I'm typically loathe to make a whole post around one article, but this isn't just any article. It's an in depth profile from Sporting News on DeMarcus Cousins that every Kings fan must read. Kudos to Alejandro Danois for a ridiculously enlightening article. Here is the most important snippet of the whole thing:

“DeMarcus has an edge and he has to watch that at times, but he’s a great dude,” said Strickland. “Once he respects you, you’re good. He’s a good natured dude who is good at heart. But if he senses you being fake, or not being straight up with him, then you might have a problem.”

Now, a lot of people will take this as a shot at Paul Westphal and they should. The better question is why Paul Westphal's acumen is being judged as subpar to begin with.

While the entire article was mainly about Cousins, that particular paragraph illustrates how political the entire DeMarcus Cousins discussion really is. Which is really enligthening to begin with, but it certainly is illuminating on why Cousins is such a divisive topic for so many people.

For those who are not on Keith Smart, or are in love with Jerry Sloan, this is my biggest worry. It's not the basketball acumen; it's simply a generational disconnect. I worry that an older coach like Jerry Sloan who had difficulties getting along with Deron Williams (not the most difficult superstar of all time) when Williams was asking for relatively mundane things would have an innate amount of difficulties dealing with both Tyreke Evans and DeMarcus Cousins, but especially Cousins.

Again, please read the article linked up top. While it's very long, it couldn't be more worth your time.

I'm hoping to make this brief, but with all the reports flying around today I wanted to make sure that people got where I stood.

A) I'm not surprised by the amount that Dale Kasler of the Bee reported in today's paper.

B) Second, read Rob McAllister's yet again fine piece (something you'd expect from a journalist of his caliber) on Cowbell Kingdom why Seattle isn't the swellest alternative of all time.

Well, the time to cross paths with Jeremy Lin is here. Beware, it's Linsanity everywhere you look. (I had to do it. Sorry.)

As far as the Kings vs the Bulls, here is the advanced boxscore from the Kings-Bulls for you:

And Chicago's advanced box score:

Okay, now that we got that over with, some links and other nonsense to finish this monstrosity off after the jump. 

Another day, another game recap. After the jump....

I think the title, as I always try to do, says it all. But let's move back a bit for a moment. There are other things to notice here first.

About a month ago I repeatedly wrote tweets about Tyreke Evans and how ridiculously awful and terrible from just an effort level Tyreke was performing at. That's disappeared. Which is good because I was getting tired of trying to think of creative ways to lobby for Keith Smart to shoot grenades at Tyreke everytime Reke would jog back in transition. That said, Tyreke is making an adjustment he wasn't willing to make under Paul Westphal, and, not surprisingly, isn't very successful at the adjustment Keith Smart has asked of Tyreke Evans. Part of that is that Evans has not really understood that every team in the league knows he can get into the paint, and that there is only so much good defense by one individual can actually accomplish on his lonesome. Tyreke's issue's are not really about whether he passes too much or too little. Tyreke's real issue's are whether or not Tyreke understands the right read and progressions that are happening, quite often, in just a split second. Can Tyreke make that adjustment? We don't know, and we won't likely know that much about it by the end of this season either. I do know that Tyreke Evans can be a better player than the one that has shown up for a large chunk of the season, and has the capacity to improve in all the real weak area's of his game. None of that will happen unless the decision making improves however.

DeMarcus Cousins has shown incredible progress in a month under Keith Smart. Better attitude, some monster rebounding, and some real issue's remain. The one thing that Cousins has done with Keith Smart is established a relationship pretty quickly which is nice. If there is any player that can ensure the revolving door of coaches ends, it's DeMarcus Cousins. The thing about Cousins that has my eye is the minutes he plays under Smart has gone up. Cousins averaged about 26 MPG under Paul Westphal for the 6 games Cousins played. (Ignoring the 1 game Cousins did not play of course.)  Under Keith Smart, Cousins has averaged about 30.5 MPG every night.

