Do Sacramento Kings need more offense or more defense?
or like if you’re looking at DeAnthony mton the Kings do have their mid-level exception right so like look if you have this moment where you’ve got to go to Malik Monk and you have to do I think the thing that the kings are are like I think they’ll do just about anything to keep Malik monk I agree but I I also don’t know that they want to say hey Malik we’ll make you the starting shooting guard mhm because that’s just tough defensively it’s tough right you’d rather have somebody who is more of a space holder and a defensive minded guy three and D guy like a Keon Ellis or something if you’re going to have a guy like monk right so you can kind of balance the situation but if you do give monk that starting job you still need a Malik monk Off the Bench and that’s where I look at Melton and go okay like what would it cost to get him as well MH because then you bolster your back court um you can do whatever you want with like some of the other pieces you have but I think he would look really nice next to Keon Ellis Off the Bench um I think that clearly if you’re going to do that you’d want to move on from either or and or uh Chris DTE and uh Kevin herder so you kind of probably Davon at that point too yeah maybe Davon you also have the problem that that would make your back court really small and you probably need to bring in someone bigger like just to have like bigger depth there yeah but like why not because because if monk is going to be a starter which I don’t know if he is or not you still need that fireball Off the Bench definitely and there’s a way to stagger your rotations and stuff where you have him on the court a lot but at the same time like the Kings need we learned during this this last 10 games of the season in the playoff in the play-ins that they needed a secondary playmaker and without monk when monk goes down if there’s an injury to mon or an injury to Fox you don’t have enough Playmakers nope and that’s why we talk about a guy like Brandon Ingram and it’s why I would say like on paper a guy like Brandon Ingram and his 5.9 assists per game is more appealing to me than a guy like uh like um why am I Nets Mel Bridges oh like I love Mel Bridges as a defensive mind of guy I love him as as a three and D like the elite three and D Wing in the game but I also appreciate the fact that Brandon Ingram can go get a bucket for himself at will and he can also create for others because that’s something that the king’s just lost like when monk went down it’s like dearon fox demon sabonis or bust there’s nothing else you’re going to get and it’s not a knock on Davon Mitchell it’s just that’s not his game really yeah he made some nice passes he did some things that were like unexpected but there wasn’t five or six of them those a game which is what Malik monk does yeah and so when you lose that the fact that your your uh two forwards and Harrison Barnes and kingan Murray aren’t assist guys you really get down to like this limited offense that’s really limited and and as much as the Kings offense numbers dipped a lot of it is because of that a lot of it is because you no longer had to sit there and rush out to Kevin herder on a three-point shot which if you rush out to Kevin herder on a three-point shot he can go around that attack the rim either make a play for somebody else or make a play for himself sure well that it like changes the dynamic all of these pieces change the dynamic of the roster and how successful your offense can be it’s not just like one reason why the Kings offense didn’t look the same or one reason why their defense improved it’s a multitude of reasons but sometimes there can be like pivot Points that really cost you yeah and I think that that was Kenny yesterday when he came in for the handoff which is coming up in about an hour right here on ESPN 1320 believe DLo will be in today but Kenny yesterday because we were talking about the Kings defense and how they’ve needed to improve on defense and and how Mike Brown last year said they can get worse on offense but if they improve on defense then it’s fine and Kenny’s argument and and I tend to agree with him was like no you still need offense because at the at the the Bas line of what the sport is is putting the ball on the hoop and preventing teams from putting the ball on the hoop is great but at some point you need to make a shot and the Kings don’t and and we’ve been so focused on uh three and D wings and defensive-minded guys and you know 68 and bigger these big bodied guys we we look at the Pelicans as the example right um shot creation is the cannot go by the wayside here they need and that’s why Brandon Ingram is is so appealing to me and to a to a to a a little bit lesser extent Kyle kosma MH because they will yeah you have to play the Kings have a have a have an offense that they run for sure but dude in the final three minutes of a game when it’s tied like getting into your offense is not always going to be available especially during a seven game series like at some point you just need to give the ball to a guy and say hey uh we’ve got nothing going right now you’d rather have dearon Fox and Brandon Ingram taking those shots then and and Keegan Murray and you know if Malik Monk Is around Malik monk that’s great that’s an awesome like group of guys to have at the end of games but you would so much rather that than like hey maybe work for a open three to try Isles hey let’s kick it out there’s Keon out on the wing let’s kick it out to him like yeah okay those guys can knock down a shot but do you want with your season on the line do you want Trey lyes taking that shot or do you want it to be dearn fox or Malik monk or a player like Brandon Ingram yeah that’s kind of what and I again not trying to overlook the defensive aspect of this because I think the reason the kings were really in it down the stretch and not completely falling apart is because they played so good defensively yes but at the same time that can’t be it it can’t be yeah hey they’re GNA be this awesome defensive team you see with the Timberwolves right now the Timberwolves are having a really really hard time with just Anthony Edwards as their primary shot Creator finding ways to score late in these games okay you can have the best defense of the past decade or the century or whatever people saying about the Timberwolves yeah well that’s great but when it’s crunch time can you make a shot yeah I was watching the Pacer series uh with the Celtics and I thought they brought up a really interesting point on the on the telecast that the Pacers are a concept offense right and so are the Kings like it’s a free flowing concept offense like there’s some basic rules and some basic concepts and you play Within those confines right M and then you have the Celtics which are like an isolation team like everybody just gets the ball and it’s ISO time and they they take turns there’s a whole bunch of them that do the same thing and then those ISO guys find guys for the the spray three and there’s always somebody wide open so concept offense versus what we’ve seen from some of the other teams right but within a concept offense you need a concept breaker and that’s I think what Pascal cakam is for for the Pacers on occasion yep but it’s also what Malik monk can be for the Kings and if you look