The James Ham Show – Can the Sacramento Kings Overcome Their Roster Issues?

The James Ham Show – Can the Sacramento Kings Overcome Their Roster Issues?

bring in James Ham. Hammer, what’s up, man? What’s going on, guys? Nothing, man. We just we having some fun at the expense of some bad football teams. Uh, we’ve got media days going on all across the NBA. Let’s bring in an NBA conversation real quick before we talk about the Sacramento Kings. One of the teams that has had media day is New Orleans. And obviously, there are pictures everywhere with videos. Zion, look at the shape that he’s in. All of these different things. Joe Dumars was talking, I think it was to Mark Spears uh earlier this week and Joe was talking about how we’re we want Zion to be a leader and like like he’s he’s he’s taking the initiative to be more of a leader and do all of these different things, you know, this off seasonason and that’s what we’re really looking for him to take the next step. And I was I was starting to think like is we’re like five years into this thing. Is that is that Zion? Like is Zion a leader like that? Are are you barking up the wrong tree, Joe? Yeah. You know what? Like I think there are a lot of ways you can lead, right? We always talked about this with the Fox, but I think one of the biggest things in order to be a leader, you have to be available and you have to take your job seriously. And for whatever reason, there have been too many times early in his career where I don’t think Zion did take it serious. I don’t think he he really understood sort of the assignment and and who he needed to be to be an NBA player and to be a star. Um, you know, he’s he’s at off the court stuff. He clearly is has struggled with with weight gain and, you know, just staying in in reasonable shape. I mean, there aren’t other NBA superstars in the league right now that have weight clauses in their contract and he does. So, like look, I I don’t think it’s it it you know, if you’re if you’re the Pelicans, it’s tough to abandon ship because they know as well as everybody else in the league does. The second that you trade him, he’s going to play three seasons straight of, you know, 75 games and you’re going to look like the idiot. So, I like that they’re sort of putting all their chips in with him and saying, “Hey, let’s build around him a little bit.” Um, but I also look at a guy like Kabon Looney that joined that team and think, okay, that might be a guy who can reach Zion, that can have honest discussions with Zion about what it is to be a professional, uh, what it takes to win championships, all that stuff. And, you know, maybe a little bit of this is that he just needed that. He needed somebody who is in his ear the whole time. And, you know, you would have thought that maybe CJ McCollum would have been one of those guys. Um, but uh, you know, I I also I’ll add this. Um, I think there is a like Joe Dumar’s like instantly made some crazy moves on draft night and became sort of a laughingstock to be honest with you around the league. A lot of people around the league are like, “What in the world is he doing? Why would you possibly trade an unprotected pick when you’re not good?” Mhm. And I get all that, but at the same time, it feels like the age of people catering to to Zion and allowing him to do whatever he wants to do and just kind of like putting your hands up in the air and saying, “Well, there’s nothing we can really do about this.” I think that’s over. and the the you know babying him, letting him play you know 35 40 games a year uh not letting him play on the second night of back to backs. I think all that’s over and you know now we’ll get to see are you a ball player or are you not? Are you someone who can play you know 70 plus games that can help your team win or are you guy are you a guy who’s going to once again fall into the same bad habits that got you to the place you’re at in the first place? I everything you said spot on, James. The one thing I would say when it comes to Zion or any of these young guys, you know, fourth, fifth, sixth year in the league is now nowadays they’re getting drafted younger and younger, you know, than what we traditionally think of rookies and all this other stuff. and Zion, you know, with the with the fame that that takes place because of social media and the way, you know, highlights and we know about these kids at 12, 13 years old. Maybe there’s some maturing that needs to happen when you come into the league that we didn’t necessarily see from traditional rookies, you know, when we started watching the league when they were 21, 22 years old. And it is possible sometimes where these guys by the time you get to Zion’s the part of his career you start to look at things a little different. He’s what about 24 25 years old like all right well now I can’t just go out there and have a any kind of diet or I can’t just not stretch and and play well or I can’t just say that I’m a leader. I have to actually make sure I’m available. Maybe these things start to click a little later into their NBA career because they get started so young than we’re accustomed to. So that that might be the case with with Zion where things start clicking later than we’re normal. We’re we’re used to seeing these guys see that happen for them. No, I’m with you and I think everyone’s different. I I would say that like look uh you know I I know I live through the age where high school kids got drafted um all the time you know the LeBron James the uh Kevin uh Garnett era you know where guys didn’t go to college at all and sure do you have like some growing up issues here and there okay um I I just think that you know Zion is a unique case and um I also don’t think that that franchise the way that things have gone on the last few years, the last five years, this whole entire time in the league, it hasn’t really been like a everyone’s bought in thing. You know, the Saints are what’s important there in New Orleans. Marty Gro is what’s important in New Orleans. Um, the Pelicans aren’t. And it’s also a pretty destructive city for a young guy. You know, it’s like like living in Las Vegas for a lot of Raiders players. You know, there’s a lot of temptation. there’s a lot of really really really good food. Uh, you know, that’s it’s just that’s kind of the the