He came on late, but there is still no guarantee that he will be the Kings starting PG for the future and if he is that he would be an effective one. Minus the last 15 or so games that Thomas starting contributing on Evans has been the primary ball handler because he had to be. But this furthers my point that Evans would be a better player off the ball. In the last two months (when Thomas was playing starters minutes) Evans raised his shooting percentage from around 43 percent to nearly 50.
Being realistic, here is my take at GMing: 1. Let Dragic and Lee walk if Dragic commands more than the MLE or Lee commands more than 4M per year. Resign either if not. If you keep Dragic at the MLE, then trade Lowry for the best you can get. 2. Bring over Sergio Llull to be the backup point and Motiejunas to be the starting PF. Pay them with contracts similar to Scola's first one. 3. Draft Royce White and Fab Melo. High upside, low floors, boom or bust time, we need a star. 4. Trade Scola to a contending old team (Boston, San Antonio, Lakers) for their late first and an expiring. 5. Trade Parsons to Utah for a future first. Yes they would do this to get him. Their pick would be around #14 btw. Gotta keep the streak alive. 6. Resign Camby for up to the MLE for 2 yrs. 7. Order McHale to showcase Kevin Martin and play the young guys at the expense of wins and losses or get fired. If hes with the program then he stays beyond Lowry. If not Lowry wins. Roll out a lineup of PG Lowry / Llull SG Martin / Lee SF Morris / White PF Motiejunas / Patterson C Camby / Melo Martin gets 30 ppg. We lose 50 games. Martin is traded for assets at the ASB. Morris sucks or he shows flashes of why we draft him. We stay committed to ALL the young guys, at least for this year. Next offseason we have a draft pick in the 6-10 range plus Utah's #14, plus a much better idea about who we are investing in going forward. Cap empty when Martin leaves and ready to sign to the max any superstar that wants to come here. We are not that far off. No bad contracts, good young guys. All we are missing is a real commitment to young guys at the expense of W/L record.
I don't know how to get there, but this would be my semi-realistic (not sure about that math...) starting lineup for the 2012-2013 season: Dragic/1st rd pick Lee/2nd rd pick Parsons/Bud Josh Smith/DMo Gortat/Camby That's a semi realistic core you can begin to do some damage with. Maybe acquire Hardin or some other stud in a season or two. There we go.
Plan A. Offer anything we have to land Howard. let Dragic walk, and make a play for Dwill. If we get Dwight but not Deron then trade him at the deadline before he walks for whatever we can get. Then we can at least rebuild from scratch. Plan B. Trade Scola to NO for #10 and Okafor. Let Dragic walk and keep Lowry(cheaper). Take Zeller at 10, Ross at 14, and Quincy Miller at 16. Trade Martin to the Twolves for next years first( top 5 protected at most). Don't Sign Sam back. Fire Mchale and hire Sam Cassell
Trade Lowry for Sacremento or Portland pick, Get Drummond or Percy Jones. Trade for Josh Smith, Resign Dragic and Lee Get Josh to talk to Dwight about Houston then sign him the following year. Pay Hakeem to mentor Drummond
-Trade Lowry, Bud to Sac for #5 -Draft Drummond then trade him, Martin, Patterson, Dalembert, #14 for Dwight -Draft Ross/Taylor with #16 -Buy a 2nd rounder for Scott Machado -Resign Camby to back up Howard -Resign Dragic to 3yr/$22mil with team option -Resign or match Lee -Sign Vet PG to vet min -Bring over Donuts -2013 trade deadline, trade anyone except Howard and Donuts for Hardin 2012-13 Depth Chart: PG: Dragic/Vet/Machado SG: Lee/Ross or Taylor SF: Parsons/Morris/Ross or Taylor PF: Scola/Donuts/Morris C: Howard/Camby/Smith
You're off. I watched Sacramento with Evans for years and he will never be effective off the ball player. In that regard he's similar to Dragić and wouldn't be able to coexist with him. He's probably the best handler in the league and can take anyone off the dribble at any time in an iso situation. The problem is, that is his only weapon, which makes him very predictable and very easy to stop. You just pack the paint and watch him slam into the front line over and over again, while fumbling layups and last second, mid air passes. That's his only option, because he still doesn't have any kind of mid-range or long-range shot, which makes him completely useless off the ball. He became a little better passer on the kick out with time, but still a generally limited and not what you'd call an adequate distributor to be labeled a full time Pg. That's why he thrived with Beno Udrih, who managed to take some distributing duties off him and spread the opposing defense with his reliable mid-range shot, while deferring to Evans as the secondary ball handler. Evans needs the ball and he should have it, because he's immensely physically talented - 6'6, 7 foot wingspan, very fast, one of the best handlers out there, very good defender who can cover three positions - but he will need to develop that mid-range shot, if he ever wants to reach some of that potential. He's simply too predictable and easily stoppable to be effective right now. I blame that on the Sacramento coaching staff/front office/owners. They're all completely incompetent, which leads to improper development of their young talent, who will be eventually dispersed all over the league and hopefully have more success elsewhere. Oh, and you're never getting Evans + #5 for that package.