at like the early 2000 Kings like Bobby Jackson was a total that was a concept offense it was brilliant the the Princeton offense was brilliant just gorgeous basketball and then you have Bobby Jackson who’s a concept breaker and he just plays outside of the concept and he does he can play Within the concept but he also plays outside of the concept yes the Kings could use another concept breaker because dearon Fox can be that but it’s also a Fox Centric offense that’s built around a concept right if you had another guy like a guy like Brandon Ingram that could create that way that could like put the concept away and like okay it’s time for me to go get a bucket that would really help this team take that next step in my opinion yeah yeah I’m I’m right there with you and again not trying to not trying to say that defense doesn’t matter because it does yeah um what Keon Ellis brought on that end of the floor and what dearen fox did defensively and what dpoy vote getter de sabonis did defensively um like that that that stuff matters and playing with that level of intensity on that end matters Keegan Murray is the is the name I left out for for what the kings were doing defensively uh his leap on that on that end of the floor last year was was tremendous as well but like all that is great but I I still think that they need more Wing depth for sure like that every problem we talked about with the Kings this year came back to like hey they need more guys who can play like the three and four they just don’t they don’t have a ton of options there they need more lengthen athleticism at every position yeah like that’s just flat out like that’s that’s the Baseline of of what the Kings need but to Kenny’s point yesterday you can’t just add guys where you’re going yeah hey we think he can make 36% of his Corner threes 38% of his Corner threes whatever like okay great you have another Trey l and a guy maybe who jumps a little higher okay yeah but if you had a guy like that who played Elite defense then I think it’s different yeah it’s helpful for sure but late in a game like I just said with Minnesota late in a game if it’s hey dearn take it and please that just doesn’t that’s not GNA work for a a four series playoff run yeah and that’s why so with all due respect to the need for length and athleticism and size and defense with yes a th% but I don’t think that the value of an additional shot Creator can get overlooked no I I totally agree with that but I would also tell you that finishing his season as a number one rated offense means absolutely nothing it means nothing yeah if it doesn’t translate to wins if it doesn’t translate to wins in the playoffs it it it doesn’t mean anything and so that’s where I I get that you need to have this offense rolling and that I expected I expected this offense to not only be the same as it was last year but then to add new wrinkles to it right I think that’s what we all expected but I also think we no one expected that offense to be that good the first year that was the first year of the offense so you thought there there could only be growth and the fact is that’s not the way it went there wasn’t there the the players some of the players regressed that that just happened but I’m not I’m not trying to make them the number one rated offense yeah I’m trying to avoid them being in the position the Timberwolves are in late in these games yes where you know God love Nas Reed is Sixth Man of the Year but that’s that’s probably not the player you want taking your your last shot yeah um you know Kyle Anderson or or whoever like having that additional shot Creator is just a big deal and that’s not again this is not even about they need a better offense rating I don’t that’s not the case at all it’s just when you’re going to make these improvements if you want to if you want to pull out an additional four or five wins I think they really would have benefited in some of these games from a Brandon Ingram type of player instead of Harrison Barnes a player who you can get the ball to and they’re going to create and they’re going to playmake and they’re going to score and they’re going to get to their spots and they’re going to rise up and there’s not a lot of guys who can defend them or Harrison Barnes who’s going to catch it and then dribble and then kick it back out to the top of the key so they can try and run their offense again yep yeah I’m with you like look you’ve gota you’ve got to have both right this this team needs to improve defensively and they need to get back to who they were offensively yeah yes I mean that that’s that’s clear but you know even like again I’ve brought this up but Kevin herder I thought was really in his post uh like his postseason conversation he said that he had worked so hard on the the things that he was supposed to do within the concepts of the offense M that he got away from who he was as a basketball player and then when other teams took that away from him he didn’t have a counter and he thought it it took him out of his game and clearly uh like sure I buy it like 100% but you you do have to have like other players that can step up in those roles and order like there’s a counter punch that the team has to have not just Kevin yeah and that’s where I think that this team became very limited very quickly on the offensive end and that’s like teams took away the big sweeping three-point shot by Kevin herder and Kevin didn’t hit it yeah and so that was the other problem and you know the other thing is Keegan Murray didn’t hit it either the first half of the season and and that really really hurt your ability to to like have this top tier offense and we can also looked at offensive rating defensive rating they’re cumulative throughout an 82 Game season yeah if you go to the first 35 games and your two best three-point Shooters aren’t hitting their three-point shots it’s really tough to recover by the end of the season sure because those things you know again it’s cumulative it’s it’s goingon to add up that there’s no way for you to recover and be that team you just need to have it’s about to me having counter punches to that you cannot be a team you’re not going to win a title as a team who regardless of who the players are if your title hopes are completely resting on well hope our guys their threes tonight you’re not going to win there just that unless they make them all right but right but realistically that’s not going to happen you need that to happen four nights out of seven four times and I’ll even say this the Indiana Pacers on almost every single one of their games they still hit all their they still hit a ton of shots yes it didn’t matter they got beat by a better defensive team it’s now shooting matters it’s can you get a stop when you need one and hey when the shot isn’t falling where does your offense go who do you go to and that’s why I think a player like Brandon Ingram is is such a big deal yep because yep you still need Keegan Murray to hit his Threes And if Kevin herder’s still around or if it’s somebody else or if it’s Keon Ellis or whoever you still need him to knock down their shots Trey L for sure but hey when the going gets tough offense not working teams 0 for nine from three need a bucket to stop a run that’s where that’s where that shot creation is viable
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