Sacramento Kings: Evaluating The Offseason From Unnecessary To Great
Carl Landry during his first stint with the Kings. (Justin Smith / Wikimedia Commons)
The Sacramento Kings have finally freed themselves from the grasp of the Maloof brothers (reads: Jim Buss prototype one) and are now under the ownership of Vivek Ranadive. With a new look from from the top down to the coaching staff, the organization is giving fans a reason to hope and the Kings seem to be moving away from total NBA incompetency. The new front office, headed by new general manager Pete D’Alessandro, did not necessarily make waves this offseason, but managed not to make any bone-headed moves the organization used to be capable of. Let’s take a look on exactly how each of Sacramento’s summer moves fared, judging them as anywhere in between unnecessary and great:
Unnecessary: Acquiring Carl Landry and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute
Both Luc Richard and Landry are perfectly serviceable NBA vets and they both came at a very reasonable prices — Landry at $27 million over the next four seasons and Mbah a Moute for two second-round picks. I’m just not sure why either move was necessary for Sacramento. The team has not acknowledged whether or not they plan on being competitive this season, but all signs point to voluntarily suffering this season for a top pick in the stacked 2014 draft. Landry and Mbah a Moute are niche pieces that teams pick up to gain an extra edge in competing for a championship or playoff spot. They do not do much for a team like the Kings except take up that precious cap space bottom feeders should be saving for a time in the future when they want to be competitive.
And even if Sacramento is trying to push for a playoff spot this season, I do not know if Landry and Luc are the answers. Landry is great offensive threat off the bench, but his limits on defense make him a negative when he does not have a great defender by his side in the frontcourt. Last season when he and David Lee were the Warriors 4-5 combo they relented 47.1 points in the paint and 15.3 second-chance points per 100 possessions (which would have been good for fourth-worst and worst by a mile, respectively). The DeMarcus Cousins–Jason Thompson duo was as bad protecting the paint (48.5 and 12.5), so it is hard seeing any big man combo with Landry being good enough to be effective on the defensive side of the basketball.
Also Landry is joining a jam-packed big man rotation of guys all deserving of floor time. Landry, Thompson and Chuck Hayes are all on fairly new contracts making more than $5 million per year. Cousins is the obvious star of the group and Patrick Patterson is the only big who can spread the floor via the 3 ball. It’s just hard to justify spending close to $7 million a year on Landry when you already have $19 million invested in big men.
Luc’s problem will not be on the defensive end — he is very good there — but instead will come at the hand of is jump shot. Spacing is becoming more and more important in the NBA and Mbah a Moute does not bring any to the table. Check out Mbah a Moute’s shot chart from last season:
Shot chart for Mbah a Moute’s 2012-13 season
He is more or less inept as an offensive threat, but the problem I want to highlight is his inability to stretch the floor with the 3 ball. Mbah a Moute was below average from the corners and only took five 3s about the break — granted he did hit two out of five.
I touched on this John Wall a Max-Level Player? ‘I Feel Like I Am’” href=”http://hoopshabit.com/washington-wizards-john-wall-a-max-level-player-i-feel-like-i-am/”>last week: It is difficult to get adequate floor spacing with three players who cannot spread the defense with their jump shot. Sacramento has enough adequate shooters that they might be able to hide Mbah a Moute in most lineups, but their lack of depth at small forward leads me to believe that Luc will have to spend a large chunk of time on the court with Thompson and Cousins. It will take a lot of creativity — from both the coaches and the players — to generate floor space with Mbah a Moute-Thompson-Cousins frontcourts, and I’m not sure if that trio and Sacramento’s coaching staff (more on them later) can pull it off.
Look, these are not horrible moves by any stretch of the imagination. For all of the defense and size issues, Landry is above-average as a scoring threat at the power forward position and like I mentioned earlier, Mbah a Moute can be hidden in the right lineups — especially if Cousins can become consistently effective working at the elbow area. You just have to question how necessary it was to commit just more than $11 million to Landry and Mbah a Moute when the Kings still do not look ready to compete for a playoff spot.