nature of where he went uh coming out of college. I I think that a change of scenery would help him a lot. And I still think that we’ll have to wait and see what he looks like. But even like I I saw someone in the chat mention I think it was uh Manny uh mentioned well you know he’s injury prone whether he has weight issues or not. It’s like, no. Like, yeah, he has injury issues, but a lot of them are are weight aided and if he wasn’t such a big guy, if he didn’t carry so much extra weight, you know, he’s got over 300 lb multiple times, you know, if it wasn’t for that, you know, maybe he doesn’t have foot injuries, maybe he doesn’t have like the I think he had a Liz Frank injury, uh, fracture in his foot. Like that’s something that, you know, it’s not fair because he’s just predisposed to be a bigger guy, you know, to have weight issues or whether he was playing basketball or not. But, uh, the fact that he is playing basketball and that he’s such a leaper and he does all of these things, um, you know, he has to do everything in his power to to get as lean as possible and he just hasn’t done the work um through consistently throughout his career. real and real quick to be fair to Zion just a little bit. Apparently, there was something weird going on with the organization because how many times did he come out and say, “I want to play more.” Like, I’m okay to play more. They won’t let me doing three 360 windmills and all this other stuff. The year before that though, I don’t think there was a weight issue when he was dominating that playing game and he pulled his hamstring. Like it may or may not have been, but pulled hamstrings happen to skinny people, too. So, you know, he it may be the weight, it may just Mike Evans got to cut weight, man. Yeah. Got to cut weight. It may be the weight. It may just be bad luck. Yeah. No, I I get what you’re saying. It It can be both. But he’s played 24, he’s played 61, he didn’t play at all. Then he played 29, he played 70, and he played 30. 30 games last year. You know, he’s had he’s had four seasons out of his six-year career where he’s played 30 games or less, and he’s only played 61 and 70 in the other two seasons. I mean, that’s that’s just, you know, that’s not a ball player, unfortunately. It’s a it’s a novelty act when he’s available, but the fact is that, you know, availability is one of the best abilities there are. and he’s proven that he can’t do it. And you know, I get what you’re saying whether he’s skinny or not, but he really hasn’t tested that all that that often. Like right now, he’s in great shape. He’s been in great shape a couple of times before. Um, but you know, it’s it’s tough, you know, and like I don’t envy his situation because we’re talking about like genetics. Some of it is self-discipline and all that stuff, but a lot of it is genetics. I mean, you know, like we had Caleb Swanigan, uh, here in Sacramento, and he struggled with weight his entire life at, you know, dating all the way back to being like a homeless kid at age five or six. And he got in the best shape of his life here in Sacramento. Came into camp looking great. And then you turn around and there’s an like he was heavy again. And unfortunately, you know, he he passed away a couple years ago, but you know, like just because he’s uh he’s a basketball player that just happens to be a big guy and and that’s it’s kind of, you know, again, it’s kind of unfair. It’s what makes him great is that he’s physical and he’s stronger than everybody else, but it also what puts him up for, you know, being injured all the time. But with those glimpses of greatness, those those moments where you’re like where you watch like, oh my god, that’s why Joe Demars is going to find a way try to find a way to motivate him. That’s why the the the uh Pelicans are going to find a way to rationalize why they keep sticking through this. Because the second it clicks, man, you’ve got one of the best players in the league like right there on your basketball team. Hey Totally. And it’s why there are a bunch of teams that are lining up saying, “Okay, if if New Orleans gives up, we’re not going to.” And, you know, one of those teams was the Sacramento Kings. The Kings have had plenty of discussions in the past. Whereas, like, you know, I I don’t know if they’ve called and like gone into full, you know, negotiations with the Pelicans, but they certainly have had discussions um, you know, within the walls there about, you know, if if he becomes available. And you know, again, I don’t know if that’s going to happen or not. Uh but, you know, if it doesn’t work this year for Zion, I I think it’s probably time what’s best for him and best for the organization to for him to go find somewhere else to play because it’s just kind of, you know, like you get stuck in a rut and he’s a player that needs, you know, something different. I I think we asked this question a couple couple weeks ago about I forgot what the trade was, but just would you take a chance on Zion? And in the King situation where you need a jolt of energy or you need um a little star power and you need a little luck, yeah, I’d probably take a chance on Zion. Everything that James just broke down for the last 15 minutes is 100% on point. And even with all that, I was like, I’ll take a chance because because when he does play, he’s literally unstoppable. Well, yeah, that and I I don’t think he would be a good fit alongside Domos, but outside of that issue, like look, he is super dangerous and you know, the Kings have had a great track record, especially the last five years. Joe Nolan does a great job. His staff does a great job of keeping this team on on the right path and being vigilant about uh health and fitness and you know having a full uh chef on staff at all times to make sure that these guys are staying on their dietary stuff and everything else. So yeah, I mean sometimes it is just a ch change of scenery that can make the difference in a player’s career. And then again, sometimes, you know, you get a new place and he could all of a sudden get out of control again and and just his career could peter out very quickly. So, just kind of a tough situation, but I I think everybody in the league is kind of pulling for him to get healthy because you want to see what he can do and you want to see him