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Trail Blazers Preview & Prediction – Sacramento Kings, March 28

Monday, March 28, 2016

Jared Wright, Oregon Sports News

 

After battling illness all weekend, I barely have the energy to even move right now; if there weren’t a game tonight, I likely would have put this off till tomorrow. But I’ve never failed to break down a game for Oregon Sports News since the start of the 2014-15 season, and little things like dehydration and diarrhea aren’t going to stop me…right now, anyway.

With that little blurb out of the way, let’s get to tonight’s Portland Trail Blazers game. It can be heard on the radio partner of OSN, AM 620 Rip City Radio.

Stats provided by NBA.com and basketball-reference.com.

Monday, March 28: vs. the Sacramento Kings, 7:00 PM, CSNNW

The Skinny: This current Kings organization is even more of a mess than my digestive system right now, and some 7-Up and chicken noodle soup aren’t going to make the Kings feel better. The problems in Sacramento are coming from the minds and personalities of the principal characters involved.

From owner and Silicon Valley mogul Vivek Ranadive’s insistent meddling, to General Manager Vlade Divac reportedly having no clue about how to do his job, to coach George Karl being too inflexible regarding DeMarcus Cousins and not having the energy to coach effectively, to Cousins being the kind of combustible diva that allows the ugly stereotypes about rich star athletes to linger, the issues here are seen as irreconcilable by journalists around the team, and the NBA.

Cousins has had the kind of season that proves his value on the court. Averaging 27 PPG, 11.6 RPG, shooting 45% with over 20 field goal attempts per game (many from midrange or three-point range), and sporting a 23 PER and a misleading -0.1 Net Rating (his team, as usual, sucks), the young man has reached the peak of his powers. If he can get into a situation where the front office knows what it’s doing, the coaching changes (five in six years in Sacramento) finally stop, and the owner isn’t an obsessively controlling nut bag that can’t delegate, we could see Cousins eventually supplant Marc Gasol as the best center in the world.

Also consider that Cousins has reportedly been playing with painful tendonitis in his feet all season. For a big man, any foot ailment is scary; Hall-of-Famers Kevin McHale and Bill Walton, and Houston Rockets great Yao Ming, had their careers shortened by chronic foot problems. A generation ago, and in the seventies, an athlete in Cousins’ place would see a legit injury like that as an excuse to give up on a lost, pointless season and go home. That player would milk the injury for all it was worth, have the surgery or rehab to repair it, and make sure that his recovery time would stretch beyond the end of the season.

That Cousins decided to play through the pain despite the utter garbage heap the Kings are (a mess he did help create, to be honest) shows an uncommon toughness and a thin veneer of good character, just waiting for the right situation to show itself. I know Cousins has been a big baby at times, but I can’t really blame him for that. Not when the management has been as horrendous as any management braintrust in recent NBA history.

Karl has been a problem as well. My personal opinion is that George Karl the coach is overrated; 20 years ago, he was coaching in the NBA Finals as the head man of the Seattle SuperSonics against Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. Now, the 1996 Bulls have the regular-season record of 72 wins, though this season’s Golden State Warriors have a chance to break it. They had the greatest of all time at his highest level of motivation, the great Scottie Pippen at his side, with Dennis Rodman doing Dennis Rodman things and Phil Jackson casting his Zen voodoo mojo over the whole thing.

No way was Seattle going to defeat that team. But, after losing the first three games, the Sonics won Games 4 and 5 before losing in Chicago in Game 6, and Jordan looked decidedly mortal for once. The key to Seattle’s success? Gary Payton defending Jordan…which Karl didn’t think to go with as a tactic until his team was down zero-to-three against one of the greatest basketball teams of all time.

Payton was the Defensive Player of the Year then, which is an extremely difficult award for a guard to win. He also has the biggest ego you’ll ever see in anybody--any man arrogant enough to name BOTH his sons after HIMSELF (Gary Payton Jr. and Gary Payton II) is too much in love with himself or has an ego with no bounds.

Payton is also perhaps the finest defensive point guard to ever live; if I were putting together an all-time All-Defense Team, Payton and Jordan would be my guards without a second thought. He may have been smaller than Jordan, but he had quick hands, a strong wiry body, and absolutely no fear.

And George Karl didn’t think to have this man guard the greatest obstacle to his team winning the NBA title until it was all but lost. Incredible stupidity that immediately disqualifies him from any great coach discussion. Whenever anyone brings up Karl, I mention that little story I wrote above.

Karl is an old man now, a cancer survivor and burnt out from the troubles Carmelo Anthony gave him in Denver. He really had no business accepting the Kings job in the first place; it seems like a young man’s job, keeping all those volatile personalities on that team balanced while also dealing with an incompetent front office. If/when the Kings fire him, I hope he’s able to settle into retirement this time. God knows the man earned it.

As for Cousins, I would dearly love to see a trade to Boston happen. Brad Stevens is a bright young coach, and the Celtics are a young overachieving group that could use someone with Cousins’ ability and toughness. Plus, Cousins’ former teammate, Isaiah Thomas, was an All-Star for the Celtics this year, and if I remember correctly, Thomas was one of the few teammates Cousins got along with.

As for the Sacramento Kings franchise, about to move into a new arena with a team that hasn’t made the playoffs since the Chris Webber days, this Cousins/Karl issue is just the latest in a long list of rebuilding efforts gone sour. I thought after the Maloofs sold the team, Sacramento would at last have a solid direction and the financial backing to pursue that direction.

Now, with Ranadive constantly changing things instead of letting the natural chemistry of a basketball team happen (think about what the Blazers have done with Terry Stotts and Neil Olshey, letting both men do their jobs. Ranadive has done the total opposite of this), I wonder if the new owner could be even worse than the old ones. Much like the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, the new arena in Sac-Town is going to seem like a very large, very shiny mausoleum in short order.

Player To Watch: Ed Davis. He’s been an absolute joy to watch play this season, and he needs more recognition for it.

Prediction: Blazers win as the Kings continue their tailspin.

Last time out, I picked seven games over two weeks. I went 6-1, Portland went 3-4. My lead over them is pretty large, with eight games to go. No ties this year!

Trail Blazers’ Record: 38-36

Jared’s Picks Record: 45-29

 

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