Great Way to Start

Granted it was only the lowly Kings, but this was a great way to kick off the season and showed that the growth of our young players has continued as we thought it would heading into the off-season. Points are not something i really want to focus on because they are about where i expect them to be give or take a handful for players up or down. I would rather focus on some of the lesser discussed aspects of the game that end up making a huge difference in the final outcome of games, especially close ones. The balanced rebounding we got with four guys all grabbing at least 7 rebounds is very encouraging given that we are going to be undersized by comparison on a lot of nights. the fact that KD is continuing developing that part of his game and grabbed 11 tonight is also encouraging as I expect him to average 8+ rebounds this year. Jeff got about where he should get in his 8 though i think he can bump even to 9-10 a game depending on his minutes. RW0 with his physical abilities could be one of the best rebounding point guards in the league and should easily be able to pull down 6 boards a game. That bring me to Nenad who it is nice to see because he finally had an off-season where he wasnt coming off an injury and could fully train is ready to step his game up even further and could be a real surprise this year and he has all the ability to average 14-16 and 7-8 boards a night.

Now that we have discussed rebounding the obvious topic is assists and watching Russ drop 13 dimes and even more impressive for me was that he has cut down on his turnovers significantly only committing 2. Along those lines to see KD commit zero turnovers as if he can keep those down it will only further his rise to the next level. As a team committing 13 turnovers is important because it means extra possessions, extra shots and of course extra points.

A couple of things that dont show up in the box-score would be how nice it is to see Russ make some jumpers because if teams have to respect his shot it will open up his game and this offense even more for him to drive and finish, drive and dish or drive and kick for open looks. The final thing is the growth of KD as a leader on this team and that is not something that can be understated both for how young he is and also for how young this team is as a whole. Part of that I believe comes from how close these guys appear to be off the court and that kind of relationship and chemistry can only help the team in tough situations. So, great start, 81 more to go.