Can you *really* build around De'Aaron Fox and Tyrese Haliburton?
And the folly of locking into attainable paradigms.
Good morning. Let’s basketball.
The Fisherman, George Bellows, 1917
The Kings fooled me again.
Not into re-entering true fandom — I bounced about six or seven years ago and haven’t come back, though I still watch them more than other mediocre, infuriating teams. My fandom is cured and I expect it will remain so for eternity.
But the Kings did fool me in this sense: I thought the De’Aaron Fox-Tyrese Haliburton backcourt would work. Like, really work.
A year later, the Kings are 18-30. Haliburton and Fox are playing together a lot and haven’t missed many games. The West is full of soft opponents. And yet, it’s not really working.
Apparently, the Kings still believe it will. Last week, The Athletic reported that despite all the rumors about Domantas Sabonis and Ben Simmons, the Kings are focused on building around the pair of guards and moving other pieces as necessary. ($)
It certainly still could work: Haliburton turns 22 next month, and Fox just turned 24. Fox is on an enormous contract, but Haliburton has two more cheap seasons after this one and the Kings otherwise don’t have major long-term salary cap issues. Guards take time, sometimes lots of time. Fox has had extended stretches where he’s looked like an All-Star caliber point guard; Haliburton has exceptional feel for the game, which you can’t teach, and is already a great shooter, which is another premium skill in the NBA. There’s a lot to like here.
The Kings are 18-30. In a Western Conference where the door to the No. 10 seed has been not just unlocked but ajar all season, a doorway the Kings are desperate to enter and where the other competitors are floundering in malaises of their own making, Sacramento is now three games back. Three games back of a No. 10 seed that has bounced between the Pelicans (no Zion Williamson all season, looking like the 2012 Bobcats any time Brandon Ingram misses a game), the Spurs (Dejounte Murray and Jakob Poeltl aside, not a good NBA team) and the Blazers (who are talking about TANKING and are three games up on the Kings).
If a team led by Fox and Haliburton isn’t good enough even at this stage of development to win the No. 10 seed this year, is it ever going to be good enough to bring the Kings where they want to go? That’s my issue here. If you’re committing to a Fox-Haliburton core, what exactly is the long-term upside?
Fox and Haliburton have played 853 minutes together this season, and the Kings are -92 in those minutes. That’s a -5 per 48 minutes. Fox has played 1,468 minutes without Haliburton, and the Kings are -157 in those minutes. That’s -5 per 48 minutes. Haliburton has played 1,501 minutes without Fox and the Kings are -138 in those minutes. That’s -4.4 per 48 minutes.
(This one is going to hurt.)
The Kings have played 203 minutes with neither guard on the floor. The Kings are +11 in those minutes. That’s +2.6 per 48 minutes.
That’s the data — the messy, inexact raw data. This season the Kings are bad with Fox and Haliburton together. They are bad with Fox and Haliburton separate. They are, in limited minutes, OK with neither on the floor. The data is messy, raw and surely noisey. But it’s there.
Also, the Kings are 18-30. That’s data too, isn’t it? And it’s one piece of data that counts the most.
Monte McNair, the Kings’ GM, surely has models that spit out much more sophisticated measures of the success, failure and potential of this duo and myriad other combinations of players on the roster and not. But he can’t spit out data that says that the Kings are anything other than 18-30. He can’t spit out data that legitimately claims the Kings have a superstar on their roster — or even an All-Star.
Some Kings fans defend McNair for still dealing with the foibles of his predecessor, Vlade Divac. Much of the roster Divac left McNair remains. McNair had inherited Luke Walton, fired earlier this season. Haliburton is the brightest spot on the team, and McNair picked him. Davion Mitchell, another McNair pick, looks promising, too.
The other side of that coin is that McNair chose to retain Walton last offseason when he could have replaced him then with a coach that fit the vision of the team, assuming Vivek Ranadive would sign off on the expense. McNair could have made moves last trade deadline, or at the draft, or during the offseason, or at any point up to now, where the Kings sit at 18-30.
If Fox and Haliburton are going to work as the core of a good team, it does not appear it will happen with this supporting cast of players.
What sort of players would work with Fox and Haliburton? Fox is an aggro rim attacker who gets to the line at a good pace but can’t shoot from deep. He’s like a young Russell Westbrook with the volume turned down to 7 (as opposed to Westbrook’s constant 11) and without the leaping ability and strength. Haliburton is far, far less aggressive — often to his detriment — but can shoot and is proving to be a fairly good playmaker. Let’s call him new Malcolm Brogdon.
