Game Day: Kings (32-24) @ Suns (31-27), Tues 2/14/23

[Flagrant Fowl]

I watched most of the game for a second time just to focus on KD's bench reactions.

I know, I have a problem.

[Flagrant Fowl]

Damn, I am so stoked to see that Monty is trying to integrate Okogie. He’d be a top player on defense if he can play with our starters.
Thanks for summarizing the game I was pissed to find out that Kings games are local blackouts for me even though I live in Portland. I didn’t feel like finding alternative ways to stream it. You’d think there would be a better way to not blackout games via server locations.

The fact that blackouts are still a thing in 2023 is wild. It doesn't make any sense at all.

[Superbone]

Damn, I am so stoked to see that Monty is trying to integrate Okogie. He’d be a top player on defense if he can play with our starters.
Thanks for summarizing the game I was pissed to find out that Kings games are local blackouts for me even though I live in Portland. I didn’t feel like finding alternative ways to stream it. You’d think there would be a better way to not blackout games via server locations.

The fact that blackouts are still a thing in 2023 is wild. It doesn't make any sense at all.

Especially from Portland to Sacramento. That's ridiculous! I'm in San Diego so I get why I have to watch Lakers and Clippers local broadcasts. It's about 1.5 hours to Crypto.com Arena.

[Kryptonic]

Damn, I am so stoked to see that Monty is trying to integrate Okogie. He’d be a top player on defense if he can play with our starters.
Thanks for summarizing the game I was pissed to find out that Kings games are local blackouts for me even though I live in Portland. I didn’t feel like finding alternative ways to stream it. You’d think there would be a better way to not blackout games via server locations.

The fact that blackouts are still a thing in 2023 is wild. It doesn't make any sense at all.

Yea, it's crap... We shouldn't have to worry about using a VPN workaround.

Curious what will happen if Bally's folds shop

[INFORMER]

The Gleague is in. Barf.

I missed something. Is this supposed to be a reference to Saben Lee?

[INFORMER]

Okay, hot take after watching the past few games: As much as I really miss Mikal, I think his production is actually pretty replaceable. You look at guys like Okogie and Craig and other wings and they can basically produce similar numbers, plus it gives a few more shots for guys like Ayton and CP3 and Book. I think as long as we have other good wing defenders, we can totally survive losing Mikal.

I think it is easy to feel this way when Okogie goes for 19 points on 8-13 shooting. Will you feel this way if Okogie goes back to his 2-6 shooting in 24 minutes performances?

The other thing is that there is a difference between what Mikal has been and what he is becoming. And even in looking at what he has been, it wasn't exactly the numbers that made him valuable, it was being a good offensive threat while providing elite defense.

I would absolutely love it if Okogie kept his recent play up. When he is on like this, he is easily one of my favorite things about this team. But he averaged 6.6 ppg on 36% shooting in January. I'm not going to anoint him as a Mikal replacement just yet.

[TOO]

The Gleague is in. Barf.

I missed something. Is this supposed to be a reference to Saben Lee?

Nope. Just what I call the current full bench unit.

[INFORMER]

Got it. Thanks for the clarification.

[TOO]

Got it. Thanks for the clarification.

[Mori Chu]

Okay, hot take after watching the past few games: As much as I really miss Mikal, I think his production is actually pretty replaceable. You look at guys like Okogie and Craig and other wings and they can basically produce similar numbers, plus it gives a few more shots for guys like Ayton and CP3 and Book. I think as long as we have other good wing defenders, we can totally survive losing Mikal.

I think it is easy to feel this way when Okogie goes for 19 points on 8-13 shooting. Will you feel this way if Okogie goes back to his 2-6 shooting in 24 minutes performances?

The other thing is that there is a difference between what Mikal has been and what he is becoming. And even in looking at what he has been, it wasn't exactly the numbers that made him valuable, it was being a good offensive threat while providing elite defense.

I would absolutely love it if Okogie kept his recent play up. When he is on like this, he is easily one of my favorite things about this team. But he averaged 6.6 ppg on 36% shooting in January. I'm not going to anoint him as a Mikal replacement just yet.

That's true; Okogie is far from being a guy you can rely on to match or even come close to Mikal's numbers. I don't expect that from him. I guess I am saying that I think the combination of Okogie and other players can replace most of what Mikal gave us. A few more shots for each of Book, CP3, Ayton, etc. will likely replace most of the shots Mikal would have put up.

Don't get me wrong; I feel the pain of missing Mikal as much as anybody. It breaks my heart as a Suns fan to see him gone. I am just saying that I think it's harder to replace some of the other guys' production on the team than Mikal's. There are a lot of pretty-good wings who we can plug in without losing too much.

[Flagrant Fowl]

We're rightfully going to see some tweaks to the defensive scheme. They leveraged Mikal's strength on the perimeter, but now they have to rework it to fit KD's strength on the backline/weakside. We've never really seen Monty's Suns team with two agile 7-footers on the defensive side.