Sacramento Kings head coach Mike Brown spoke to media Tuesday on the first day of training camp and gave some insight into his strategy and direction in these early stages of the season.
Here are some takeaways.
Keon Ellis Temporary Starter
Brown said that with Kevin Huerter injured, Keon Ellis, at least temporarily, could start.
“Right now, Keon has a shot, but it’s mainly because Kevin is out. And as time goes on, it’ll work itself out,” Brown said. So, I’m not necessarily concerned about it. Keon is there right now, but that sure can change.”
Ellis proved his value down the stretch of last season. If Ellis and Keegan Murray handle much of the defensive assignments while De’Aaron Fox, DeMar DeRozan and Domantas Sabonis facilitate the offense in the starting unit, it could be a nice combination.
How Ellis Plays Into Fox’s Defensive Strategy
Speaking of Ellis, Brown plans to utilize him for managing the defensive assignments of De’Aaron Fox. Ellis will be tasked with high pick-and-roll situations from guards at the early stages of games, keeping Fox fresh for crucial moments later in the game:
“We put a lot of pressure on Fox, especially at the beginning of games. That’s where a guy like Keon can step in, and that’s where he’s going to have a chance to step in. You have a guy like that who, in my opinion, for as young as he is, navigates the pick-and-roll game extremely well. He’s longer than what you think, a little bit more athletic than what you think, a little quicker. To start games at times, to have the luxury of Keon out there, you could put Keon on the opposing team’s guard that’s going to have the most pick-and-rolls, the Ja Morant types in the league. And now you put Fox on another guy, and then you change the matchup as the game goes along. So having that luxury is always a positive. At the end of the day, depending on who our five guys are on the floor, Fox is probably going to have to now take that guy. And a couple of things: That guy got chased or beat up by Keon throughout part of the game, and now he’s got Fox, who should be in the right mind space to still give us what we need offensively while taking it to another level defensively, which he’s more than capable of.”
Brown elaborated that then Keegan Murray can take the bigger perimeter players. This is an indicator that Brown is looking to balance Fox’s workload, particularly on the defensive side the ball.
DeRozan’s Passing
Brown said that while most know that DeRozan is an elite scorer, he knows the type of playmaker he is and how that can make the offense more dynamic. (A third playmaker outside of Fox and Malik Monk.)
“I’m telling you guys, some of the passes he made today, I did not think they were going to get there a couple of times, but he never panicked whenever he played. He played at his pace. He went quick when he wanted to go quick. He went slow when he wanted to go slow. He kept the defense off balance. And if somebody was open, he made the right pass, whether it was a pocket pass or over the top or just a direct chest pass,” Brown said. “And so, to have the luxury of another guy that knows how to play the game, that can pass, dribble, and shoot, but more importantly, is a willing passer, that’s going to help us be a little bit more dynamic on the offensive end of floor.”
These comments give a little glimpse into how Brown is analyzing the changes he can integrate into the existing system on both sides of the ball.
Keon and Fox defensive switching gonna be stealing people’s lunch money.
This isn’t great:
I think it’s wrongheaded for him to begin camp with this mindset, and it’s disrespectful as hell to Keon Ellis, who has earned the right to be the starter. If Huerter’s money skill is making threes, well, Ellis is awfully damned good there, and defends like a madman. The team’s attitude and posture is very different when Ellis is on the floor, and he clearly inspires his teammates to work harder on defense.
Among the highest of praises for an athlete is that he or she makes things happen when they are in the game. Ellis does that.
I expect Huerter to get good minutes this season, but not as a starter. And if he comes out shooting 45% from three over the first dozen games and the offense is struggling? Maybe you make a switch. Until then, Keon Ellis is your starter at shooting guard, full stop.
For a coach that hammers home how much defense matters, to not put their best guard defender on the court more often, is weird to me.
Maybe it is some mental tactic he is trying to play with Huerter and Ellis to keep them both hungry and not becoming complacent. Idk, Brown is a hard guy to read.
To me, this reads as team politics. Huerter’s been the starter for years, and to lose your starting spot to an injury versus being directly outplayed might ruffle feathers. Yes, Keon is a superior fit while not being too much of a downgrade shooting-wise, but that was done on a relatively small sample of games. So Keon gets burn while Huerter recovers, once he’s back he starts for a game or two, establishes that yes Keon is indeed the better fit, then back to Keon starting and Kevin establishing himself on the bench. Kevin gets a fair shake at reestablishing himself as the starter, Keon gets time to prove it wasn’t a fluke, and things quickly settle into place while not stepping on too many toes.
