My free agent target - Hassan Whiteside

[rjfan]

Luke Walton should be fired for improperly using Hassan Whiteside last season.

Don't know if Whiteside of all people was the one that really made Luke Walton deserving of being fired, but, you know, his mismanagement of the whole Kings roster outside of Hassan sure did.

 

[rjfan]

Way better than I would have predicted, especially on the intangibles like team culture, etc. (everyone seems to love Hassan, and Hassan is loving them back).

At this point, I’m wondering if it’s working too well. I mean, we’ve only played small when we’ve had to. Absolute minimum amount of experimentation so far.

I guess that's something we're also to see. Tbh, i don't see much of a reason for us to go small outside of matching a team that succesfully gets the best out of us by going small. Thing is, which is also why going small wasn't much of a real option for us last playoffs, going small with a bad lineup to do so is quite easy, you just need to sub in an extra smaller dude (either a guard or wing) and pray for the best. But for it be effective, it's also needed that you're able to put a good small lineup (good combination of shooting, shot creation, athleticism, defense, among other posible aspects)

Going small many teams try against us, but much fewer do in a way that actually demands from us to change our way of playing. Unfortunately with 4 rounds of playoffs it's easier to find one that actually is able to use this as an answer and you just need this one death matchup to be sent home. But problably all of the actual good ones we faced so far we played while we had Paschall playing cause Gay wasn't ready yet (and Gay been much better than Paschall not only as a 4, but also as a small ball 5)

Things could change a bit as we move on to face better teams more times as the season goes on. The Clippers may not be great this regular season, but can they make a better small ball than current Celtics, or the Barnes at the 5 from the Kings ? I guess they do. The Warriors may have had their issus at center position thus far, but they've been elite defensively going small and basically playing off Curry, and we're still to face them too. I hope when we play these teams (and other good ones at it) they use it to try get something out of us and then we try going small as an option.

 

[LifeOnaPlate]

Seems to be working out ok.

how did you know?????

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

I was wrong on Whiteside. He still does some dumb **** on offense with his shot selection, but it's was less than I thought he would. He has definitely humbled himself and accepted his role.