have success. Kings media day is on Monday. practice will begin uh on Tuesday and you know there’s a there’s been a lot of talk about players and fit and all that different stuff. Hammer, what do you think Doug’s mission is entering his first practice as the official uh head coach of the Sacramento Kings, his first ever training camp practice on Tuesday. Yeah, I mean in all honesty like I I’ve talked to him about this and it’s like number one and first and foremost it’s defense. Like he is going to not only scheme up the defensive side of the ball as best as he as he can. And again that’s not because Mike Brown didn’t scheme defensively, but Mike Brown I Mike Brown is known as a great defensive coach and couldn’t get this team over the hump defensively. Um, but I think Doug’s focus is not just on schematic stuff. It’s not just like, hey, you know, we’re gonna run this style of defense today and this style of defense next or the way that they um, you know, they show on a on a three-point shot or any of that. He wants to teach the fundamentals of defense. You know, he is a a player. When he was a player, he was an outstanding defender, like an allNBA defender. He’s the guy who had to defend Kobe Bryant. Um like I we all know how good he was defensively and I I think he is going to get into sort of the nitty-gritty of basics of defense and say look we are going to play defense and if you’re not going to play defense, you’re going to have a reduced role on this team. Now, how he’s going to enforce that, I don’t know, because like some of the players that don’t typically play defense or aren’t strong defensive players for this franchise are extremely important players. And like I don’t know what you do about Zack Lavine. I don’t know what you do about Malik Monk. I don’t know what you do about Demar De Rozan. And certainly three of them in being in your top six rotationwise, that makes it really difficult. So, you’re gonna have to work around it. And and the other thing you’re gonna have to do is, you know, it’s one thing to to coach everyone differently because there’s a way in which you can coach your team all the same and you can coach individuals differently at the same time. And Doug is going to have to walk that fine line. He’s going to have to coach up, you know, even veteran players that haven’t been known as defensive players. And then he’s going to have to have a standard that fits for everybody. So you can have individual conversations and you can work with guys and try to make them better, but at the end of the day, if you’re losing games because someone’s not playing not doing their job and not playing defensively uh on the defensive side of the ball, then there there are going to have to be tough decisions that that are made. And I’m I’m hoping that Doug has all the backing in the world to do that, and I think he does. Um, but also that he feels comfortable doing it because that’s it’s not easy. You know, it’s it’s sometimes it’s the equivalent of firing people and that’s not fun. It’s not easy to have difficult discussions with players who have, you know, gone throughout their entire career playing 32 to 35 minutes a night and say, “Hey, look, I you can’t keep up with what we want to do defensively. I can’t put you out there for those minutes. You’re going to have to earn your minutes like everybody else.” And so that’s going to be, I think, one of the toughest challenges Doug faces this season. Do you think that um to a certain degree people haven’t given Doug the opportunity to work with this roster, work with what he has on this roster and kind of use his basketball expertise and his people skills to to try and make the Kings better than people give them give him a chance to be. We look at the fit. We look at the players around him and we just say it just doesn’t work. Well, let Doug Christie see what he can do with these guys. See what he can what positions he can put them in and use his basketball knowledge and like I said, his ability to relate with people and just as a coach before this team gets dismissed the way they have been so far in the offseason. Yeah, I mean it’s a tough question because like look, Doug has been here for a long time. I mean Doug and I worked together in NBC and just so you know during that entire time Doug had like incredible relationships with multiple players. Like he would go have sitdown conversations with players all the time. Like him and De’ar Fox would have sit down conversations when when Doug was a broadcaster. You know, Doug has been around this team. He he was an assistant for two and a half years under Mike and he was an assistant under Luke Walton for a year before that. So some of these players have literally been around Doug, you know, for a couple years, you know, all the work he does with Domas and all that stuff. So, I think that yeah, it is possible to uh sit here and, you know, have Doug work one-on-one or or or even in the past work one-on-one with a player and say, “Hey, I don’t like what you’re doing with your hands in this situation. I need you, you know, to like Doug works very like on minutia, right? When he talks to players, when it’s about like how do how did you defend Kobe Bryant? Well, this is what I did.” And some players listen, some don’t. I don’t think that there was like some overwhelming thing of like Mike Brown had something against Doug Christie and was holding him back from talking to players or anything like that. I mean, heaven forbid he sent him out with the Allstars with their all-star center multiple times for an entire summer to work with him. So, I I do believe that that there was an a trust in what Doug can teach, but when you’re a head coach, you’re not as much a teacher as you’d like to be. And I think that’s what Doug is realizing right now is that the job is so much more. It’s so much more complicated. It’s so much more delegation and uh trying to figure out how to get players better without literally sitting there holding their hand and and trying to get them through a situation and make them better. Uh, and it it’s going to be a learning process for Doug because he wants to be hands-on the whole time. And that’s just not the job of an NBA head coach. You have 8 million other jobs that you’ve got to be dealing with, including the media relations