Okay: The Draft
I raised my red flags with Ben McLemore extensively in last week’s article and yesterday’s hangout, but all in all I feel the Kings did well enough in the 2013 NBA Draft. Despite all my caution surrounding McLemore, I still believe it can all come together for him as an NBA player. With the right adjustments to his jump shot and proper development under Mike Malone on the defensive end, he can be a very good shooting guard in the NBA. Ray McCallum’s lack of 3-point range will keep him behind Greivis Vasquez and Isaiah Thomas in the rotation for the time being, but McCallum seems to have a future as an NBA backup. Getting that type of value that late in an below-average draft is definitely an accomplishment. It was not the most outstanding draft night for the Kings, but they did well for themselves in a draft that was not offering a whole lot.
Good: Goodbye, Tyreke, Hello, Greivis
Photo Credit: Mark Allison, Flickr.com
Not only did Sacramento balk at the chance to overpay Tyreke Evans, a player who may never recreate his Rookie of the Year success, they managed to pick up Greivis Vasquez instead of losing Tyreke for nothing. Look, Evans may very well figure it out and become a dynamic player in this league. But for Sacramento, $44 million was too much to risk on a player who is only above average as a scorer and is average or below average everywhere else. In Vasquez, though, Sacramento has their first pure ball distributor since they inexplicably — and inconsequentially — let Beno Udrih go. Vasquez was one of the league’s best assist men last year, finishing the top three in assists (third, 9.0) and assist percentage (second, 43.2). There is not necessarily anything specifically breathtaking about Vasquez’s game, but the fact they finally have a player who is willing and able to spread the ball around the floor is a big win for the Kings this year.
Also, Vasquez is coming dirt cheap, making only $2.15 million this year, before hitting restricted free agency next year with a $3.2 million qualifying offer. The Kings may consider letting him walk in the name of keeping cap flexibility and opening up space in a potentially deep point guard depth chart, but the fact that they have so much control over how it plays it makes the Vasquez contract even more of a bonus.
He is also 6’6″ and his size along with his adequate 3-point shooting makes him a versatile piece in an overstuffed backcourt. While his defense is not great, you could definitely see him in lineups with Thomas and McCallum when either of the guards has it going scoring the basketball. The Kings are going to struggle to find minutes for all of their guards this season, but Vasquez’s ability to match up defensively with both point guards and shooting guards will make finding a consistent rotation a little easier for Mike Malone. Overall, a great swap for Kings, both financially and on the basketball court.
Great: Mike Malone
Last year Malone was voted the best assistant coach in basketball by NBA general managers. It was no secret that Malone was a heavy contributor to the success Golden State had last season; specifically, he was able to craft a pretty good defense over the course of two seasons with the Warriors. The Warriors earned a defensive rating of 101.1 after the All-Star break last season (good for seventh in the league, per NBA.com) and for stretches last year were smothering on the defensive end — thanks largely to Mike Malone. Malone seems to be following after the Tom Thibodeau school of thought defensively: He likes to cut the court in half and force the action up the sidelines, he wants to allow difficult mid-range pullups and generally his teams do a good job of defending the 3 ball. He seems to be exactly what Sacramento needs to develop a defensive identity.
That being said, it will be a development process. It took two years for the Warriors to come into their own defensively and at times during the development period they were pretty hard to watch on that end. Their pick-and-roll defense was inconsistent, as was their paint protection when Andrew Bogut was not in the lineup or was not 100 percent. While I am confident Malone can turn McLemore into a top defender like he did with Klay Thompson, I am not fully convinced Boogie Cousins will become a defensive stopper under Malone. Also, the Warriors tried a 3-2 zone with lineups featuring Landry and another below-average defender at center. The zone was quite awful, but I am not sure how much of the zone was Malone’s doing or whether he or Mark Jackson was making the decision to use it so frequently. There is at least a chance it rears its ugly head in lineups with Landry for the Kings this year.
Malone also has to prove himself as innovative on the offensive end of the court. Golden State had a couple of creative set-ups, but mostly stuck with archaic flex sets and plays where Thompson and Stephen Curry ran around staggered screens while Jarrett Jack pounded the basketball as the shot clock dwindled away. Again, Malone seemed more focused on the defensive end, so it is hard to tell how much influence he had on the Golden State offense. He very well could be a forward thinker on the offensive end as well.
All in all, the Kings seemed to have picked a good coach here. The ceiling on the team this year does not seem that high (full preview should be up in the coming weeks), but going forward it seems like the organization is getting itself on the right track.