"In a playoff series, you can figure out shooting. You just cover Kyle Korver. All that cute stuff they ran for him all year long — they only get that once in a while now."

"The shooters who have playmaking ability — those are the guys that are really kicking ass."

Ok, great, so the Kings had a shooter. But it didn't seem like Belinelli was the type of playmaker Karl was raving about last summer. Belinelli arrived as a cog in Gregg Popovich's machine in San Antonio, a system that produced brutally efficient automatons at generating quality looks and playing unselfishly. NBA's SportVU cameras capture this fairly nicely; in 2014/15, 47% of Belinelli's offense came in spot-up situations, and 74.6% of his shots followed one or less dribbles. His best year, 2013/14, wasn't much different; 51.8% of Belinelli's shot attempts were catch-and-shoot, and over 80% of his offense came with one dribble or less. His assist rate was 10 and 13% respectively, nothing to write home about. Its always hard to argue with Popovich's approach, and with a shiny new championship ring fitted for Marco's finger in 2014, I doubt there were many complaints.

That's kind of what I expected we were going to see from Belinelli. A guy who knew his role, would knock down threes, maybe hit some shots coming off of screens. Mostly play within himself in a smart, steady, and efficient way. Marco clearly had some skills beyond that, as he showed in last summer's European Championships. But pulling off that stuff in the NBA is a completely different ballgame.

So then preseason rolls around. Belinelli came off the bench for all six games, and… OH MY GOD MARCO WHAT'S HAPPENING

WHAT.

You remember that scene from The Matrix where Neo and Trinity shoot up that military building lobby trying to save Morpheus? Yeah, this is that scene translated onto hardwood. Belinelli showed absolutely zero conscience in his shot selection. He was coming off of screens looking to shoot, and any defender who dared give him an inch of daylight was going to be mercilessly fired upon. Not only that, but it was incredible watching Belinelli take the ball at the top of the arc, call for a screen, and probe his way around off the dribble.

But what was really eye-opening was the ability to pass out of the pick-and-roll.

Belinelli showed impressive vision, threading pocket passes to bigs and pick-and-pops to the screener, with some of that Ginobili-esque flair that so many Euroleague-trained players come into the league with. Marco's passing ability combined with his itchy trigger finger make him a pretty complete pick-and-roll player, and look for Karl to exploit these skills in all kinds of ways in the coming season.

That being said, with greater responsibility will come a greater concentration of mistakes. There is no way Belinelli keeps that tidy 10-11% turnover rate he's been sporting for the last couple of years in tact with the added pressure of making good decisions so often. It'll be up to him to make sure that plays like this stay the exception rather than the norm:

In any case, its going to be hard to ignore Marco Belinelli this season. His game is loud, he's flashy, and he has no conscience. Whether off the bench or as a starter, the Belinelli bandwagon is ready to rumble.