Kings/Rockets Impressions

A couple quick thoughts from the Kings vs. Rockets game:

1. Francisco Garcia is the smartest player on the Kings and easily my favorite. As Houston was setting up for a lob dunk to Tracy McGrady, Garcia leapt from his seat on the bench, waving a towel, and yelled at the players involved. At the next timeout, he explained the breakdowns in some rotations to the assistant coaches. And, to show what he meant, he later rotated quickly to take a charge on the baseline. Garcia gets it.

2. Besides the lack of rotations, the other thing that seemed to frustrate Garcia was John Salmons awful shot selection. Garcia was visibly upset on at least three occasions when Salmons, not a good shooter, pulled up for shots rather than passing to Garcia, who was hot from the field. Salmons, for a player everyone insists is a point guard, makes poor decisions, takes bad shots, passes the ball to shooters too late and carries the ball on nearly every dribble. I like his aggressiveness when attacking the basket, but he is should be an easy cover: if the ball is in his right hand, he is no threat for a pull-up jumper; the only time he shoots a pull-up jumper is off a freeze dribble with the ball in his left hand (because of his whack shooting form); when he drives baseline, especially with his left hand, he is always looking to spin back to the middle of the floor. And, he passes only as an afterhtought when he is going to the rim. There are times his aggressiveness is a huge plus; but, there are times when it kills the rest of the team (he's like Artest in that respect, or Bobby Jackson in the old days). But, he should not, ever, be confused with a PG because he is adept at driving to the basket. Kevin Martin is a better playmaker than Salmons, and Garcia is a much better lead guard.

3. Chuck Hayes might have the worst free throw shooting form in the NBA. Seriously, if you are Chuck's agent, call me. I'll work with him in the off-season. He's from Modesto, which isn't far away. I guarantee results. Seriously. If he doesn't shoot a better percentage next year, I'll refund the money. I know he is a hard worker, as that's really how he made the NBA. So, I know he can improve (unless he has some kind of broken arm; I've actually worked with players whose arms do not rotate properly. If that's the case, I apologize for the criticism and wish him luck. Short of some physical limitation, let's talk).

4. As a Kings' fan, if the Maloofs drop the hammer on Mussleman, I wonder who they think is going to come in and control two petulant stars (Artest and Bibby) who are surrounded by a bunch of hardworking kids and some past their prime posts (SAR, Miller) who can't sem to be 100% healthy. It's not an enviable job.

However, if the Kings rid themselves of Bibby and Artest, and decide to start from scratch, I'd love to see the Kings draft Mike Conley, Jr. and hire Marc Ivaroni from Phoenix. Conley, Martin and Garcia would be a joy to watch, with Salmons and Price off the bench. It's not a championship team, but they would be fun and the fans would root for these guys. The success would ultimately be determined by who Petrie could get for Bibby and Artest. But, I have to assume the Lakers could be persuaded to offer one or two of the young bigs (Turiaf, Brown, Cook or, less likely, Bynum) for Bibby and maybe the Isaiah Thomas would give up someone with value for Artest. I'm thinking a three-way trade with the Knicks and Seattle that brought Artest and Ridnour to New York, landed the Kings Rashard Lewis and Seattle Nate Robinson and Jared Jeffries could be a win-win-win.

5. Finally, I watched Cleveland play for the first time in a while. Hubie Brown and Mike Tirico talked a lot about the Cavs woes at the end of games. First, they run terrible plays, from the ones which I have seen. I was wondering why the Cavs don't have another shooter in the game at the end. They tend, it seems, to try and run pick and rolls with bigs, but LeBron James is not going to be able to do much when he is trapped by Rasheed Wallace and Tayshaun Prince. Why not have one of the small shooters set the screen, like Daniel Gibson or Damon Jones? If they switch, James has a much smaller player whom he can back down and shoot over; if they double, he can pass over the small players' heads to an open three-point shooter. It's touch to make a quick pass over the top of a taller player and the slower pass enables a quicker rotation. And, using Hughes in the pick and roll is not as effective because he is not a huge threat to knock down the three. Just a thought. Again, don't really watch many Cavs games, but it did occur to me during the game yesterday.