After the Sacramento Kings acquired Kessler Edwards from the Brooklyn Nets last season, he played limited-yet-solid minutes for the Kings. 13.9 minutes per game in 22 games off the bench, averaging 3.9 points on .435 shooting from the field and .349 shooting from 3 to go along with 1.0 assists, 2.1 rebounds, and 0.5 steals. Edwards turned 23 in August, so it wasn’t particularly surprising when Sacramento picked up his contract option this summer. But despite it being an obvious move to retain a young, productive wing for just $1.9 million, Edwards’ role with the franchise going forward still remains uncertain.
Looking at the depth chart as it currently stands, Edwards will compete for small forward minutes with Harrison Barnes, Chris Duarte, Sasha Vezenkov (in bigger lineups) and possibly Colby Jones in smaller lineups. But despite Sacramento’s depth, there’s certainly still a path towards playing time for Edwards.
Kessler’s biggest impact last season was on the defensive end of the floor and on the boards, where he showed an energy and ability to disrupt the game in a positive way. On offense Edwards wasn’t a big factor, but he also wasn’t a negative. He seemed to understand his role and willingly defer to others on the floor.
Edwards will face a crunch not because the Kings have so many small forwards, but because the Kings have a plethora of players who can slide up or down to play small forward as a way of balancing minutes. Realistically, Barnes and Duarte are the only other real small forwards on the roster. I’d even argue that Barnes is better as a power forward than small forward, but the Kings play Barnes at the three so the argument is irrelevant. With all that context, it really comes down to Chris Duarte in the way of Edwards earning a bigger role.
Duarte comes to Sacramento with question marks of his own, after an injury-derailed sophomore season in Indiana in which Duarte never found his groove. If I was a betting man, I’d still expect Duarte to earn the primary backup minutes at small forward, but there’s also a reason that the Kings got Duarte so cheap this summer. He comes with risks. If Kessler Edwards can maintain his defensive and rebounding intensity, and if he can demonstrate some improvement and consistency as an offensive contributor, there’s a path to a bigger role.
When it comes to the rotation, I have Fox, Huerter, Murray, Barnes, Sabonis, Monk, Davion, Vezenkov, Lyles as the 9 top minutes guys. One of the backup C candidates may take the 10-11 spot, so that would leave Duarte, Jones & Edwards battling for the coveted 11-12 chair of quicker/smaller wing defender that can shoot well enough to not be an offensive liability. The two guys that lose that battle will become injury go-to guys or hell, nothing else is working at the moment guys.
Agreed. Edwards and Duarte are the most likely very end of the rotation guys. They may get some minutes due to injuries or garbage time, but that is about it. Jones, Ellis, and even Slawson may be clawing to get the warmups on as well.
It was still a no brainer to pick up Edwards cheap option. The team needs players if for nothing else than to bang bodies in practice. His contract is also a nice filler for any potential trades down the road or is easily cut to make a roster spot.
OK here I go. First IMO Vezenkov will replace Barnes early on in the season. He is not a SF but a PF. Barnes does play better at PF leaving Murray to play SF where I believe is where he should be. Sasha is a better shooter both at the 3 and 2 where he hit 63% of his 2’s. He is also a better rebounder cutter and passer. Now you have Fox, Huerter, Murray, Vezenkov and Sabonis as starters. Duarte is a mistery but if he can be as good as he was his first year then he would e the backup 3. He is a 3 and D player. Lyles at the 4 and I don.t have a clue who would be the backup center. Lyles can play small ball center. That leaves Barnes or Edwards at the 4. Edwards plays really good defense and can rebound. He needs to improve on his offense which leaves Barnes at the 4 if you want offense. Can shoot the 3 but doesn’t rebound well or is average on defense. After the middle of December Barnes might be a trade chip but I really don’t know. One player that comes to mind is Anunoby or a really good backup 5 like Jacob Poelti. Poelti could give Sabonis more relief than anybody we have now. Monty is getting some defense along the way. Mitchell Duarte and Edwards can play defense. All three need to improve. Even Murray is improving on that side of the ball. Those are some of my thoughts.
Thanks Jack. You always have thoughts. And trade plans- you are still stuck on Poetl and OG. Those guys are expensive.
We have similar, but not the same views- Same starters as last year. Then mid-season Sasha wins #4 slot with Keegan moving to #3.
