Sactown Royalty

Xray/cat scan on Tyreke negative. Has a slight concussion, will be reevaluated Monday. Won't play...

2010-03-20T19:50:49Z

Xray/cat scan on Tyreke negative. Has a slight concussion, will be reevaluated Monday. Won't play tomorrow at L.A. Clippers

Jason Jones Twitter

SB Nation Survey + Chance to donate $500 to a charity of this community's choice

2010-03-20T00:48:02Z

>> Take SB Nation Survey

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By next Thursday (3/25) at 11:59pm PST the site that has the highest percentage of their community filling out the attached survey about their sports interests and consumption will win $500 to donate to a charity of their choice. We will leave it up to the discretion of the community manager(s) of the winning blog to decide how to choose the particular charity.

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Tyreke Evans Out With a Concussion and Potentially Fractured Jaw

2010-03-20T14:31:20Z

More photos » Rich Pedroncelli - AP

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If you watch the game against the Bucks, you know that Tyreke Evans left the game in crunch time with a badly lacerated gum, a concussion and a potentially fractured jaw. The Bee's Jason Jones reports Evans will not travel with the team to L.A. for Sunday's game against the Clippers, and will have the head and jaw checked out today.

Ersan Ilyasova was fighting with Carl Landry and Evans for a key rebound late when Ilyasova's elbow popped Reke in the face. It's not clear whether the elbow's impact caused the concussion, or whether it was the subsequent hard fall to the ground. It clearly wasn't a dirty play, but it looked painful as hell.

There are almost four weeks left in the regular season. The last King to suffer a fractured jaw was Shareef Abdur-Rahim, who chose to have it wired shut over surgery. He played about 10 days after the injury ... with his mouth wired shut. But the Kings were in a playoff chase at the time, in 2005-06, just before the Ron Artest-Peja Stojakovic game.

Abdur-Rahim did not suffer a concussion with that blow (a dirty Zach Randolph elbow), though. Concussions are far trickier to deal with. Ask Gerald Wallace.

Post-Game Thread: Bucks at Kings

2010-03-20T04:45:10Z

Open Game Thread II: Bucks at Kings

2010-03-20T03:15:10Z

Open Game Thread: Bucks at Kings

2010-03-20T02:00:27Z

Let's go Kings!

Preview: Bucks at Kings, StR Night II - The Peachquel

2010-03-19T19:23:33Z

More photos » LM Otero - AP

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A NOTE

To all who attend StR Night: The Peachquel, have fun and be safe. (There will be an on-court photo op after the game.) (Aykis Note - Because of the flu, Nicholson is out tonight, and thus the X-Over is cancelled. See my original post for details. So its back to StR Night with less Aykis)

SCOUTING REPORT

(HighTops is out of service, so you're stuck with me.)

Milwaukee comes in generally hot, though a bad loss to the Clippers Wednesday ended the team's win streak at six. The team's 12-2 since acquiring John Salmons at the trade deadline, with the league's No. 2 defense on the season. The Bucks are No. 8 in shooting defense, No. 3 in opponent turnover rate and No. 2 in defensive rebounding. They foul a ton (what up, Skiles!) at all positions. Opponents average seven more FTAs than Milwaukee per game, which indicates both the team's hacking tendencies and the distinct inability of any Bucks but Salmons to get to the line regularly -- Andrew Bogut and Brandon Jennings each average 3.5 FTAs per game. By comparison, Tyreke Evans averages 6.6 FTAs a game, Carl Landry's at 5.2 and even Jason Thompson, he of the 31 minutes a game, averages 3.7.

The Bucks defend best at small forward, where Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, Carlos Delfino, Charlie Bell and Salmons split time. Bell's an ace defender, if undersized, and we know Salmons (good in isolation, typically misguided off-ball). Mbah a Moute's the gem, a long and strong athlete with great instincts and unassailable energy. He disrupts the action and generally removes comfort. Thankfully, Sacramento's small forwards don't play with much comfort.

On offense for the Bucks, it's a steady diet of Bogut, Jennings and Salmons. Bogut is a skilled pivot who does most of his work inside of 10 feet -- but not necessarily at the rim. He attempts six shots a game between five and 10 feet, making just 42 percent of them. He's obviously much more efficient at the rim, shooting 66 percent on just under six shots a game.

Among guards who have played at least 35 games this season, Jennings has the second worst field goal percentage at the rim (41 percent). He's also pretty inefficient from 10-23 feet. But he shoots threes well (39 percent), far better than does our own star point guard.

You know Salmons. He switches hands on every lay-up. He cocks his head on jumpers. He does not tend his beard.

THE KEY BATTLE

Brandon Jennings vs. Tyreke Evans. I don't think I need to explain this much.