staff, uh, your relationships with media. You got to deal with the officials. You got to deal with your own staff and how they’re developing. You got to deal with the G-League and what’s going on there and how you want your program run through uh at that level. So when players come up, they’re ready. You got to deal with the front office. You got to deal with commitments like, “Hey, we need you to go out and do this event.” And you know, all of these things, it is a massive undertaking. And if you’ve ever managed people, every level of management has like a a varying degree of difficulty. But when you’re running an entire store, you know, I would I would even relay it to like when I work grocery when I was super young, like a store director at a grocery store, he’s got to he’s got to be on top of the butcher block and and all the meat stuff. He’s got to be on top of the produce section, the the, you know, the general merchandise stuff, the liquor department. There’s so many different things that, like, as basketball people, we’re looking at, we’re not seeing, the training staff, the medical staff, all of those things fall under what Doug, he’s part of every single one of those pieces. And it it’s a really, really big job. So yeah, I would like to say that Doug is going to go in there and, you know, work with Zack Lavine for three months and Zack Lavine’s going to go from like a negative defender to a league average or a plus defender. That’s just really difficult to do. He doesn’t have the time. Well, and that’s the other thing, Hammer, like I I understand and um have had, you know, a brief conversation or two with with with Doug and him talking about defense and what he’s going to ask them to do and what his expectations are of them. But there’s probably also a certain point where Doug’s got to recognize like what is my what is this roster I have? What do they do well? And there’s a there’s a there’s also going to be a component of maximizing what they do the best while trying to get them to play on this other side of the ball that maybe they haven’t been the best at or haven’t focused a lot of attention on or just haven’t come up with the right scheme for them to collectively do together. Like there’s a fine line that Doug has to walk there and he has to figure out that line relatively quickly. Oh yeah. Yeah. And I think it’s the one of the most difficult things as Kenny, you’re like, “Hey, can Doug step in and do this, this, and this?” It’s like, what Doug can’t do is he can’t shoot a three-point shot. What he can’t do is he he can’t go out and trade for somebody. Like, and so there there are going to be limitations to a roster. Every roster has limitations in some one way or another. Very few rosters in the NBA are created 100% perfect. And even when they are so like the Boston Celtics a couple years ago, it’s fleeting. You know, players get older, players get injured, you know, players don’t shoot as well as they did the year before. And so, you’re in this constant battle, but I think this season in particular, and you know, this isn’t a Scott Perry issue. This isn’t It’s just the way that things worked out. this roster has fundamental flaws and you’re gonna have to figure out how to how to hide those fundamental flaws in an NBA that everyone is moving one direction and you’re going to have to be sort of an outlier because they just don’t have the the floor spacing and the shooting that most teams in the league have. you know, we talk about it all the time, like you can have an absolutely outstanding defender. Um, and you know, whether it’s like like even like a Kesakala type guy who is just a wonderful defender, Mo Harkas, spectacular defender, but if they’re not good enough to play on the court, if they can’t stay on the court, it doesn’t help you to have them on your roster sitting on the bench. And I’d say the same thing about, you know, you got your your second or third best three-point shooter on this team is Doug Mcderman. Like, this isn’t to disparrage Doug at all, but how are you going to get Doug Mcder on the floor? And if you can’t get him on the floor, like you’re really you’re down to like three legitimate shooters, and that’s just not easy to deal with. Malik Monk has to be a better shooter this year. Demonis Sabonis has to shoot more than 2.3 threes a game or whatever it was. And that’s like there is a fundamental flaw to this team. And the one thing I’ll point to is when Doug took over this team, he had a lot of the same offensive ideas that Mike Brown did. And it was just he wanted more. He wanted 40 to 50 threes a game. There’s I I don’t know how you can get to that number with this roster. And so like that’s going to be a gigantic hurdle. It’s not just that they have defensive limitations. It’s you know we I talked about this but we went through the list of you know all the the best shot blockers on this team and it’s Keegan Murray’s number one at like 69 blocks. Uh number two was Keon Ellis. Number three is Malik Monk. Number four is Demard Rosen. We the fifth best shot blocking number on this team was Demonus Sabonis and and it was at like 23 blocks last season. like this team can’t they’re not built to play small ball because they don’t have that defensive anchor on the back line and they’re so so when you mix that with the fact that they don’t have a bunch of three-point shooters and they don’t have a bunch of great defenders like there are some structural issues at this roster that you just can’t hide and it’s going to be a really really difficult job for for Doug to figure it out. Um, and and hopefully he’s able to, but you know, even go back to the great teams of the early 2000s that Doug played on, every single one of the guys in the starting five could shoot the three. And it wasn’t even the same NBA. Like, the spacing was totally different then. Now, the game is so spaced out. And if you can’t space out the floor, you’re going to be in trouble. And so, um, there are a lot of things to consider here that that make it difficult for just to say, “Hey, there’s a ton of talent on this team. they should win 50 games. It’s not as simple as that. As you know, basketball is a lot more complex and it looks like than just five guys running around, you know, passing the ball around. Kings basketball just days away. We’ll