Later tonight, the Sixers will face a team so bad they're literally being run out of Sacramento. OK, well, maybe it's their owners who are doing the running, but the point is, they're terrible. That doesn't mean they don't have some talented players, simply that the talented players they have are quite flawed, don't fit together, and in some cases are downright lunatics. Still, you can't take them lightly, so let's take a closer look.
I suppose we should start with DeMarcus Cousins. We've followed his rookie season in great detail here in the comments, and now that it's almost over I feel pretty confident in saying that no rookie big in the history of the league has been allowed to inflict more damage on his team on the offensive end of the floor than DeMarcus Cousins. Tom Ziller, a Kings' blogger, among other things, wrote
a post in defense of Cousins earlier today. In it, he uses basketball-reference.com to come up with a comp that shows other "big men" who have struggled in their rookie seasons but gone on to become All Stars. The problem is that Ziller was extremely liberal in creating his comp. He called them "high-usage" players with a TS% of less than .500. Then he created the comp to show players with a usage rate of 20% or more. 20% is not a high usage rate, it's average. Cousins' usage rate is 27.9%. So here's
Ziller's comp, now here's the same comp, only this team we'll narrow it down to guys who
actually have a high usage rate (25%+), and finally, let's throw in Cousins' turnover rate
into the conversation (17.5%).
When you up the usage rate, only Zach Randolph remains from Ziller's list of future All Stars. When you add in the monumental turnover rate, they all disappear. That's not even the amazing thing about these comps, take a closer look at the last two. Prior to this season, no big man in the history of the league has ever scored this inefficiently and been allowed to play more than 674 minutes in his rookie season. Cousins has played 1,834 destructive minutes so far this season, and he isn't nearly done.
I've seen Cousins play and I get why some people hold out hope. For every 12 terrible shots he takes, he makes a dominant move. For every 30 times he loafs down the floor, once or twice he uses his size to overpower someone. But if you're talking about how he's produced this season, there's a baseball adage that comes to mind. "You have to be a pretty darned good pitcher to lose 20 games." Of course, it's dumb logic. If there's anything to take away from Cousins' rookie season it's that he's been (a) terrible and (b) the team has to shoulder some of the blame for letting him play this poorly, this frequently.
So how does this relate to tonight's game? Well, Cousins has the potential to score 30 points every time he steps on the floor, and that potential is probably pretty high if he's working against Spencer Hawes for an extended period of time. The good news is that with a focus on Cousins, you can not only limit his production, but you can turn him against his own team. Let him catch it in the post, crowd him and double him. He'll either turn it over or force a shot. When he's got an open dunk, foul him. He won't like it, he'll complain and he'll pout and he'll hit somewhere around 65% of his foul shots. The best news is that if you frustrate him and foul him, he won't stop shooting, that's not an option with him. Instead, he'll just move further and further away from the hoop, where's even less efficient. The icing on the cake, the guy is still completely out of shape. Against bigs who run the floor, he's going to be sucking wind after about a five minute run. By the second half, he'll barely cross half court by the time you're driving the lane for an uncontested dunk.
If you want a tangible thing to watch regarding Cousins, keep him off the offensive glass. He grabs a ton and it doesn't take a lot of work or concentration to put an o-board back in the hoop.
Outside of Cousins, the Kings have basically become the Marcus Thornton show. In Tyreke Evans' absence, they apparently need someone else to heave up jumpers every time he touches the ball. In their last loss, Thornton attempted 12 threes. Unfortunately, Thornton is a much more efficient scorer than Evans, so his production tonight does bare watching.
And we can't have a meeting with Sacto without mentioning the man in the middle. This will be the first time Sam Dalembert plays against the Philadelphia 76ers. If his memory spans back that far, I'm sure he's got a thing or two he'd like to show Ed Stefanski. If that manifests itself in a dozen or more 17-foot jumpers, great. It if manifests itself in 25 boards and 5 blocks, well, that can swing a game.
Good news on the matchup front. Without Casspi in the starting lineup, the Sixers will have the option of putting Iguodala on Marcus Thornton (with Meeks guarding Francisco Garcia). That's not something they could do against Casspi's height, most likely.
Prediction: PHI 110, SAC 105
The tip is at 10pm, Eastern, tonight. Game thread will be up around 8.
Here is a more interesting list:
Rookies, Min/G over 25
Usage over 25
ht 6'8 or above
http://bkref.com/tiny/OXDRa
Sorted by WS/48 Cousins ranks #19 out of 20 for high usage rookie bigs. Of course 15 of the 20 have appeared in All Star games and about half are HOF caliber players.
