Who They Could've Had: Sacramento Kings

[iamgine]

I don't really get what you're trying to argue. Are you saying Sacramento isn't to blame for being consistently horrible? If you continue to miss in the draft year in and year out then you start to have a common denominator effect.

You list so many players they missed on. Drafting most of those players won't really make much difference. As an analogy, it's better to miss all the drafting and have a chance to draft someone they can build around next season than get a core of "good players" and be mediocre for a long time.

[Kurosawa0]

You list so many players they missed on. Drafting most of those players won't really make much difference. As an analogy, it's better to miss all the drafting and have a chance to draft someone they can build around next season than get a core of "good players" and be mediocre for a long time.

See, it's not about any one pick though. It's about missing almost all the time. Of course getting a Kevin Durant or a LeBron James is the ideal, but you can't control that. You can somewhat control making decent draft choices. Besides just being fun to look back at, I don't think it's wrong to say that a team like Charlotte or Sacramento missing on draft picks every year stems from incompetence.

To me it's no surprise that teams like Indiana, San Antonio, Houston etc, that draft well even with marginal players, seem to do better when they get talent. If Chandler Parsons goes to Charlotte we don't even know who he is. If Kwahi Leonard goes to Sacramento he might not be any different than Kidd-Gilchrist.

There's no way looking back at that draft history that you can't see a better situation for the Kings than they currently have. Even if they only had say George Hill, Klay Thompson and Andre Drummond, they wouldn't be good. Agreed. Yet that's a much better foundation for something. If they got an Andrew Wiggins or Julius Randle on top of that then everyone would be excited about the Kings. If Andrew Wiggins goes to the Kings for real this next year everyone will be thinking "Damn, that sucks for him."

[iamgine]

See, it's not about any one pick though. It's about missing almost all the time. Of course getting a Kevin Durant or a LeBron James is the ideal, but you can't control that. You can somewhat control making decent draft choices. Besides just being fun to look back at, I don't think it's wrong to say that a team like Charlotte or Sacramento missing on draft picks every year stems from incompetence.

To me it's no surprise that teams like Indiana, San Antonio, Houston etc, that draft well even with marginal players, seem to do better when they get talent. If Chandler Parsons goes to Charlotte we don't even know who he is. If Kwahi Leonard goes to Sacramento he might not be any different than Kidd-Gilchrist.

There's no way looking back at that draft history that you can't see a better situation for the Kings than they currently have. Even if they only had say George Hill, Klay Thompson and Andre Drummond, they wouldn't be good. Agreed. Yet that's a much better foundation for something. If they got an Andrew Wiggins or Julius Randle on top of that then everyone would be excited about the Kings. If Andrew Wiggins goes to the Kings for real this next year everyone will be thinking "Damn, that sucks for him."

Houston traded for their franchise players. SAS without Tim Duncan is not pretty at all.

Decent foundation is not the first step. The better foundation moves you down the draft and makes it way harder to draft that one player. The first step is getting that one player to build around. Then you can talk about getting other building blocks. Thus it's better to suck hard and get Wiggins than consistently drafting good players.

[Kurosawa0]

Houston traded for their franchise players. SAS without Tim Duncan is not pretty at all.

Decent foundation is not the first step. The better foundation moves you down the draft and makes it way harder to draft that one player. The first step is getting that one player to build around. Then you can talk about getting other building blocks. Thus it's better to suck hard and get Wiggins than consistently drafting good players.

The thing is that getting a star player is so random. I just don't understand what you're arguing. Are you saying you prefer incompetent drafting unless its an obvious star?

[DukeDelonte13]

1. scouting department

2. player development

3. luck



To me its all about those three factors in order of importance. Some teams spends gobs of money on their scouting, others do not.

[Brokenbeat]

I always find it interesting to look back at the draft choices for the perennial bad teams and the players they missed on. The Kings last made the playoffs in 2006, so I thought it made sense to start there.

2006:

1st round took Quincy Douby with the 19th pick. Missed on Rajon Rondo and Kyle Lowry

2007:

1st round took Spencer Hawes with the 10th pick. Was eventually traded to Philly in a package for Samuel Dalembert.

2008:

1st round took Jason Thompson with the 12th pick. Missed on Roy Hibbert, JaVale McGee, Serge Ibaka and George Hill.

2nd round took Sean Singletary with the 42nd pick. Missed on Goran Dragić.

2009:

1st round took Tyreke Evans with the 4th pick. Missed on Ricky Rubio and Stephen Curry.

2nd round took Jeff Pendergraph with the 31st pick. Missed on DeJuan Blair, Marcus Thornton, Chase Budinger and Danny Green.

2010:

1st round took DeMarcus Cousins with the 5th pick. Greg Monroe and Paul George were also on the board.

2nd round took Hassan Whiteside with the 33rd pick. Missed on Landry Fields and Lance Stephenson.

2011:

1st round took Jimmer Fredette with the 10th pick. Missed on Klay Thompson, Kawhi Leonard, Nikola Vučević, Tobias Harris and Kenneth Faried.

2nd round took Tyler Honeycutt with the 31st pick. Missed on Chandler Parsons. They also took Isaiah Thomas with the 60th pick.

2012:

1st round took Thomas Robinson with the 5th pick. Missed on Damian Lillard, Harrison Barnes and Andre Drummond.

2nd round took Orlando Johnson.

So, out of 13 picks the Kings landed 2 (maybe three if you count Spencer Hawes) really good value players in Cousins and Thomas. Now, they wouldn't have had all of these potential stars because getting them would've changed their draft positions, but it's like when I did this for Charlotte, missing year after year after year is how these teams end up being so awful.

I actually kinda like that pick.

[bdreason]

Only obviously bad picks were Fredette and Robinson. I didn't think either of these guys were going to do anything at the NBA level.

[DukeDelonte13]

Only obviously bad picks were Fredette and Robinson. I didn't think either of these guys were going to do anything at the NBA level.

Jimmer was so hyped it wasn't funny. I didn't buy in but a lot of people really really like him.

[3peated]

most of the player sthey missed wouldn't have gotten the proper coaching and spotlight if drafted by the kings, this post would be the other way around saying they missed DMC or someone else.

[El Kabong]

Jimmer was so hyped it wasn't funny. I didn't buy in but a lot of people really really like him.

I was so glad that the Kings took him 2 picks before the Jazz since I was worried they would bow to the media and fan pressure and draft him.

[bigkingsfan]

They took Jimmer to fill up their seat, it didn't work out so well.