BOLD PROCLAMATION

Grant Napear will begin talking about Reke's first ever potential quadruple-double once Evans records his second steal.

DETAILS

It's a 7 PM PT start for the Kings and Bucks. Remember: ~~StR's own Aykis16 will be the special guest on the XO Communications Crossover, the in-arena pre-game talk with Scott Moak. So get there early~~ . Also, have fun. And be safe.

"Steph’s a phenomenal player. But Tyreke -- that’s a grown-ass man."

2010-03-18T18:00:25Z

"Steph’s a phenomenal player. But Tyreke -- that’s a grown-ass man."

Kobe Bryant, as quoted by SLAM's Jon Santiago

The Peach-quel - Now with more Aykis!

2010-03-18T08:29:37Z

UPDATE (12:24 PM):

The Kings have sent me the following e-mail:

My name is … and I work with Andrew Nicholson. I’m emailing you to let you know that Andrew is out sick with the flu and will be unable to do X-Over tonight. He will reach out to you next week to reschedule. I’m sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused. Please do not hesitate to contact me directly if you have questions.

It’s a bit of a bummer, but tonight will still be really fun. I'm gonna try to see if we can do it tonight without Nicholson, but if that's not the case, I'll let you guys know what happens with the re-scheduling.

For those of you attending the Peach-quel tomorrow against Brandon Jennings and the Bucks, you might want to come to the game a little bit early.

The Sacramento Kings have invited me to speak to Scott Moak on the Jumbo-Tron during the XO Communications X-Over in honor of StR Night. For those who don't know what that is, essentially before every game, Scott Moak (Kings PA) and someone discuss the upcoming game. For tomorrow, that will be me.

I have been told to be at the media entrance of ARCO by 6:30, so if you want to see me try not to make a fool of myself in front of a big audience (or more likely make a fool of myself), that'd be around the time you'd want to come.

Big thanks to Andrew Nicholson for arranging this, but especially to all of you for reading my work and to Tom for having started such an amazing site for us to talk about the Kings.

Now... I leave it up to you guys to figure out the cleverest way to get me to say Peaches a lot. The first thing I thought when I was offered this was "They're giving me a microphone? Grant Napear is not going to like this."

Tyreke Evans is More Than the Layup King: He's the Layup God

2010-03-17T16:36:32Z

We all know Tyreke can seemingly get to the rim at will. It's happened plenty of times. The opposing team tries to play him 1-on-1, and he simply blows by them to the hoop for a layup. He gets layups in crunch time with the game on the line. This is by far his biggest offensive weapon, and opposing teams have devoted their entire teams defensive game plans to stopping him from getting to the paint.

What you might not know about Tyreke however, is that he gets to the rim more than any player in the entire league. Every single one.

After the jump, the stats.

According to Hoopdata, Tyreke averages 8.3 attempts at the rim, about .7 more than the player in 2nd place, Zach Randolph. He's also 1st in the league in makes at the rim at 5.0 a game (tied with LeBron). More attempts and makes than every single big man in the league.

And what's even more unique about Tyreke is how much his scores at the rim are unassisted, unlike big men and explosive players like LeBron who throw down alley oops on a regular basis. Tyreke is only assisted on 24.7% of his makes around the rim, while LeBron is at about 48.1%. The only other player in the top 40 of Attempts at the rim with less % of his makes that are assisted is Russell Westbrook at 21.2% (Attempts 5.7 FG at the rim a game). The other guards in the top 40? Wade (7.2 attempts, 33.4% assisted), Ellis (6.7 attempts, 36.4% assisted), Stephen Jackson (6.1 attempts, 55.4% assisted), Stuckey (5.9 attempts, 29.8% assisted), Rose (5.6 attempts, 35.1% assisted), Rondo (5.4 attempts, 33.3% assisted), and Tony Parker (5.2 attempts, 27.7% assisted).

Scores at the rim are the most efficient in basketball, and the fact that Tyreke can get so many of them is in part what makes him such a special player, especially when he's doing it as a rookie, with a still iffy jump shot. When he gets that jump shot going, all it will do is lead to more attempts at the rim, since teams won't be able to pack the paint on him. This will also lead to more makes, and a higher field goal percentage. There really won't be a way to guard him unless you're an exceptional man defender like Shane Battier.

Another result of getting to the rim a lot is drawing fouls, something he'll get even better at with more experience, and eventual ref bias. He's already 18th in the league in FTAs at 6.5 a game, and you have to go all the way to 87th in the league to find the 2nd place rookie, Brandon Jennings (3.5 FTA). Getting opposing players and teams into foul trouble and getting to the line will lead to a lot of easy points.

These statistics to me are the most telling of the future, and of the current rookie of the year argument. No other rookie does something so good as to have entire opposing teams focus their entire defense on it. No other rookie demands this much respect.

