Told you. Coming into the season I even said, I’ve been complaining for two season about Silas benching Alpi but if Ime does it too, I’m looking at Alpi to figure out what’s wrong with him instead. Luckily for us, we weren’t the crazy ones and Ime turns out to be the head honcho of Sengun fans - even I didn’t imagine Alpi being the go to player down the stretch, figured it would be Fred.
Something to consider when you're treating the past 2 years as though the players had the same opportunity as every other rookie: You can see clearly in Kings postgame interviews that Udoka brought the guys in and taught the kids how to box out. Think about that for a second. That's something you should learn in your first training camp. We had to get to the beginning of season 3 for someone to take this seriously. Teach them how to do it as though they've never been taught and hold them accountable for not doing it. Then give it a few weeks for it to become a good habit. If Udoka had to do that last week, that means no one did it the last two years. Not Silas. Not Lucas, Harris or any of the other allegedly great development coaches we brought in the past two seasons. Stone was at the practices often and is the GM of the team, he didn't notice. The environment that our young players were in is absurd to even think about. I did not realize it was THIS bad while it was happening, a lot of times I had a morsel of faith in the organization to do just the basics. Thinking back to Silas parking Jalen and Jabari in a corner for a huge chunk of their rookie seasons while not being able to teach them defense or rebounding is crazy. That means they were learning absolutely nothing valuable. No matter how good or bad they're doing, our young guys will develop later than other rookies. The most dedicated rookie in the world would have had their growth at least somewhat stunted by the sh*t we pulled the last 2 seasons. Give Udoka some patience too, he has earned it. In 5 games we have looked like a sometimes-lost team with a plan. Players are reducing their bad habits. Effort and passing is up big time. If he needed half a season to get the Celtics rolling, then we should give him that much time as he tries to turn this mess into a playoff candidate. He had to teach them how to box out. lol I can't get over that. We're fast-tracking the learning for Jabari/Sengun/Green since we can't really give them those 2 years back, but at least give them 20-30 games to get bad habits out, improve their execution and build some chemistry. I'm more confident than ever that Sengun/Jabari/Green are on track to be at least near All Stars. I can see how it looks because of how it played out, but it's not unreasonable at all to be more patient than usual with our young guys and we will benefit from investing in their development. It's not every day your 3 best scorers are learning so much of the game on the fly as well as a new system and new teammates. The future is looking bright to me.
I am glad Silas is gone, but let's try to be fair. The only thing last year team was good even great at was rebounding. It is pretty clear that while developing new defenses schemes Udoka did not emphasize rebounding and he needed to do it more. It is not like they magically forgot how to rebound and learned it back after 2 practices. Also, replace toxic presence of woman beater with FVV and add Brooks toughness and defense to last year's team and they would look way more competent. I am happy Ime is our coach, he seems very revered among players around the league vide Draymond's comments after GSW game, and hope he will do great here, but comparing this team to Silas run one is silly cause it is a vastly different personel and locker room.
Udoka has the super power to usher change with only couple practices see Lake Charles and rebounding practice. We will gradually see what he does well and does not so well during the season.
I don't know why I keep hearing this but we were one of the worst teams in the NBA in defensive rebound % last season. We were a bad rebounding team. Maybe you're looking at rebounding totals and not taking into consideration we generating a very high amount of rebounding opportunities because we missed more shots than most. This team certainly didn't know how to box out last season. They were just relying on athleticism and they just all ran for the offensive rebound at times (leaving the fast break open). That they needed a session teaching them high school basketball fundamentals is pretty damning. A coach won't do that unless basic instruction did not work.
Whats very impressive to me is that when Ime had them work on FT's, the very next game they were noticeably better. When he had them work on rebounding, ditto. When he had them work on box outs... At this rate, they will be pretty good at everything in a short time.
What are you talking about we were no. 1 in total rebounding %: https://www.teamrankings.com/nba/stat/total-rebounding-percentage?date=2023-06-13 and in the middle of the pack when it comes to defensive rebounding %: https://www.teamrankings.com/nba/stat/defensive-rebounding-pct?date=2023-06-13 All that with 19 year old Jabari as our "power" forward. Yeah I am pretty sure that Silas did run some boxing out drills. Udoka saw those stats and focused on other areas, as he thought the rebounding was covered. Apparently they needed a refresher.
I stand corrected, but being the middle of the pack with one of the most athletic teams in the league doesn't tell me they ran boxing out drills. I'm sure they tried to teach them rebounding but they didn't really succeed at it last season, I promise Jalen Green had no idea how to box out. Jabari picked it up late season. To make it a point to cut out this bad habit is great news to me.
We did have some athletic guys sure, but not in the frontcourt. And sure athleticism helps you get offensive boards, but defensive ones are more about size, power and positioning. So considering we had a team of inexperienced toothpicks like Bari and Jalen, the rebounding rate that team had was way ahead of schedule. Still let me meet you on getting rid of bad habits, there is a lot of them and from what I heard about Ime he is one of the best when it comes to creating a culture of discipline and accountability.
We were average at defensive rebounding. Our high rebounding ranking was due to offensive rebounding. In general, defensive rebounding is about fundamental and team work. Offensive rebounding is about individual instinct and talent. We have two very good offensive rebounders in Eason and Sengun. Offensive rebounding can also be a tactical decision. Some coaches ask their players not to crash the offensive board too aggressively in order to strength transition defense. Our defense was one of the worst last season. This might not be the main reason, but could be part of it.
Totally agree with the last part of this. For whatever reason Silas wanted guys crashing the offensive boards, transition defense be damned. Last year we were dead last in the NBA in opponent fastbreak points per game and this year we are first. 17.5 ppg last year to 9.0 this season.
It's interesting to watch the opposing coach talk about us. We're the team that's physical, plays hard, bumps them off their spots, decisive cutters, moving well off the ball. Granted the Kings are bad without Fox, these are great things to hear early in the season as we forge this new identity.
