He turned down something like a 3 yr./60 million (maybe 4/80?) contact from the Pistons to see what he could get as a FA. I believe the market showed that he wasn’t in that high a demand and signed a 1-year deal with LA. He is with LeBron’s agent, so that helped him land with the Lakers.
Prior to that summer, KCP got a DUI the night before a game, while the Pistons still had a chance to make the playoffs. In his first season with the Lakers, he violated some aspect of his probation and had to wear an ankle monitor. You can find some pictures of him having it on during games.
He’s eventually found his footing and turned into a pretty good role player. He’s still very good defensively, and has grown into a much better 3-point shooter than he was as a Piston.
Yeah, now that you say it, I recall the ankle monitor thing. I remember the media REALLY gassed KCP up that one year they made the playoffs with him to a degree that wasn’t reasonable…and frankly, I don’t think the Pistons have been good enough where a guy like KCP makes a difference - his current role is really ideal for him (play D, shoot 3’s) and if the 2 is going to be your 5th guy, he’s pretty much the ideal for that. On a bad team, his game isn’t really additive (would probably the same thing about Bruce Brown, amusingly backing him up now).
It’s just amazing how often you find that bad teams have done this (had useful players in their system that they just didn’t regard highly and shuffled along) - not a Pistons thing alone obviously (as a Bulls fan, I have my own list there).
I think it’s a matter of timeline. You need to get the stars first. I think this is why the Pistons traded Saddiq Bey for the off-chance Wiseman is a star. Bey will likely be good bench player on a good team. But on the Pistons he’s forced into a role where he has to do things he’s not great at. On the Hawks, he’s more apt to stick to the things he does well.
Well, hey, on that note, why did the Chicago Bulls ever let go of Jimmy Butler? Butler was Bulls personified and the beacon of wisdom that is the Bulls FO bounced him out of there lol
the same reason the Wolves and Sixers dropped him - he honestly and accurately describe the shtty coach and players as shtty
My take has always been that “Jimmy Butler hates our idiot coach and soft players” is less a Jimmy problem than an idiot coach and soft player problem.
Well, it was Nebraska’s own Fred Hoiberg who he trashed in the media. Jimmy loved Thibs. Thibs has his obvious problems but Jimmy is going to generally like the hard*ss coach who’s solution to everything is “try harder”.
Bulls: Hated Hoiberg and all his teamates who weren’t Dwyane Wade or Joakim Noah (who hated Hoiberg too).
TWolves: Super angry Wiggins got extended over him, thought Towns and Wiggins were soft, went out of his way to embarrass them publicly, then went on ESPN to talk about it.
Sixers: Thought Simmons was soft, was open in the media about it.
I mean rim protection is a pretty big deal. Giving up easy twos is a good way to get run out of the building. But I think Jokic is a bit underrated there tho bc he doesn’t do the super obvious stuff. I wouldn’t say I’m more than a casual observer but I think his positioning is pretty good and he deters a lot of rim attacks just by making sure he’s already there.
Like, if Jokic was so bad, wouldn’t the Lakers just be able to spam Lebron-AD spread ball screens over and over?
I mean rim protection and rebounding are probably the two most important jobs of an NBA center defensively?
Jokic is an excellent rebounder (one of the best?) which will always help defense, he’s so big that you just can’t go at his face and beat him reliably. I think it’s fair to note that he’s vulnerable in ball screens, and if his teammate gets beaten, he’s going to have a hard time cleaning it up, like Davis does.
I think that’s the rub tho. Jokic is not a good rim protector, but he is an elite rebounder. Sometimes people throw out everything and just focus on the rim protection
Yeah, that’s valid, but I think most measure NBA people I read (I don’t know who this guy is) think Jokic on a day-in day-out basis is “fine” defensively (Zach Lowe voice: He’s fine! He’s fine. (Lowe has said that like 250 times on his pod))
I think the larger question has always been if Jokic can be a center on an NBA defense that can win a title - and again, I think most reasonable answer is “given how good he makes their offense, quite possibly?”
obviously they need to kind of get there though
Like, traditionally iirc, you need a top 5 defense to win the title, and there has been more flex on offense (especially now, when the gaps between #5 and #15 on offense are really small), and Denver probably isn’t there
I kind of only half watched last night’s game because there was just no friction in it at all, but does anyone on Denver even rotate? LeBron is old enough at this point but when he comes around that screen he’s not exactly fast anymore. You have a good long time to see what’s happening and for somebody to rotate over.