I'm not going to go into technical details of what I would do in other scenarious, so I will opinionize the very best position/option. And that would be to go young and trade the assets you already have at your disposal in order to potentially ensure an early 2013 Early Lottery Pick for a Super Star type of player. You can blame the loses to youth to begin with is the point and would be rightfully so for saying it to begin with (Get my -->) The best way to remake an organization is to build through the draft like any great organization. Then at last, the Rockets would have all the right pieces in order to compete for a chance to be in the Upper Elite Level of Playoff Team who can utilmately Wins Multiple NBA Championships!!! Talk about both a Owmer, GM, & Coach Dynasty,,,GO ROCKETS
Problem(s) is that R. White isn't a SF @ 270lbs and has anxiety disorder so bad he can't or won't fly in planes.
I would think itmight be best if Rockets Players where off meds espeacially ones that impair you to the degree that Handle. Bars. do!
That's a pretty good breakdown of Evans. So let me ask the question,if they were to get evans, would you bring brooks back? Here is how I look at combinations and players. Evans is a high end talent.His strength is with the ball, but you don't want him to totally dominate the ball. Some of his issue are similar to brooks when he played with ariza and shane starting. Ideally, brooks is half and half with and without the ball. That's why you match evans with brooks. To make this a trifecta, I get one more, but I do it with money. Here is what I do: Even as a young team, cleveland likes the vets to mix in. I would offer scola for a top 25 protected. Basically a salary dump. Cleveland might do it for stability and to help the youngsters. Now the rockets have 17m in cap room. Before I use that money, I would offer 14,lowry,and morris for evans and thompson. If they press about thompson, I would do it minus thompson. So now the rockets would have about 19m or so. Back to the 19m. With the 19m, I'm offering brook lopez 12m per,but I'm running it backwards. That means it will go down every yr. So it may be 15m the 1st yr,but it goesdown. Since nj is still in pursuit of howard, forcing them to match eliminates nj from trading lopez for howard. If they don't match, the rockets have one of the best young centers in the game. Use 5m and sign brooks. Bring over donuts and lull, draft bpa @ 16, amnesty martin.
Another thought on this. Get the NBA to own the team for a year like the Hornets so we can be guaranteed the top pick next year!!!
I defer my knowledge of all things Kings, but I have had my eye on Evans for some time now. I know his three point game is missing (from accounts it seems like this is his main focus this offseason), but I don't see his mid-range game being as far off as his 3 point game. For me his size and strength is wasted playing point. I don't want him guarding oppsing points, chasing them off screens and playing up and down the court with them. This will take away from what his primary focus of scoring should be or scoring by wasting energy playing against PG's. It also takes away from what his secondary focus should be of guarding opposing teams wing players. When I look at Evans I want him to score and shut down other teams scorers. I am also willing to develop his game (shooting) to get the full potential out of him.
I agree with you about his defensive coverage - he should be guarding SGs, because he'd exhaust himself guarding the smaller, quicker guards, which would limit his offensive production. You'd need to have somebody to take the defensive pressure off him in certain matchups. The initial idea was to play him at the 1, to utilize the mismatch he creates with his strength, length and quickness, but that stopped soon, because he was always covered by the opposing teams best outside defender, preferably sg or sf, thus negating the strength and length mismatch, while rendering his quickness off the dribble useless by simply packing the paint. His mid-range shot is as far off as his long-range shooting and he was supposedly working on that in every past off-season and always failed to make any progress. After learning that his shooting teacher in his first off-season was actually his brother, I wasn't surprised. He obviously lacks maturity, otherwise he wouldn't opt-out on an actual professional in favor of his brother, who has no business teaching him how to shoot. Somebody who actually understands how crucial that is to his overall game is and how fundamentally flawed his actual shot is, would get some serious help. His in-game shot remains an awkward looking fade-away with a slingshot release. I also don't understand what the Kings are doing - I'd bring in a top level shooting coach on the coaching staff, with a sole purpose to cultivate him into a decent outside threat. It would effect his game and the flow of the whole team offense dramatically. I just don't get what are they thinking there. If you want him to be effective, you'll have to make him the primary handler. There's no way around it. He needs the ball and will never develop into a good off the ball player. His biggest strength is breaking the defense off the dribble and finishing inside or dishing it out to the open man. The definition of a scoring point guard. The problem is, as stated many times, his lack of a reliable outside shot, which makes him predictable and easy to plan for - ultimately that makes him offensively useless. A shame.
Well, next to him you'd need somebody who'd take some of the distributing pressure off of him, but would still defer to him as a ball handler and would be a very good shooter. If Brooks fits the bill, I don't know - haven't watched him much. At three you'd need somebody who can consistently hit the spot up three pointer, you'd preferably need a stretch four, with range all the way to the three point line and at center you'd need a defensive-minded paint protector who has the ability to play basic pick 'n roll. That would make a complete team. Having good shooters and a stretch four spreads the defense and prevents packing the paint, which enables Evans to penetrate at will, finishing at the rim, dishing out if the defense collapses inside or passing to the big man off the pick'n roll. You have to be thinking about that when you're building the team. A combination of Thompson and Brook inside won't do.