No other rookie is as good.

NBA Playbook: How the Lakers Defended Tyreke Evans

2010-03-17T16:05:15Z

NBA Playbook: How the Lakers Defended Tyreke Evans

... and how the Kings countered.

Size Matters: Lakers 106, Kings 99

2010-03-17T14:08:41Z

More photos » Rich Pedroncelli - AP

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The Lakers didn't have many blocks in their win over the Kings. In fact, Spencer Hawes alone had as many blocks (five) as the entire L.A. roster. But size does more than block shots.

Size helped L.A.'s starting frontline, Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol, go 21-28 from the floor. Hawes is tall (see: five blocks), but Bynum clearly outsizes him, and it showed. Bynum owned the paint just about every second he was on the floor. Gasol is tall, too, and more like Hawes in terms of size. But Gasol uses his height so, so well, getting easy shots off over the top of his defenders, and keeping the ball away from the scrum in deep.

Size helped L.A. grab a big share of offensive rebounds (14 in 46 opportunities, 30 percent). Bynum had five of those, but Ron Artest -- one of the most muscular small forwards in the league -- had three, as did Kobe Bryant, one of the strongest guards you'll see. Those offensive rebounds were about muscles, about strength, about power. The Kings have made strides to be more tough and less defined by finesse, sure. But teams like the Lakers can still outmuscle this team.

One King highly unlikely to be outmuscled is Tyreke Evans, who managed 11 rebounds and 14 free throws. The problem Evans had, though, on offense was that because he plays below the rim, he has a bit more trouble finishing than he ought to. Really, several misses at the rim were pretty open -- but a stray defensive hand entering the picture is more effective when the shooter is looking up the basket, as Evans usually is. This is an obviously small quibble -- Evans scored more efficiently than Bryant, and had 9 assists and one turnover to Bryant's 7/3. And this is Kobe Bryant we're comparing him to, while Reke was guarded largely by Artest while Kobe drew Donte Greene and Francisco Garcia. SMALL. QUIBBLE.

The larger quibbles can only really be focused on defensive rebounding and interior defense in general. I found it noteworthy that in his halftime interview assistant coach Mario Elie noted that the guards were responsible for a lot of the interior breakdown -- their man penetrated, drawing help from the bigs and leaving the Lakers bigs open for the pass reception or the offensive rebound. That's fair -- we've noted often how poor the Kings pick-and-roll defense has been from all angles, big and guard alike. But at the same time, there were available rebounds that Hawes and Carl Landry should be able to grab. Hawes's rebound line (three, in 23 minutes) looks worse than it was due to Evans's extreme output. But again, he should have had at least a couple more. But he's not a great defensive rebounder, and them's the breaks.

***

By the way, according to Grant Napear, Tyreke is only 10 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists away from his second career triple-double.

Tyreke Leaves Ron Artest in the Dust (via kingsflix)

2010-03-17T05:48:28Z

Tyreke Leaves Ron Artest in the Dust (via kingsflix)

Post-Game Thread: Lakers at Kings

2010-03-17T04:37:00Z

Hopefully, a better result for StR Night 2. By the way, how old is Tyreke Evans? I forgot.

Open Game Thread II: Lakers at Kings

2010-03-17T03:15:09Z

Open Game Thread: Lakers at Kings

2010-03-17T02:00:24Z

BEAT L.A.!

Funny Carls Jr. Press Conference from the Kings. The end is the best.

2010-03-16T23:04:23Z

Funny Carls Jr. Press Conference from the Kings. The end is the best.

Preview: Lakers at Kings

2010-03-16T22:06:58Z

More photos » Rich Pedroncelli - AP

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THE SCOUTING REPORT

HighTops, take it away ...

The Kings had fought to keep their one-time 20-pt lead from disappearing.   So, with just 4.1 seconds to go and with a 2 pt lead the Kings seemed to have weathered the storm.

Meanwhile, somewhere across the country a little white-haired man sat in front of his television and muttered to himself. "Oy vey, this can’t be happening, this is going to kill our entire merchandise marketing strategy".   Then is a strong New Jersey accent, he called out "Stewie, get me the red phone quickly."

Three thousand miles west, a pager went off in an arena and the question as to whether or not the Kings could hold on was answered.  Sergio Rodriguez could do nothing from his position lying on the floor in front of the ref, as Bryant sunk the 3-pt answer.  And the implementation of the marketing plan went on as scheduled.

A week earlier the Kings played the Lakers in Sacramento and came away just as disappointed.   Although the Kings didn’t shoot as well -- 42 of 105 shots or 40% -- they had taken the World Champs to double overtime before being outscored 11-2. So while they had more offensive boards, more assists, more steals, and fewer turnovers, having three starters shoot 17 for 49 or 35% from the field left the door wide open for the Lakers to steal one on the road.