talk more with our insider from the insiders. It’s our man James Ham here with Dylan McC on Sacramento Sports Leader ESPN 1320. I would like to be pleasantly surprised, you know what I’m saying? To have them come out and all a sudden they’ve got like some top tier offense and it’s just everything’s working and moving and you know and even I I’ll say this like their their group of players if you could get that team to the playoffs actually I think the the playoff success could be there. It could actually the the team is more built for a slowed down playoff sevengame playoff series than it is, you know, for an 82 game schedule. But you got to get through the first 82 before you get to figure out if you get to play in the playoffs or not. Bookmark that, Hammer. I’m going to ask you something. I’m going to ask you something based on what you just said. All right. Rob Starks, I haven’t come up with my win total prediction yet, you know. Yeah. Ley Jonathan Kings lean into offense like when Dave Jagger was a coach, he knew they couldn’t play defense. Um, so that’s the problem. Like, how do you lean into offense when the modern NBA game is to shoot 38 to 45 threes a game and you’re going to struggle to get to 30? Like, so I get that, but like how are you going to accomplish that? Because again, this is a it’s a space and pace game now. And it’s just really really difficult to conceptualize a team that um that doesn’t have enough shooters that literally will probably have a starting lineup with two subpar shooters and one guy who doesn’t shoot enough. And then you’re you’re realistically you’re praying that somehow Keegan Murray is going to get enough shots to matter and enough shots to get in a rhythm and increase his three-point shooting because even him at 34.4%. That’s not good enough. Just straight up, that’s not good enough for this team to have successes here. You need him shooting close to 40% and you need him shooting close to eight to 10 threes a game for this to to matter, to make sense. And that’s where like again, how do you get Keegan more shots? How do you get him more three-point shots specifically? And it’s going to be on everybody because if this offense is going to work, you’ve you have to find a way to get both Lavine and Keegan going as soon as a game starts to keep the spacing. And then when Keon comes in, he’s got to come in firing. Like again, the 8.9 points per game, whatever he averaged last year, like you need him to be in double figures and you need him shooting. And Malik Monk, who is had seasons where he shot 38 to 39% in the league from at from three, he’s got to do do it this year. He’s got to be extremely good as a shooter, not just as a scorer. And that’s because the design of the team, you have to have that that ability to space the floor. I’d even like to see him play off ball a bunch with Shruder and and allow Monk to be sort of that outside scorer, but I don’t know how you’re going to do that. Yeah. The other thing about um Ley brought up the the Dave Joerger year. The other thing Dave Joerger did that year was run like crazy. They were the fastest team in the NBA for about three quarters of the season and then they ran out of gas and and dropped down to like the fifth fastest team and like how would you accomplish that when you know again this isn’t a dig on Demar but when you have a 30 he will be 36y old who is known as a back the ball down and shoot over the top of people like a high heavy usage slow the game down. You know, everyone says nobody nobody can um change the pace that that Demar de Rozan plays at. And that includes your coaching staff. Like it doesn’t matter how much you yell, it’s not going to work. So, you need to have some of those shots go to three-point shooters to space the floor so there’s actually room for Demar to actually create. and you traded the fastest point guard in the NBA. So, you can’t really do the Dave Joerger sprint. You know, you had a bunch of kids on that team and all they did was run up and down the court as fast as possible. Here we go. hammer. Went and grabbed my green juice and got back just enough time to hear James talk about how much he doesn’t like Demar Dros. James said, “I kidding, James.” So, James James did say something during the break that I told him, “Dude, just hold off.” And uh I wanted to ask him and everybody else a question when we when we got back on the air. and he he made a comment. He was like, “Man, I you know, I hope, you know, I’m pleasantly surprised. Like, I hope that I’m wrong and this is, you know, one of the most um potent offenses in the game and, you know, they’re they’re I’m just wrong about all this and offense is great.” And my question, which is something that we kind of asked earlier in the show, and me and Damian were just we’re here, we’re just looking around like, what are we missing? Why does it have to be such um polar opposites with what this team is going to be and what they’re going to do? Why does it have to be they’re going to be terrible on offense and they’re going to be no good? Or actually, you’re wrong. I think this offense can be elite and they going to win 50 games. What What is What are we missing? Where it’s like, nah, they’re going to have some good nights and they’re going to have some bad nights. It’s probably going to lead to them winning about 41 42 games. Why is nobody else seemingly looking at this team in that premise? It’s just either is a disaster and people are going to be sold off or we’re going to be dead wrong. They’re going to be this great team. Um I don’t I mean there’s there’s always potential for the middle ground. I mean I get I get what you’re saying. Um and you know a 41- win team is mediocre on offense, mediocre on defense usually. or they’re really good offensively, but they’re horrible defensively or or they’re pretty good on offense, above average, and a little below average on defense. Like, it once again, it doesn’t have to be they’re great on offense, terrible on defense. It could just be their offense is pretty good, but defense, they’re lower the pack, and that’s what keeps them from being a 50- win team. Yeah. I I mean I think what I told you too during the break was like strangely enough this team looks like a team that’s built for the playoffs, right? When the game gets sticky and