps up to voice his opinion and JJ Hickson tells him not to. JJ Hickson tells him nothing good will come of it. JJ Hickson tells him to sit down privately with Westphal and discuss what he thinks. Cousins does exactly that. Westphal responds by calling him a cancer to the team. Cousins, a natural hothead, gets frustrated, and shouts "If I'm a cancer then why don't you trade me?" as you would to your Boss, if he called you useless. "If I'm so useless why don't you fire me?" Westphal then suspends Cousins WITHOUT consulting any higher-ups in the organisation. He releases a statement saying Cousins has requested a trade. He is then fired for this little stunts. I have 2 exams tommorow so I can't be bothered now but I'll be glad to provide you with sources in about 20 hours. Since then, Westphal has been (rightfully) unemployed, and Cousins has emerged into a Top-5 Center putting up 18/11. You don't get anywhere with a coach who doesn't see a team to coach, but rather sees a group of men he can control. Westphal (was) the worst coach in the NBA and he was rightfully fired. Cousins fault? No. But if it was I would applaud him. Anyways, on topic, this is a good move. Tyreke has showed very little progression, although with Westphal gone hopefully that will be different. If he continues to decline then we will be able to sign him for cheap in the off-season and avoid giving him a bloated contract. if he finally breaks out and becomes the player everyone thought he would be... well then he's still a RFA.

Because they draw out the team that picks #1 first. That's not good TV, people want to be kept in suspense.

awful, awful terrible list