Marcus Thornton was super efficient in part because he didn't get the ball far too often during the 4th quarter. (I'll talk about that further below do trust.) But, Marcus Thornton has been Marcus Thornton under Paul Westphal, and now Keith Smart. The biggest thing I think the return of Thornton from injury illustrates is how much competiveness Thornton has and why it's so important to this team. Thornton is not the perfect player next to Tyreke Evans, and we know that. However, perfection is now what we are talking about here. This is not a championship team or anything near a 500 team yet. Let's be honest here: Marcus Thornton can help the Kings get to 500, and that's a far more important hurdle for this team right now than worrying about potential "success" down the road.

Jason Thompson has shown remarkable amounts of growth becoming a more reliable post player, a tremendous defender (one of the 3 best the Kings have on a night in night out basis right now), and a quality energy guy the Kings can rely on almost every night he is out there.

Jimmer Fredette is a rookie, and Jimmer is struggling with the speed of the game. This happens.

Fans, and media, love Isaiah Thomas, but what makes Isaiah Thomas so incredibly important to this team is that he always wants to make a play regardless of what's there. The desire, the ability to push the pace, the need to change the pace and tone of the game is what makes Isaiah such a valuable player despite how few NBA games Isaiah has had. 

I love the Chuckwagon too much to ever mutter that I'm greatly irritated when Chuck makes an undefensable play. That said, Chuck Hayes is an integral part of this Kings team due to his leadership and veteran presence on defense.

Donte Greene has played better as of late which is a pleasant surprise. I've said many times I think he will end up being better as a stretch 3, but  if Donte proves me wrong? I'll be rather glad. Not for any one particular reason or anything, but because Donte will have found a way to hang onto a career where most players in Donte's situation tend to wash out by now. If Donte can figure out a way to be more effective, than dribble driving that is, on offense while being the designated defensive stopper, Donte Greene has the talent to carve out a 10 year career without a doubt.

Keith Smart is clearly showing that a new head coach was needed not only from a new voice perspective, but one that comes with an outsider perspective from how the franchise had been operating. This development in particular has been a welcome change, and I don't care if it's Keith Smart providing it. Right now, I'd fire Geoff Petrie for hiring a caretaker head coach to secure his legacy, but I'm not the one in charge.

Okay that's pretty much all I gotta say on that part. Now onto the game.

Well, the day is finally here. I can announce that I'm moving this site to the Bloguin network. The site is remaining the same title, but the URL is changing to "www.evilcowtown.com".

As far as everything else goes, this site will remain as an archive (it will eventually revert back to the eci.wordpress link but like I said, this will only be an archive so it shouldn't be an issue). Hopefully you enjoy the new digs as much as I am already enjoying it.

Nate

Well, here we are. The new site. Who woulda thunk it eh? I guess the real issue is explaining the who what when why and how of it all. (Does where really matter?)

Why Evil Cowtown INC? The INC part should be self-explanatory. As far as the Evil Cowtown part, this is from Jerry Renolds seminole book "Reynolds Remembers" back in 2005. (I will refer to it as JR's bright breezy memoir in the future.) It was a reference to Chris Webber not wanting to come to Sacramento and, of course, that "Evil Cowtown". As a Kings fan who missed a heavy chunk of the first 8 years in Sacramento, I found the book exceptionally insightful.

I have never understood why Sacramento is considered a "Cowtown" to begin with. I know agriculture is a big deal in the Central Valley, and for a good reason no less. But for the life of me, I don't know how growing tomatoes, rice, apples or grapes has anything to do with cows. (Or grazing these lovely obese beasts.) Maybe I just missed that day in logic class. While I know that's really slang for being a small backwards town, Sacramento is neither small or, well, yeah it is backwards. The discussion about building a new arena would not be a decade old if Sacramentans understood the point of what progress actually entails. Or, the purpose of investment in self for that matter.