Note Griffin is #7 on the list.
Brian, I don't find your lists that helpful because none of the other players had more than 700 min played. So it only shows that Cousins is "unique" as a rookie.
That's because no sane coach would allow a player to play that many minutes with the way Cousins plays and more importantly behaves. Cousins would get DNP CDs consistently on the Sixers IMO.
Cousins would get 15-20 min a game based on their needs.
So Cousins must be a defensive force, cause based on the 'needs' Speights doesn't get 15-20 MPG
Cousins is worse than Hawes and Speights defensively. What exactly does he bring that the team needs? And honestly that's not even going to be important. With his attitude, he probably would've been happy even if he was allowed to watch the game from the bench. There is no way Collins would allow such behavior on the team. Absolutely zero chance of that happening. Good coaches would never allow that.
The only way that would happen is if there was a mandate from the front office, "We drafted this guy #2, you have to play him." And from what I can tell, there was no such mandate regarding Turner. I think he'd be buried on the bench, maybe even playing in the D-League right now. Cousins displays every bad trait Collins hates. He has 24 more turnovers than Jrue in 550 fewer minutes. Not a chance in hell he'd be getting 15-20 minutes/game.
Except the Sixers have better players and coaches- so Cousins would not have the same usage rate or TO% than he does for the Kings.
Iguodala and Jrue would spoonfeed him much better looks and Collins would get through to him more- even if he only partly corrected his flawed game.
Cousins is viewed around here the same way Eddie sees Turner. The negative are all their, as are the red flags. But that does not mean Cousins on this team would be identical to Cousins on the dysfunctional Royals.
And this team is also a very close-knit group who have all bought into the system, given up a piece of their game for the greater good. Cousins is pretty much the antithesis of that. Not only do I not believe for a second he would've suddenly become coachable had he been drafted by the Sixers, but I think the team as a whole would be in worse shape simply due to his petulant bullshit.
You honestly think he'd be OK w/ 15-20 minutes/night, and severely limited touches when he is in the game? That's just ridiculous, and I think you know it.
I agree he is a guy who will have issues wherever he plays. I just think his negatives are magnified by playing on a crap team with no institutional control like the Kings.
And at UK the issues were certainly there, but if you say his play hurt that team I'd strongly disagree. He had a coach that got him to buy in on cutting down jumpers and ball handling. He had a PG who got him frequent quality looks. And both would also be the case in Philly.
Give him an immense physical advantage over everyone he plays against, ask him to do nothing but score, and maybe he'd be a productive player. He'd probably dominate the d-league.
Ask him to defend or score with limited touches against legitimate defenders, and this is what you get. A guy who's constantly killing his team and looking for other people to blame it on.
I mean, the Kings have done everything on the floor they possibly can to mollify him, and he's still been a malcontent.
You don't mollify a guy like that. You put him around strong leaders (players and coaches.) The Kings- or any team where he can be the alpha dog- is bad news. Sort of like Sheed until he joined Detroit.
I forgot, nothing is ever Cousins' fault. We always have to look for an outside reason why he keeps doing the same things over and over again.
Where did you get that from what I said?
I said problem guys can't be mollified or coddled- that just brings out the worst in them. But they cause less problems when surrounded by good leaders who set the tone for the team. And they are a disaster on teams that are out of control to start with (Kings, Jailbalazers...)
There are otehr talented guys with character problems in the NBA. In the ideal setting they can help a team. But in some or most setting they are a disaster waiting to happen.
I simply say that The Sixers with Collins, Brand, Iguodala and Jrue are better equipped than the Kings. So the Kings are basically the wost case scenario for a guy like Cousins.
Again, Sheed is a good parallel (bad attitude, loves to settle on jumpers) but not a perfect example- since he always prided himself on defense.
This comment sparked sudden recollection of Sam. I don't know, just a lot, but not all, of the thoughts and sentences made me say, "he's talking about Sam". Wonder if DeMarcus will end up better than Sam when it's all said and done with both their careers?
Cousins had questions coming into Kentucky, at Kentucky, before the draft, and during the season in Sacramento.
I think it's safe to say that Cousins makes speights look highly motivated.
Cousins wouldn't be any different here than in Sacto - in fact probably worse cause he doesn't have the maturity to handle all the asinine idiot bust talk Evan Turner has had to endure.
Cousins is much more moticated than Speights. He just does not respond well to direction. two different attitude problems.
His issues are that of coachability and they aren't new in Sacramento - i think your optimism about Cousins in Philadlephia are nice and all - but Turner is coachable and has DNP-CD's. Cousins would not be averaging 15-20 MPG on this team because playoffs are more important.