slows down. Like this team has a bunch of ability to score in the half court or at least they should. Um but that’s for 82 games. That’s not going to that’s not how this team is built. And so you’re going to have to figure out if you can be physical, if you can you can find ways to be league average or better defensively, if you can find ways to be league average or better offensively. Um, I think that offensive potential is here. And I’m not saying that this is going to be the worst offensive team in the league. But there are always going to be limitations to what you can do when you don’t have the proper amount of shooting, especially in the modern NBA. And I I think we saw it last year, you know, and and Mike Brown kept fighting like we have to play defense better because that’s what wins in in the playoffs. And then, you know, the first thing that would come out of Monty McNair’s mouth is, hey, we want our offense to be back to where it was two years ago. And it’s like, okay, well, that’s nice and all, but um then go get better shooters because your shooters that you had from two years ago, they stopped shooting. They stopped hitting baskets. And that’s just not going to work. you know, so like there’s a lot of give and take that can happen here and and I certainly like this is one of those moments where again basketball starts on Monday and hope springs eternal and you hope that somehow that the Kings come out and they capture lightning in a bottle and they’re just different than what everybody expects and they find ways around their deficiencies and don’t just go, “Okay, well it is what it is. We can’t shoot. We’re going to lose a whole bunch of games.” Um, but there’s also the realistic side of it. That’s like, you know, you can have the the the best carpenter in the world uh set to build you a house, but if you get your lumber shipment and every board is twisted, there’s nothing he can do about that. Or if he goes out to his truck and someone stole all of his tools, there’s nothing he can do about that. So, what you have to be is you have to be realistic about what you’re working with here and and hope that, you know, Doug can figure out a way and has a game plan to play a different style of basketball than what like 95% of the teams in the league are playing right now. And it’s possible. Like, I’m not saying it’s impossible. And, you know, like it’s not just Doug. Doug uh is a guy who connects really, really well with people. And I also don’t understand why around the league there are people who, you know, just like, oh well, you know, Doug, like he’s not going to be a good head coach or whatever. To me, that’s just garbage. Like, if you’ve ever talked to Doug, Doug cares, number one, which is huge. Uh, he has a very clear vision, but he also just worked three and a half years as an assistant under two different coaches. like you put in the time where some of these guys just get jobs that you know like what Chanty Bilips just goes right from talking on TV to being the head coach. Uh you know with um JJ Reick I mean he barely touched the TV circuit. He was a podcaster. So, yeah, a heck of a basketball player, but um you know, like Doug has put in the time and the energy and the work to to figure out how to be a good coach and hone his craft under a really really good coach with a bunch of really good assistants and Mike Brown and they’ve also surrounded him with really really good assistants and Mike Woodson and Mike Miller like you know again Bobby Jackson’s been in the league a long time now. Like, so I just feel like maybe we’re we are selling them a little bit short. But again, I I I’m just trying to temper expectation because I can see like a couple of the fatal flaws of this team. And for that matter, I think the front office and the coaching staff can see it too. But they’ve got to play the games. You know, they’ve got to go out there. It doesn’t matter what they they think about it. They the team wasn’t built on paper. Doesn’t play on paper. They’ve got to go out and either win or lose. Ma’am, I can tell you expectations do not need to be tempered. They’re tempered. They do not need to be tempered. Expectations not high. You talk about uh paying attention like, “Oh, talk to Doug.” Like, forget, did you dumb asses watch him coach last year? Like, Doug essentially coached a basketball team that had traded their best player that had fired their head coach out of nowhere. who had they had just signed to a contract extension and then he basically did it by himself. He had coaches leaving. He had GMs leaving. He had another GM who was a dead man walking. You’ve got the constant stink of this owner in the organization hovering around him. And he still coached to a what what what had to have been an above 500 record. You don’t have to talk to Mike Brown. You don’t have to do it. Just watch what he did last year. And that alone should set you like, “All right. All right. Doug Doug knows what he’s doing in a system, in a situation that was flawed and exhaustive. Doug did a hell of a job.” Okay. There’s a starting point. Nobody ever starts there. They start in one place. And this is what whether you like it, I like it, or whether we choose to acknowledge it, it starts in the same place every time. And it’s it’s the Kings. It’s the Kings. This organization is a disaster. They made headlines. Mike Brown, the Aaron Fox, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. That’s FEX guy. Blah blah blah. New York Times. Blah blah blah. They suck. Has nothing to do with Doug. Nothing to do with Demar. Nothing to do with Zack. Nothing to do with Domas. You’re in Sacramento. You made headlines last year for the wrong reason. So you suck. That’s what this is. That’s all that this ever is. Yeah. And to that point, I mean, we went through earlier the ESPN top 100. And I think last year Domos came in at like 22. This year he comes in at like 34. And you know, you can say, okay, well, they lost more games, so maybe they’re dinging him for that. Man, Domos averaged the same points. He averaged more rebounds. He shot the three ball way better. like he was a better player this year this last year than he was the year before except for the assist numbers. The assist numbers dropped a little bit and it’s it’s part of this whole thing the narrative