As a River City child, I grew up rooting for the Spud Webb's-Walt Williams, Mitch Richmonds and Brian Grant's of the world. Eventually that became Vlade Divac, Peja Stojakovic, Chris Webber, Doug Christie among others of the best teams this franchise has ever seen about a decade ago. There have been lots of lows and a few memorable highs. Hopefully, as the start of the Keith Smart-Tyreke Evans-DeMarcus Cousins era is upon us, some reasonable level of prosperity can return.

I look forward to sharing my viewpoint and irrational hatred as the most recent episode of the now 27 year old journey presses on.

Nate

Well, first off, I must admit I didn't see the 1st half of the game, but I doubt that really matters much here. Let's talk about a few other things instead.

• Ending quarters: The Kings did that. Each quarter the Kings finished out strong, and that's something this team rarely has done well.
• The end of the game interview with Tyreke Evans/DeMarcus Cousins struck me as a bit odd given that Keith Smart has repeatedly said this Kings team does not have a superstar. It was interesting to see Smart in that interview talk about Evans/Cousins as building blocks, and it was even more interesting to see Smart there talking with Evans and Cousins. That was a very NCAA feel to it even if that was not the intention.
• News to the TNT Studio Crew: Technically NBATV counts as national TV games.
• The Kings had 21 assists and 12 turnovers. The Thunder had 22 turnovers and 13 assists. Recognize those numbers?
• The Kings had 60 points in the paint to the Thunder 34 points in the paint.
• The Kings committed 12 TO's and the Thunder converted those into 12 points. The Thunder committed 22 turnovers and the Kings turned that into 25 points. Progress.
• The Kings shot 40% from the field, and the Thunder shot 48% from the field. A big part of that is forcing shots that aren't there. It's clear that Keith Smart has helped this team figure out that quality defense can lead to quality offense. Many of the Kings best offensive possessions come off turnovers where easy points are coming easier and more frequently in the last few weeks. Tonight was another continuation off that trend.
• John Salmons shot 2-10 but made the drive that led to the eventual pass by Salmons to Thornton who hit a corner 3 to tie the game at 97 with just over 2 minutes remaining in the 4th quarter. Along with 7 rebounds, it was nice to see that Salmons could still end up helping the team with something other than scoring. Salmons illustrated that you can play through missing shots playing fairly tough defense on Durant (I thought Durant's shots were much harder from what I saw than what has been typically available for Durant in the past), and it was nice to see that Salmons can contribute in more ways than shooting. That's definitely needed on this team.
• Chuck Hayes shot 4-6 from the field. I love to see that number.
• Tyreke Evans played 38 minutes, Salmons 36 minutes, Thornton 33 minutes, Thompson 30 minutes and Cousins 28 minutes. If Cousins was up to 32-33 minutes I'd be ecstatic about this minute distribution.
• Jason Thompson got his 5th double double tonight with 10 points and 10 rebounds.
• Donte Greene played well again tonight. Hopefully Phoenix is a 3rd game in a row where a positive impact by Donte is made. But, I must admit, I don't see Donte ever doing a whole lot that isn't as a stretch 4. Tonight Donte had the opportunity to play that 4 spot more than he sometimes has in recent times.
• The Kings had 4 guys with 3 or more assists tonight: Jason Thompson (3), Marcus Thornton (3), Jimmer Fredette (4) and Tyreke Evans (5). This is hopefully the start of a trend where ball movement is more consistently. There was semblance of ball movement tonight.
• Bottom line, and I could keep going probably for a bit more, the Kings found a way to not get the hinges of the door blown off tonight. There were times when OKC sensed that the Kings were there for the taking, but the Kings managed to hang around. Whether it was getting some baskets in transition, pounding the offensive boards, and not turning the ball over, there were less possessions that ended up with head scratching moments. Were there too many? Yeah, there were.

You can chalk this up to the Kings playing well because they were on national TV (I don't think that's it personally), but I do think it's more like the Kings playing well because they saw the opportunity to win a game. If there is anything this Kings team is doing, this team is learning that momentum only swings in the favor of those who work the hardest in favor of swinging the momentum in their direction. At times, it was OKC. At times, it was Sac. That's progress. This team is at the point where 10-16 is a bit of a disappointment, but given where this franchise was a month ago, it's progress in the most real of ways.