To me, this matches the eye test. Brown has guys that he loves, he is stubborn to a fault, and he’s a decent coach, but not great.
This shows to me that the end of year improvement last year was for a significant partly because of an injury, which forced Brown to make a change, not because of his understanding of what needed to change and how to change it.
I really hope he knows how to adapt this team’s offensive and defensive identities with the arrival of DDR. If he’s going to play a switch-heavy scheme and take Keon and Keegan away from their key defensive assignments, I’m gonna pull some of my remaining hair out.
There was defensive improvement but there was offensive drop-off as well.
Four other starters with:
Huerter: 669 minutes, 119.9 OFFRTG, 113.9 DEFRTG, 6.1 NETRTGKeon: 261 minutes, 107.0 OFFRTG, 105.8 DEFRTG, 1.2 NETRTGhttps://www.nba.com/stats/lineups/advanced?CF=MIN*G*200&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&TeamID=1610612758&slug=advanced
Huerter was indeed a better fit with last year’s starting lineup.
Now with Deebo instead of Barnes, Keon is likely a better fit but he has to prove it. It is not given.
Nice deep dive into the stat, Maximus! Those are not the numbers I expected, particularly the low ORtg with Keon on the floor. Definitely runs counter to those of us who adamantly believe Keon should be the starter (I’m in that camp).
I also believe that the addition of DeMar further supports the idea of keeping Keon in the starting lineup. Part of that is that the ORtg with Keon may be a little misleading, due to the need for some time needed to figure out how to incorporate him into the mix. But I also believe that good defense is much more predictable and, therefore, more valuable in a setting where there a four starters who are legit scoring threats.
We’ll see how everything lands, but this is the first time someone has made a cogent argument (using data of all things!) against Keon being a starter. I appreciate the perspective.
I like Keon too. I think he can develop into a decent starter.
But Huerter is already a proven player for multiple good teams. And he is also young.
They both deserve minutes is probably what I wanted to say.
Totally agree SS. This is 100% the coach saying all the right things. You don’t just give Keon the spot when the starter has been injured. You make him earn it.
If he continues to play like he did at the end of last season, he will. If not, you already said it was temporary.
Positioning it this way motivates Keon and doesn’t demotivate Kevin. Bottom line is the best player will get the minutes. Nothing else matters.
I suppose I would put it this way: It’s fairly common knowledge that Brown favors Huerter among his other options. It’s also understood that Keon still has a lot to prove, despite the noticeable improvement in Kings team defense as he’s played major minutes.
My feeling is that Brown bothering to speak it out loud isn’t helpful to anyone. Both guys understand the lay of the land, their relative positions in the team and NBA hierarchy, and the economic reasons that might make Brown lean toward Huerter, results be damned.
I still think that phrasing it as he did was disrespectful to Ellis. I’m sure that Ellis will use it as motivation, given that he’s such a hard worker. The difficult-to-disregard implication of Brown’s statement is that no matter what Ellis’ training camp looks like, Huerter may still be handed the starting job once he’s healthy. It strikes me as bad coaching and poor player management.
So do you feel like he should have told everyone that Ellis had earned the starting job over Kevin who had the starting job until he got injured? To me that is way more disrespectful. It’s sort of an unwritten rule that you don’t replace a player who gets injured. I don’t think either one of them will be super offended. But I think that as a coach that’s what you have to say. Just my two cents.
I don’t know what question was asked of Brown or how it may have been worded, so it’s difficult to place his response in the proper context.
Assuming he was asked directly who would be the starter at shooting guard, all he needed to say was, “We’ll see how camp goes, and you’ll find out opening night.”
This is a completely satisfactory answer. Because sports writers are compelled to create controversy, I’m certain that some would try to spin it as if Ellis was already expected to be the starter over Huerter, but that’s now in flux, or the opposite version of that. Brown didn’t need to feed into it.
Speculation of that sort is a complete waste of time when done by people with deadlines and click quotas. We can kick it around here all we like, make our points and defend them or not, but Brown is going to do whatever he wants, which could also mean that Ellis starts, and as soon as Huerter is 100%, Ellis gets yanked regardless of performance.
I’m on the record in my assertion that Ellis should start. If scoring numbers are down when he’s playing, you compare it to the improvement in defensive numbers. It isn’t as if Ellis can’t get buckets, but I doubt he’s ever been told to be assertive in that way. Given his proficiency, he should be.