Lyles’s primary back up at 4 and small ball center. Duarte is a wild card (literally) and if does well, will move between back up 2 and 3. Mitchell backs up Fox and Monk backs up Hueter (in front of Duarte). Edwards will have to fight for minutes but he is a good defender and that helps him. Many good teams have 4 guys + one defender. PJ Tucker comes to mind.
Colby Jones- developmental year. Slawson- does not see the court.
Len- plays if DS goes down and if beef is required.
JaVale- He, in part, fills one of the primary off season needs- rim protection and back up to DS. I would have preferred Jaren Jackson (yes I would but that is not going to happen) or a JJJ type. I think he is going to play quite a bit. When Lyles does not take the small ball role, it will be JaVale. and JaVale is needed vs. Longer opponents. He would have helped against Looney.
There are lots of interchangeable parts and lots of depth. This protects against injury and helps in trades.
Last year to this year:
Holmes is the better player but JaVale fits the team better
TD could light it up but made mistakes. Duarte is better all-around (I hope).
Metu- playable but some mistakes. Sasha much better
Delly- love the guy but even now Jones is better. except in the locker room
all the replacements are improvements
External improvement + internal improvement= improvement.
There are some defenders now: Davion, Edwards, JaVale, Duarte
Looking forward to the season and banter with Jack.
Murraytant or anybody else. Question? Could Jonathan Iaasc play center. At 6′ 11″ and 230 lbs. he is a really good defender especially on the pick and role. Can shoot. I know he has had injury issues but seems ready to play this year. Could be a sleeper. What are your opinions? The magic don’t know what to do with him and could be a young trade target.
From a reliability perspective, Isaac makes Bagley look like AC Green.
And 4/$70m is a lot of cheddar given his track record.
Yeah – I just don’t get the longing for Isaac:
Drafted in 2017 he’s played:
2017-18: 27 games at 20 mpg. Averaged 5.4ppg at 38% with 3 rpg and 1.1 blocks.
2018-19: 75 games at 26.6 mpg. Averaged 9.4 ppg at 43% and 5.4 rpg with 1.3 blocks.
2019-2020: 34 games at 28.8 mpg. Averaged 11.9 ppg at 47% and 6.8 rpg with 2.3 blocks
2020-2021: no games played
2021-2022: no games played
2022-23: 11 games played.
That’s six seasons and 147 games played. Has a nice game, agreed, but I don’t see the wow! given durabiilty and production. He ain’t Zion. He’s more of a Harry Giles III – love the guy, we see the potential, but on the court – not a difference maker. Glimpses are there, and we all want to see that happen – but sorry, just not there.
Harry Giles III is getting the League min, Jonathan Issac is guaranteed $7.6M of his $17.4M this season and has another season of $17.4 due next season. $35M for Isaac is a lot of wishing money. I’d rather have JaVale McGee (actually, I’d rather have a year of Kelly Olynyk for $12.2, then UFA)
OK. What about Naz Reid?
Reid just re-signed with Minny. 3/$42m. The contract is not bad, but (a) he can’t be traded right now, and (b) Minny probably has zero interest in dealing him.
Like (not love) Naz Reid. He plays hard, does not seem to get hurt. Can hit a 3. A bit undersized. Not great rebounder.
He MIGHT have helped but he signed with the Wolves- they love him and he loves them. He ain’t going nowhere.
There is no more injured player in the league than Isaac. He is worth roughly a partially guaranteed vet minimum deal yet is paid more than Sasha, Lyles, and Duarte…combined. Hard pass.
Jack- you love Issacc. I don’t like his game- seems stiff. and he has to bring a wheelchair since he seems to always need it.
Hard pass on even getting him for free. He has never no t been hurt.
Every year, I hear “he is really ready this year. Honest.”
I don’t think he wants to play
Agreed – I pretty strongly believe that Vezenkov will replace Barnes and then Barnes will come off the bench as a super sub, along with Monk. Vezenkov can pass, set screens, cut off-ball and hit the 3. Seeing him and Sabonis zipping the ball all over the floor will make jaws drop. This dude is the best player in the world not in the NBA – and he is in his prime.
Don’t believe me? It’s hard not to get excited after seeing a video like this:
The EuroLeague MVP Is About To TAKEOVER The NBA – YouTube
He plays defense so, yes. Yes he can.