that you’re the Kings. And there’s also a comment here that you know again people know I love my analogies. This is about as spot-on as I’ve ever seen. Um canoe uh silver uh Silva says kings have been buying their their tools at Harbor Freight. And I don’t know if you guys understand this reference, but Harbor Freight is where you go to buy a tool that you might use one time. I don’t buy tools, James. I call scooter. I I assume that that’s the case, right? But but so here’s the deal. Like if you want tools that are going to last, if you want tools that you can actually build multiple things with, then you go down and you buy really good stuff, you spend the extra money. But Harbor Freight is somewhere where like, man, I gotta do this job and I’m never gonna do another job like that ever ever again. I, you know, it might be something like small, like, hey, I I’ve gotta put lenolium in this little bathroom and I I need a tel uh with a little squared edge and I need a roller to roll out the the uh the lenolium and that I’m I’m never going to do it again. That’s when you go to Harbor Freight and you buy a tool that’s only going to last you one day. And that’s what it’s a great reference because a lot of times that’s what the Kings have been doing. They’ve been buying the the one or twoyear fix. You know, the you know, again, not to be like an a-hole about Drew Eubanks, but like Drew Eubanks to me is is not a great basketball player. He hasn’t bringing him up. He’s never gonna play. Why do people keep bringing him up? He’s your backup center. What do you mean he’s not gonna play? He’s not playing. Okay, we’ll see. Hand charge. Hey, or I’ll tell you like this. People talking about him and Serge playing. Both of them are not playing. If you want to say one of them are playing, I’ll concede to that. Both of them are not playing. How are both of them going to get on the court? Well, I’m not saying both of them are playing. No, but who’s going to take Who’s going to play the backup center job? Keegan Max. He’s 72. He’s not playing a four. He’s a rookie. Second round pick. And we and we want and we want uh what’s his name to get 30 minutes a night. Nick, he a rookie, too. We can’t have it both ways. We can’t say, “Oh, we want Nick to play uh 30 minutes a game.” And Max can’t step on the floor at all for four minutes. Well, hey, I I hope Reo can play and I hope that he steps on the floor, but he’s going to have to prove that in training camp and coming out of camp almost guarantee that Drew Yubanks is your backup center. And let’s be honest, last season we saw exactly what happened to Isaac Jones the second Doug Christie took over. Like Isaac had actually earned some trust with Mike Brown. He never got that with Doug. And it I it’s nothing personal. It’s that Doug was sitting here, you know, scraping by trying to figure out how to survive down to assistant coaches and trading your best player and one of your leaders and having the whole thing be coaches. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s me. Yeah. No, no, it’s tough, right? But that’s kind of where you’re looking at this season coming in and like those guys are going to play. And like I I like Isaac Jones as a player. But Doug is going to have to show some faith in Isaac Jones because to me he’s either your backup four or your backup five or your backup four five right now because I would trust him more than I would that you’re, you know, again, Drew Eubanks isn’t going to do anything wrong. He’s just not going to do a bunch of things right. you know, he’s not going to be the reason you won games, but he also probably won’t be the reason you lost games. And so, you’re just hoping to get by with him until Reo is ready or someone else is ready, you know. And the biggest thing for him was that he made $7 million or $8 million less a year than than Valenunis. And that’s why Valenunis is not here and Drew Eubanks is here. They wanted to play a little faster with a second team, but realistically, this is a a financial decision. if ever there was one where you’re trying to clear up money to go do other things. I pray to God no one ever describes my career the way that James Ham just described Drew Eubanks. He’s not going to do anything right. He’s not going to do anything wrong. He’s just kind of going to be there. I I hope no one ever says, “Yo, that was DO. He never did anything right. Never did anything wrong.” Just like you just don’t want to be a negative eight every time you go out on the the box. And I I’ll put it to you like this. Maybe I’m projecting when I say Drew, you basically don’t play. I would not play him. I would not play him over Maxine Reno. I just wouldn’t. Whatever Drew is going to bring, what I believe of him as a player, whatever he’s going to bring to the table isn’t that much better than what Maxine Rain could bring to the table. So, I’ll I’ll curtail that a little bit. I wouldn’t play him. I wouldn’t play Eubanks over Maxi. That’s just what. But if you’re realistically a firstear head coach and you have someone who knows where to be in defensive rotations that knows what to do in in specific situations in the NBA because he’s been there. And he might not be again a world beater, but what he is is somebody who who understands his role and goes out and does the best as he can with with the skill set that he has. Sometimes that’s a lot safer than going, “Hey, just going to throw it out there.” Like, let’s hope let’s hope for the best. So, I think it is possible that we see Reo play. I think it’s possible we see Clifford play. But I also would add in that that there’s a high likelihood that Isaac Jones is going to play. And I don’t think that Doug is comfortable enough as you know like a realistically a first year head coach to go out there with three what amounts to rookies in your rotation because Isaac Jones just didn’t play enough last year to not really be considered a rookie. He was on a two-way. He played a lot more. We played plenty in in uh in Stockton, but like I don’t see a world in which he’s playing coming out of the shoot out of the, you know, opening night where he’s running three guys out there that are super inexperienced in the NBA. I think you’re going to start with Nick Clifford. He’ll get time and then he’s going to slowly pepper in other players