The most pleasing aspect of this recent stretch is that Keith Smart has this team's ear and they are responding. With the talent, and with Smart providing some real insight, this team seems poised to improvement sooner than later.

The Arco Thunder returned once again tonight, and that is the most important aspect of the game. The fans have been waiting for something and a team to really cheer about, and tonight was a great start to that step.

Until the flip side appears once more.

Okay, I don't really think I can add to anything that has been dropped over the last few days. But whatever, that's what I do.

Tonight? Big deal. It's on TNT, and it's more about the fans than it is about the team if I had to guess. But, it's very much about the team too. They need to show well, and win on their homecourt. The Kings need to win a high profile game and follow it up with more success. Beating a team is something this team can do at random times, but consistently? This franchise has not been able achieve that very often frequently in most recent times.

OKC's ORtg is 108.0 points (4th of 30) per 100 possessions and the DRtg is 102.9 points (17th of 30) per 100 possessions with the Pace being 93.3 (4th of 30) possessions per game.

Sac's ORtg is 98.3 points (27th of 30) per 100 possessions and the DRtg is 107.7 points (27th of 30) per 100 possessions with the Pace being 93.0 (8th of 30) possessions per game.

Matchup's? I'm interested to see how Tyreke Evans plays tonight more than anyone else. I think DeMarcus Cousins might have a strong game, but he also might not. I want to see what kind of game Evans displays tonight. Will it be another episode of Clownball, or will it be back to professional basketball again? Will Cousins be able to get better shots against Kendrick Perkins, Nick Collison and Serge Ibaka than he did against Nicola Pekovic Tuesday Night?

I'm also interested to see how John Salmons plays tonight against Kevin Durant. It's not that Salmons can't defend Durant adequately, but I am intrigued to see the quality of shots Durant gets tonight.

Hmmm. So, there it is. The Kings lost what was for parts of 3 quarters a frustrating completely god-awful game to watch. Then, the Jimmah (he's not just Jimmer; he's now the Jimmah becuz that's how we roll here at EC) got hot in the 4th and the Kings crawled back into the game. Then the Wolves defended Jimmah and the Kings forgot about him for a few moments. Ricky Rubio came in and did what Ricky Rubio does. Kings lose.

Onto the bullet points...