Its not like Hawes and Speights don't have coachability problems.
Never said they didn't
They both suck defensively
One is better offensively (Speights)
Yet hawes gets the majority of those minutes that could go to either of them.
So what makes you think that Cousins would somehow be getting 15-20 minutes per game when Speights isn't. More upside maybe - but same exact situations, except first year in the league and Collins had turner (more mature in person and game) on a short ass leash.
I'm not saying Cousins wouldn't play - but to suggest he'd average 15-20 mpg is to ignore everything about Cousins and everything Collins has done this year
There are a lot of guys that simply don't belong in the conversation there. Too many perimeter players on the list... The list basically shows that Cousins has been given the chance to produce like all time greats but has massively underachieved.
As for Griffin it's interesting that Griffin is just ahead of Brand on that list. It's funny because that's exactly the kind of career i think Griffin will have. Huge numbers on bad teams and injuries... That doesn't mean Griffin will be a bad player (that dude Brand was and still is pretty good, but he was never a top 10 player).
Yeah was not implying that Cousins is as good as players ahead of him.
"For every 12 terrible shots he takes, he makes a dominant move."
More like... I don't know, a dominant move for every 4-5 bad shots. About the Ziller post, which admittedly isn't very thoughtful, I don't see why the guys with lower usage should be thrown out. I mean, it can't be the case that Cousins's extremely high usage level in his rookie year somehow makes him less likely to succeed. All it means is they have no one on their team. Particularly with Evans out. For a while there, they had no Evans and no Thornton. So they've force-fed him the ball a lot. If anything, I'd think that that should make his inefficiency a little less scary than if he were this inefficient with only average usage. Otherwise, you're basically comparing him to rookies, like a Shaq or Griffin or Robinson or Duncan, who actually deserved to be getting the ball this much and saying, "well see, no one who's shot the ball this much their rookie year and been this inefficient turned out to be good but Zach Randolph." The list of 6'9 rookies who have had 25% usage, period, is a very short one once you throw out all the players who didn't play real minutes. And many of the ones who did have TS% above .500 did so by shooting threes and/or making their foul shots at a guard-like rate (Durant, Van Horn, Beasley, Bird).
They should be thrown out because he's saying high usage guys, and 20% is not high usage.
He's trying to use precedents to say Cousins could be just fine. I'm saying there is no precedent for a rookie sucking this much, on this scale, in the history of the league.
I'll request it again. Can we have a special secondary game thread devoted to Cousins so the idiocy is easily skipped?
Eh. Tray will probably be watching an exciting team, like the Clippers.
I've seen Cousins play, and if you can ignore the turnovers, terrible shots, pathetic body language and sulking, he actually doesn't look that bad until you check the stats at the end of the night.
Come out, go to brand quickly, send Cousins to the bench with two fouls, tear this team to shreds. Shouldn't be close. Bench should have fun. Rest the starters and hope you can still turn out a 3-2 road trip winning the game after this one (but not looking past it)
Sacramento is awful.
No way Cousins is guarding Brand. It'll be Sammy, or at least it should be.
I bet you Hawes cause get Cousins in trouble too :)
So is it way too early to say the 2010 NBA draft was terrible?
I think everybody suspected the draft was terrible even before it happened. And yes i think it's still early. I don't like evaluating young players before they play at least 3 years in the league.
Honestly, this game shouldn't be even close. The Kings are quite possibly the worst coached team i've ever seen.
What i would like to see is professionalism from the players, playing calm and building up a lead early. The Kings don't have the mindset nor the work ethic to make a comeback IMO.
Hopefully, Young and Turner can get out of their slump. the Kings are a perfect opponent for that.
Ric Bucher
I wouldn't trade Derrick Rose for LeBron James. And since it begs the question: I wouldn't trade him for anybody.(Derrick Rose - not Lebron James)
A nice, well-written scouting report on the Sixers from a fan post at Sac Town Royalty if anyone's interested:
http://www.sactownroyalty.com/2011/3/18/2057824/76ers-scouting-report
Hey, Brian I was wondering what you thought of Chris Singleton of Florida State who is a great defensive big who is still working on his offensive game but i think he could really help the Sixers scince he is a big who can play great d and get boards. Do you think he could still be around when we are picking in the draft? Thanks
I have no idea, haven't even begun to think about the draft. How big is he, and what kind of big is he (bruiser or long and athletic?)
...not even a mention of Nocioni and Mr. Hawesome stepping it up tonight against their former team??