Then the coach makes adjustments. If the numbers somehow show that lineups that include Colby Jones and Alex Len provide the best +/- numbers, then we’d damned well better see a lot of those guys together.
It truly makes no difference to me who starts, or even who plays, but I do want to see the right players on the floor at any given time. I would hope that Brown feels the same, and won’t be hamstrung by the need to keep certain players happy based on salary or experience instead of performance. There are a few Kings players who you absolutely need to keep happy. Kevin Huerter is not among them.
If the team is winning and someone isn’t happy about their playing time, then the coach needs to crawl up that guy’s ass and explain it to him.
Brown’s comment was needless and served no useful purpose. If anyone here believes that Keon Ellis doesn’t already understand his place, I would find that foolish. If Mike Brown believes it, there is a serious problem.
I agree with both of you, this is good coaching.
I like that Brown is not simply handing the starting job to Keon. Instead, he’s challenging him to take it and do the hard work to keep it.
But let’s be honest, Keon is a far better fit in the starting SG role than Huerter. If Brown ends up inserting Huerter back as the starting SG, I would have serious questions about his judgment.
I feel Monte would as well. There is a reason he signed Ellis to a multi-year deal and I’m sure he is well aware of the defensive analytics to having Keon on the floor as much as possible. The league is full of 40% shooters from three like Huerter, but not of players that also bring it on the defensive side of the floor.
Mike Brown would be foolish to ignore last seasons starting splits with Keon vs Huerter. Hopefully this is just a “not handing him the starting job” kind of politicing. Keon can and should earn it if that’s the case. Hurter off the bench with his 3 shooting against lower competition should raise his gameplay as well. A net positive overall.
I’ve watched DeMar over the years only in Kings games. I didn’t realize how good his passing and court vision were. It’s great to see that he’s already making an impression in training camp. This team can have two playmakers on the floor for most of the game’s minutes. That is another super big deal!
Remember how pumped folks were when Tyreke Evans averaged 20, 5, 5? DeRozan has basically averaged that over the past 7 years. The guy is good.
Another cool anecdote, they were both rookies the same year.
I remember thinking during that season that we really scored by taking Tyreke over Steph. I had no idea that his first season would turn out to be maybe his best season in the NBA. I figured it was just the start of a crazy good trajectory.
After two, or maybe three seasons, the better player was Evans. Given what was known at the time of the draft, Curry was the riskier option based on size, and injury history, and I can’t really fault the front office for making the choice that they did. I’d have done the same.
I was a fan of Curry when he was a Davidson, and found his ability to see and read the floor very impressive. His shooting was already good, but not to the degree where you’d consider that he might end up as the greatest shooter in the history of the NBA. To my recollection, Curry wasn’t being referred to as a sure thing or a generational talent.
Had Evans been able to stay healthy, avoid some of the personal troubles he experienced, and get his three-point percentage to even 35%, he may have had a very solid career of a decade or more. His numbers may have even looked a great deal like DeRozan’s.
It’s always a shame when great talent doesn’t get a full chance to blossom, and athletics at every level have their share of them.
Keon’s value, or one of his values, is that he can take the pressure off of Fox and guard the best backcourt guy. Keeps Fox fresh and frisky in the passing lanes
He hits enough 3’s to keep the D honest.
Huerter could be a demon off the bench along side of Monk.
What I find interesting is that Kevin Huerter wasn’t the 5th guy in the photo. Management made the decision for the 5 guys in the photo to be Fox, Monk, Spock, D-Bo, Ox.
not Huerter.
That may have rubbed Kevin the wrong way? It makes sense why it would if you were the starter until your injury. I think the 5 photo shows it all. These are the 5 we are sure about. The rest are competing for their spot.
Browns words = Brown understandably likes Monk as the 6th man and states that making it very clear. Brown is very impressed by Keon as the starting SG and states that making it very clear. Brown had Huerter starting at SG before an injury forced a change. This leaves the door open to who is the starting SG. Huerter and Ellis can’t be competing for who starts game 1 because Huerter is still injured. When Huerter returns the question remains, who should start? Brown has now stated that very clearly. Kevin will be given that opportunity to return to the spot his injury removed him from. That’s fair. Keon switched from a two way contract to big boy contract at the end of the season. It makes complete sense that he’s not handed the keys to the starting SG position off the torn shoulder of Huerter. Brown has stated that and made that clear. Seems respectful to Huerter and Ellis. If Huerter were healthy now it’s possible that Keon could have beat out Huerter for the starting spot in camp. Due to the slow recovery from injury that is an impossible scenario.
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