Neither defends well at the point of attack. Fox is a bit of a ball hawk and Haliburton has good instincts overall, but you need a three who can defend high-scoring guards if you are building around these two … or Haliburton needs to step up the on-ball defense. Mitchell is a nice-to-have for this purpose but starting all three would force Fox and Haliburton to guard much bigger players on many nights, and they struggle enough against players their own size.
Given those issues, you also need a rim protector. With Fox’s shooting issues, you need stretch at basically all other positions, or an elite roll person to work with him in the pick and roll. With Haliburton’s lack of rim attack, you need one more player in addition to Fox who can get to the line.
So in theory: a Jarrett Allen (roll man) or Myles Turner (stretch, kind of) type at center, a stretch four like Bojan Bogdanovic or Danilo Gallinari, a high-end versatile defender who can shoot at small forward like Mikal Bridges … and then some decent players for the bench.
How the hell are the Kings going get all that talent without trading Fox or Haliburton? They aren’t! Not without acing the draft this summer, striking gold on prospects in trades involving Harrison Barnes, Richaun Holmes, Mitchell, Buddy Hield and future picks. J.A. is an All-Star. Turner is a fine defender and shoots threes, but doesn’t really make them. There aren’t many stretch fours out there who aren’t defensive liabilities. Mikal Bridges was an incredible coup for Phoenix; the Kings haven’t had a small forward who could defend like that since Ron Artest, and he couldn’t shoot. This is to say you can’t just conjure up a Mikal Bridges.
This is what makes the star trades floated around so alluring. Trade one of the guards for Ben Simmons, and you have a new set of problems, but you also shake up the paradigm and see something completely new. Trade one of the guard for Domantas Sabonis, and you still have some defensive problems and you still don’t have a clear-cut superstar, but at least it’s a different look, a different set of issues to discover and solutions to explore.
This version of the sad-sack, below-mediocre Kings is stale. The diamond duo of the future isn’t working with the current supporting core or each other. All the fandom wants is for the team to be average and make the play-in.
Building around Fox and Haliburton is attainable because the Kings are already there. They can sell hope on a 22-year-old and a 24-year-old; they can play into fans’ desires to see only the bright side. But the clouded reality that this team, built around these two, is terrible — that’s threatening to swamp even that rosy, optmistic vision. If you truly believe in Fox and Haliburton as a core, you’d better move the pieces around them to at least preserve hope. Once all faith in the project is lost, the franchise is back to starting over. Again.
Scores
Knicks 93, Cavaliers 95 — Let’s call this a defensive struggle. The Knicks rallied from down 15 in the fourth quarter to tie it up with 2:28 left in the game and 100% of the momentum. The teams combined to shoot 1/8 the rest of the way. Here was the make. It was pretty good.
Bulls 111, Thunder 110 — OKC was down 28 in the third and got within one with 15 seconds left. But the Bulls hit enough free throws to hold on. Zach LaVine was back for the first time in a couple weeks.
This block by Jeremiah Robinson-Earl is incredible.
Jazz 109, Suns 115 — Surprisingly close given who all the Jazz were missing (Gobert, Mitchell, Conley, Ingles, Bogdanovic and O’Neale). Still counts as a W. Phoenix has won seven straight. Now on pace for 66 wins. Seventeen teams have won 66 or more games in NBA history. Only four of them failed to make the NBA Finals.
Schedule
A nine-game Tuesday with some TNT action. All times Eastern.
Pelicans at Sixers, 7
Nuggets at Pistons, 7
Hornets at Raptors, 7*
Clippers at Wizards, 7
Kings at Celtics, 7:30
Lakers at Nets, 7:30, TNT** — Looks like Anthony Davis will play
Spurs at Rockets, 8
Mavericks at Warriors, 10, TNT**
Timberwolves at Blazers, 10
Links
The Athletic reports that if there isn’t a great offer before the deadline, the Sixers will hang onto Ben Simmons until the summer for potential use in an acquisition of James Harden, who will be a free agent. ($)
Kevin O’Connor on the potential of a Russell Westbrook-John Wall trade and other league observations.
Keith Smith with a look at 10 players who could be making headlines as the trade deadline approaches.
Someone put a mask on the John Stockton statue in front of the Jazz’s arena.
How far away are we from a Nets game being broadcast in Fortnite?
Be excellent to each other.
Didn’t we just see this similar scenario with Portland? And I guess still seeing it until a big move is made. And that produced mixed results / limited success, and Portland’s two guards are superior to Fox and Halliburton.
Feels like Fox-Haliburton might have the ceiling of Wall-Beal, and take every bit as long to realize those heights. Not ideal.