This is OT but I read the last thread about expectations and wanted to deep dive into some historical comps for us to see what I could find. I posted this in the other thread as well, but spent quite a lot of time on it and didn’t want it to get lost in the shuffle.
I thought about this a lot this morning (and afternoon, as you’ll see). Last year I did a spreadsheet comparing data for coaches who turned around franchises. This year, I made one about the 7 year window of teams breaking a playoff drought, and I found some interesting things.
My methodology was basically this. If a team has missed the playoffs for at least 3 straight years, what do those three previous years look like, what does the drought breaking year look like, and what can we tell about the next 3 years based on the data? I call year “D” the year that the drought ends, and years A-C are the 3 years of missing playoffs before while years E-G are the three years after breaking the drought no matter the outcome. As you might guess, there’s a lot to unpack. Here are a few tidbits that came up for me:
* There are 79 seasons that fall into this category since Bill Russel retired in 1970 (My arbitrary-ish cut off point. I thought about the merger, but opted for this becuase Bill Russel’s Celtics were dominant in a way no other player or team has been. Jordan could have been if he wasn’t suspended for gambling in 1994. I digress.
* Of those teams, this year’s Kings are almost dead center (44th/79) for what how big a jump they took in win% over the previous 3 years to get into the playoffs. We look at it and go “Wow! We went from averaging 30 wins to getting 48! That’s nuts!” In terms of drought breaking, it’s about average. Same with single year average (53/79) I think that’s a good thing for us. It means we track with teams who are making a jump.
* Only a handful of teams have ever been worse for the 3 years after making the playoffs than they were the 3 years before they made it. Even if we regressed some and averaged just 46 wins the next 3 years, we’d be pretty much dead center historically. If we jumped up, and averaged say, 51 wins a year we’d still only be in the 75th quartile for teams historically in terms of how much we grew year over year. And, again, historically, making a sustained huge jump isn’t the end-all-be-all of dynastic aspirations. Yes, The Warriors top the list with a 40% jump from years, but they also set two of the top seven regular seasons all time in that window. Teams that over the next 3 years fared worse than the 46 wins per year I project on the low end for us but continued on for a while without creating another drought include the badboy pistions, Jordan’s Bulls, The Rockets and Sonics who both saw 6 conference championship series and a ring over the next 2 decades before playoff droughts started, and the current iteration of the Nuggets. Even if we don’t go supernova right now, we’re on a path to sustained growth with a good core.
* That said, we still are to 25 all-time for team record the season a drought is broken. All but 6 of those teams would go on to reach at least one conference final before a new playoff drought started. Those teams also represent six championship rings and which is pretty rarified air. Those teams also represent 25 finals appearances during their windows of relativity.
* Based on my kinda subjective measures, our closest historical comps include the ’83 Jazz (wouldn’t miss the playoffs for two decades), the ’86 warriors, who were good but not great against juggernauts, and also includes teams like the 2007 Atlanta Hawks, the 1989 Suns, the 2011 Clippers and if you squint a little, you can see comps to both the 2005 Clippers (woof!) and the 2013 Warriors (woo!).
All of this is just based on numbers. I didn’t dig into injuries, trades, star players and so forth — but I think there’s some really solid reason to believe that we’re going places. Maybe not better than the second round or a token WCF (wouldn’t that be nice!?) — but places.
Data can be found at this link.
LOL, I was just coming in to say “hey folks, check out scottymusprime’s number’s cruncing on play-off droughts in the first 30Q”, but you beat me to it.
Read this one, people!
This is incredible. Thanks for all the hard work!
yo’ man – this is great! It’s super reading your yeoman’s work on this. An interesting perspective moving into this exciting season.
Having a meaningful season, realistic expectations for a competitive team and all, has me bursting with anticipation.
Thanks scottymusprime!
He was a negative offensively, as his floor spacing didn’t keep other teams honest. The Kings were playing 4 on 5 basically. If he can hit 3s, they’ll have to play him. His D is elite, if he can be a floor spacer, then he’s a solid rotation player rather than a situational defender.
James Gam said on Friday the organization is quietly optimistic about Kessler’s progress as a spot up 3pt shooter this offseason.
hope so. but he had a bad summer league for whatever that is worth.
this was so disappointing – he looked, at times, and briefly at that, like he was developing into a meaningful defensive additive with some decent rebounding numbers as last season wore on – and then he fell off the Earth during Summer League. Let’s hope he regains his game for regular season.
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