like Isaac Jones and then he’ll finally get to a point where it’s like, okay, I I feel that I’ve seen enough from Reo in practice and he’s getting better. He’s getting stronger. pursuing all these things that I can go out there and play him. Now, maybe I’m wrong and maybe they come out of the, you know, o opening night like here it is. You’re like, what in the world? We’re seeing these guys play, but that’s tough. It’s tough. I mean, again, Mike Brown, we all know like it took so much for him to to put Keon Ellis out there and Keon Ellis was like nine and0 as a starter to open. Took a fan revolt to get him to play him. Yeah, but that’s typical for for, you know, if it’s not a top tier, you know, like like top five pick, top seven pick, you’re not guaranteed any playing time at all in your rookie season. And especially a guy who’s taken in the second round in Renault and and even Neat Clifford taking 27th, you know, like we can get all excited about or 24th, we can get all excited about his his summer league, but that was summer league. He looked confident. He looked like he knew what he’s doing. He looked like he was like he got it. You know, Kyle and I discussed this earlier. Like the second Tyrese Hallebertton walked out on the floor, you’re like, “Oh man, that kid gets it.” The second Jason Williams stepped on the court, it was like, “Oh my gosh, look at this kid.” But there hasn’t Oh, well, Demarcus, the second Demarcus walked on the court, it was like magic. The same with Tyreek Evans. But man, Thomas Robinson was a fifth pick in the draft. Never once did I think he got it ever. Nick Stouskis, eighth pick, nope. Ben McLemore, nope. Willie Collstein, he had some flashes. 13th pick. That dude could shoot the ball. He could block shots. He could rebound. He couldn’t do get from point A to point B to do all of those things together. It’s one thing if you stand on the court and you don’t miss your jump shot. It’s a whole another thing if you actually have to get on the court and actually move to that spot and get that jump shot. none of that connected. So, it’s tough and that’s where you have to sort of temper your expectations for rookie players, especially guys who are taking late first round and early second round. Uh, I heard you and Kyle talking about this earlier that the Kings starting lineup is not changing. What What the King starting lineup is exactly what everybody’s predicting it to be, I think. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if I’m pretty sure it’s Dennis like, hey, like they went out and signed Dennis Shruder to be a starter. So, I mean, it it’s Shruder, it’s I mean, I think it’s pretty clear it’s Shruder, it’s it’s Zack Lavine, it’s Demard Rosen, it’s Keegan Murray, it’s Demanis Sabonis. Like, check in with me. Game 20, it might be totally different. U not totally different, but you know, there might be a starter swapped out or something just because things aren’t working. Um, but outside of a last second trade here this weekend, I think there’s a good chance that that’s your starting lineup. Yeah, that’s it. You guys tried to make I I admired Kyle trying to get Keon Ellis in there somehow, but Well, I mean, I could see a way in which you’re like, “Hey, like Dear, we need your scoring punch off the bench. Uh, we’re going to move Zack to the small forward spot because we need shooting in the in the starting lineup and we’re going to move Keon into the starting lineup alongside Dennis Shruder. We just need more defense and we need more shooting. And to be honest with you, that makes a lot of sense. Like, but I I don’t know that number one, you can bench a guy making $48 million and hope that you might be able to trade him at some point. I I don’t know that that’s the case. And I also, you know, you have this, it’s all fine for us to act like they can bench Demar de Rozan or, you know, ask him politely to move to the bench and and play there. But that’s that’s a really really big ask for Doug Christie to do. I think it’s more likely one of those guys plays three minutes, comes off the court, and then comes back in. And you know, so you mix up your lineup early, but out of respect, you’re going to start the the standard lineup. And I was just say we spent the hour talking about three-point shooting. Like you’re not mentioning your clear best three-point shooter in Zack Lavine. Like it’s not even close. He can shoot it, catch and shoot. He can shoot it off the bounce better than anybody in the roster. We’re going to be the only one that’s close. Sorry. We’re going to be at Baker Family Wines this uh Sunday. You want to come join us? Uh DLO Casey and Dusty Baker. Yeah. Uh we’re going to be there drinking wine, watching football, playing games. Dusty will sign autographs. He’ll sign bottles. Man, it’s going to be a great time. We’re going to be giving stuff away. Uh again, this will be a you know, the 32 Brew Street’s fantastic place, but that’s a that’s a big spot. Uh we tend to get separated uh when we’re in 32 Bruise. That’s not going to happen at Baker Family Wines. We’re going to be hanging out all together uh with Dusty Baker uh watching these football games, these 1:00 football games going on this Sunday. West Sacramento, Baker Family Wines. You can head over to bakerfamily wines.com right now. While while you’re there, join Dusty’s Clubhouse, but please come hang out with us. Watch the 49ers game. We’ll keep an eye on the Raider game, Chiefs, Ravens, all of that good stuff this Sunday at 1:00. And make sure you put in that promo code KIFM if you’re trying to play a prize picks lineup for college football like I’m doing with Penn State and Oregon. Tap into that. Put in the promo code KIFM to get $50 off your first $5 lineup. Must be present in a certain state prize picks. It’s good to be right. Look at just just a car in the back. Look at that. How about that? Uh great stuff from our man James Ham as always. Media day is coming up on Monday. We’ll discuss it with Matt George uh when he talks with us tomorrow. And man, what a kickoff to week four. An NFC West battle on Thursday Night Football that we’ll talk about tomorrow beginning at 10:00 a.m. with James Ham and Kyle Matson on the insiders here on Sacramento Sports Leader ESPN 1320. Vamos eantes next

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