• Tyreke Evans is a mental midget. He played like crap. The end.
• DeMarcus Cousins showed exactly why he has so far to go. There's nothing wrong with that, and I'm not complaining. A month ago Cousins wouldn't have been playing meaningful minutes after what was a frustrating game where he could never really find a rhythm. 25 minutes, 10 points (3-13 shooting 4-6 line), 11 rebounds (3 offensive) and only 2 TO's. If this is a bad game, I'll take it.
• 2 ineffective games in a row for Jason Thompson with the exception of the few moments in the latter half of the 3rd where JT posted up Anthony Tolliver in the post. I'm very interested to see how JT responds Thursday.
• JJ Hickson had an excellent game all things considered. Particularly in the 1st half, Hickson was flying around and grabbing rebounds showcasing his fabulous athleticism. On the other flip side, there were some poor decision with fouling by Hickson that hurt regardless of missed Wolves FT's.
• JJ Hickson showed that he is not entirely dead. Which is not surprising given that other players have played well at times for Keith Smart who were not previously. * John Salmons did not play one of his best games. Like JT, I'm interested to see how Salmons plays Thursday.
• Chuck Hayes went 1 on 1 tonight against Brad Miller. Twice. And failed twice. Other than that, Hayes was like Thompson, Cousins and Hickson in feeling frustrated how the game was called. 
• I don't typically speak about referees because it is such a major league copout when most fans do it, but tonight was one of those instances where the refs called a majorly choppy lack of rhythm type of game. These happen, and sometimes it's on the players for not adjusting to how the game is being called. But, some of the calls seemed very inconsistent. Refs don't have many off moments, but it felt like the whole game a lot of calls were very questionable. At least that was consistent for both sides.
• The Kings shot 37% from the field, 66% from the FT line, and 34% from 3. The 1st two can't happen if you wish to be competitive on the road consistently. The rebounding advantage was 49-48 Wolves over Kings, but it felt a lot worse than that. Oh, and you might not have realized it, but the Kings had 20 assists tonight.
• I'm thinking of starting the #NeverPlayDonteGreeneEverAgain movement on Twitter. It's not that Donte is terrible, but for this team he is all kinds of wrong in every way. Donte needs to go a roster where someone can A) create more shots for him and B) where Donte can play stretch 4. Donte does not work as a 3. I will say that Donte did a pretty good job on Michael Beasley in most ways down the stretch though.
• I've been as big a fan of Isaiah Thomas as anyone in the Kings fanbase, but tonight in the 2nd half LSG showed all of his problematic issue's of being A) young and B) a tendency to get out of control in the wrong way. Nothing wrong with any of that, and it's a learning lesson for the young man. The 1st half for LSG was pretty good in terms of speeding the game up for the Kings, but it was bad in the 2nd half in terms of rhythm. Do I pin this loss on Thomas? Absolutely not. But his real flaws showed up in the 2nd half and real flaws do cost teams ball games fair or not.
• Ricky Rubio showed why so many were high on him. While I thought Brandon Jennings would be better ultimately (I did believe that strangely enough--as of now I'm not really sure), I don't miss Rubio at all really. The Wolves benefit a great deal by having Rubio, and Rubio benefits a great deal in having a head coach who understands his style of play. Additionally, Rubio really benefitted from an ego standpoint by being blasted for his play in Barcelona. It made him embrace a franchise in Minnesota he wanted no part of in 2009, and that in turn has made Rubio's play a whole lot better. He feels welcomed, and that matters to him.

• The strangest part about tonight's game was seeing Rubio miss FT's. That's the first time this year I've seen him miss FT's that way. Needless to say the Wolves dodged a bullet, and I'm glad.
• Finally, the Jimmer. It was good to see Jimmer Fredette get hot, and I'm sure Keith Smart is relieved to see it. What I liked more than anything was that Jimmer didn't really force many of those shots. There was one play with 3:16 to go where Donte Greene missed Jimmer who was in the corner and ready to shoot. Instead Donte pump fakes his defender up and steps in for a 18 footer. That type of selfishness cost Jimmer and the Kings a potential tie as the Kings would have tied the game at 80 up if Jimmer does indeed hit the 3. (Or takes it.)
• The point is that Jimmer got hot, and forced Minnesota to use Ricky Rubio to defend him. That's something. If you're going to lose, growth for a team that struggled to even be competitive on the road for the most part this season is not such a terrible thing.
• Let's remember something: The Kings won 1 of 2 games on the road this trip in back to back nights. Ignoring the circumstances, that means the Kings are .500 for these past 2 games. And, if the Kings did that more often, the Kings overall record would be much closer to .500.
• In regards to Jimmer's season TS%, it's now up from 48.9% to 50.2 TS% for the season. Not bad for a night's work.
• Keith Smart and the last play of the game. I first want to say that I endorse the strategy of not calling a timeout to run a play. This is true regardless of coaching IMO. If there is anything this Kings team has shown effective in doing, it's using frenetic energy to get points. With 8 seconds and the Wolves giving up the play (and the Kings not fouling), it was good to see the Kings take the timeout. It forces the Wolves to play defense on the fly rather than set up and be able to have some idea of a counter walking out of a timeout.
• Seeing how the play developed, Smart could have taken the timeout with 4 secs left and drawn up a play. But, that's not what this team's strength is. Sometimes you have to let these guys go. Part of growth is failure and recognition. The more often you do those types of things, the easier it is to recognize how to get a quality play.