Hoops Hype published a report that Omri Casspi wants a buy out and has interest in signing with either Houston or Memphis. When he broke into the league a couple of years ago he generated a bit of buzz for his high energy play. According to John Hollinger - he excels in the open court, is an aggressive defender and a plus rebounder for a perimeter player. Also - not a good shooter and poor handles. But he is young and would come on the cheap. My questions: 1. Do we have any interest? 2. What role would he play if he joined us? Seem to have a log jam at small forward with Carlos and now Garcia. Also. Not sure if you saw but we are number 8 (Stein) and number 4 (Hollinger) in the ESPN power ranks today. Crazy.
He is awful. I live in Cleveland and have seen his game first hand. Just terrible. I wouldn't even put him at first string waterboy
Can anyone explain how he got so good here? He looked like a complete and utter scrub in both Sac Town and Cleveland and he looks like a perennial all star for us so far. Could this be the result of him playing in a healthy environment, an offense that fits his game or just a combination of both? I know it's only pre-season but if Casspi and Garcia both keep playing this well I'll be shocked if we aren't the #1 seed come the end of the regular season.
A scrub in both Sac and Cle? He was impressive in his rookie year with the Kings while he didn't get a fair shot in Cleveland and was benched. Just a horrible situation with the Cavs.
For quite a few years now Sacramento has been the team that negatively develops players. It's shocking how many players have significant drop offs shortly after being traded to Sacramento. Not sure I would use the word "toxic" to describe the environment, but let's just say that the word has been bandied about before in reference to the Kings. DMC drama, ownership drama, badly balanced rosters, and poor win records can suck the life out of players. Can't speak so much to Cleveland as I haven't followed them as much, though I do know that post Lebron they have been pretty terrible. Can't imagine being traded there was lots of fun either.
Of the what? 7 players? who have played for both us and sacramento, not one of them has looked better in sacramento, often the gap being rather large. T-Rob is probably the only one that sucked in both places.
I admit that I haven't seen him play before the Rockets, but he strikes me as a team player who does the little things and makes the right play. This doesn't fit well with certain teams. If you play with iso players or in a toxic environment, often you give the ball up and never get it back, never get screens, etc.
I remember him getting a bit of hype his rookie season, and then hes never heard of again kinda like what happened to landry fields
Maybe this system just fits Casspi's skills better or maybe he is just getting some great coaching from McHale
Everyone gets better here. From Stars to starters to scrubs, even coaches get better here. It's because of Morey. It's the same reason players like Landry and Chuck Hayes leave here and aren't the same players. It's why Mchale can look like a great coach and I guarantee when Boston or some other team bites on him he will regress back to his lousy coaching ways. And it's all because of Morey. No one gets it but he micromanages everything down to the waterboy. He feeds data to the coaches and tell them this is what these players are good. And coaches tell players that and say do that all they long but don't do this. Casspi has been given the greenlight to do the things he was doing so well in Sac when he first started. And that has boosted Casspi confidence enormously. Okay I will admit that level of confidence is more than I or anyone else (including Morey and Cxbby) could have imagined but he is playing better and with more confidence tan even his rookie year. What impresses even more is the kid is picking up his defense. Alot of that credit goes to Sampson the defensive coordinator. I see him talking to Casspi alot during timeouts and this last game against the pacers you can see him improving in rebounding and team coverage. He is better than DMO. Which leads me to say CXBBY called this and he may be right on. Casspi may be our stretch 4 to finish games if he keeps up the defensive improvement. Gotta love what casspi brings to the table a 4 that stretches the court for howard and isn't too much a liability on defense. I see no reason why he can't do what Ryan Anderson on the defensive side and he is a much better offensive player. Can Casspi start? Not sure but he looked okay against D West.
Agree completely. I was thinking Ryan Anderson as well but a bit smaller and more mobile. If he and Parsons can both develop along the lines of Bobby Jones (not as good on defense as Jones but better from deep), one of my favorite all-time players and also 6'9" with a long frame able to swing between the 3 and the 4, they will be just fine.