There will be a few changes this time around: Ron Artest had missed the last two games after suffering a concussion in an accident at home. Martin and Garcia hadn’t returned from their early season injuries, and Tyreke missed the Jan. 1st game with an ankle injury. Today, Artest is fully recovered, as are Garcia and Tyreke, and Landry has replaced Martin.   And the Kings are again playing .500 ball.

The Lakers stopped a four-game road losing streak with a Friday night victory in Phoenix, and hope to continue winning on their Northern California road trip to stay ahead of Denver who trails by 3.0 games and Dallas who’s 3.5 back in the West.

L.A.’s coaching staff will stress the inside game of Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol.   "It’s always part of the game plan to give it to Bynum and Gasol," said Ron Artest.

Bynum has been particularly solid of late. In the last 2 games, he’s shot 8-of-12 from the field for 22 and 18 points, respectively, and has been able to get to the basket for a variety of dunks and lay-ups. He’s averaging 7.5 rebounds, 1.5 blocks and zero turnovers, and there’s been a noticeable improvement on defense.   "I like what he’s done defensively," Jackson said after the win in Phoenix. "I thought he’s played pretty good defense."

Aside from getting the ball inside, Jackson offered some other keys to winning the game.   "The big thing is loose balls, turnovers, rebounds," he said. "You (want to) give teams one attempt so that you’re getting the majority of the shots and you’re limiting them by not giving them open floor opportunities."

The Kings have some big bodies to throw at L.A., such as Spencer Hawes, Jason Thompson, Sean May, Joey Dorsey and newly acquired Carl Landry, who gave the Lakers problems while playing for the Houston Rockets.

Landry played against the Lakers three times this season while with Houston.   In the Nov.4th, 103-102 overtime loss in Houston Carl scored 20pts on 9-12 shooting with 8 rebounds.   In the Nov. 15th 101 to 91 Houston victory in LA, Carl scored 15pts on 5-10 shooting with 9 rebounds.   And, in the Jan. 5th loss in LA, Carl scored 19pts on 7-11 shooting with 6 rebounds.   What should be noted is that Pau Gasol missed all 3 games with hamstring injuries.

January 1st at the Staples Center, the Kings, playing without Tyreke Evans (sprained right ankle), received a career-high 30 points from Spencer Hawes, a career-high 23 points from Omri Casspi, and a career-high 13 assists from Beno Udrih, and still lost 109-108 to the Lakers.   And, although Tyreke has been flirting with triple doubles all week, the Lakers defense is more like Portland’s than Minnesota’s when it comes to defending the basket and shot blocking.   So, I don’t anticipate any career games tonight, but a superior team defensive effort would go a long way to ending the Lakers dominance at Arco.

The Lakers are 6-4 in their last 10 games at ARCO Arena and 6-1 in their last seven.

This season, the Lakers are 10-6 on both ends of back-to-back games, so there’s little hope that the Kings will benefit from the Lakers playing Golden State the night before.   This game might come down to a contest of will and heart, Kobe Bryant’s against the youth of the Kings and that’s a match up I’m willing to take.

Speaking of Kobe, the NBA released its Most Popular Jerseys list with Kobe Bryant’s #24 once again listed as no. 1, a ranking Bryant has now held since the start of the 2008-09 season. And once again it listed the Los Angeles Lakers as no. 1 in "Most Popular NBA Team Merchandise."

Quick, somebody hide that red phone.

THE KEY BATTLE

Beno Udrih vs. Kobe Bryant. The Slovenian Tasmanian can make Kobe work -- he's done it before -- and that's the key to keeping Kobe from going completely ballistic from minute No. 1. Donte Greene, Ime Udoka and Omri Casspi will likely get the non-Reke work on Kobe on the defensive end; he can drill jumpers all day and all night ... but you can't let him drive. Make him shoot.

BOLD PROCLAMATION

They will not be chanting M-V-P for No. 24. They will be chanting M-V-P for No. 13. For the Kings. Tyreke Evans. In case you didn't follow.

DETAILS

7 PM tip. Get there early to do the cheek swab for bone marrow matching! Drown out the Lakers fans! Send off Sam Amick right!

Game threads at 7 and 8:15, a post-gamer at 9:45.

Rookie of the Year Watch

2010-03-16T20:48:31Z

Rookie of the Year Watch

Maurice Brooks with a classic response to Stephen Curry being ranked over Tyreke Evans last week.

Sam Amick leaving the Bee, going to Fanhouse

2010-03-16T16:05:13Z

Sam Amick leaving the Bee, going to Fanhouse

After 5 years as the Kings beat writer, and 10 years with the Bee, Sam Amick says goodbye.