Mike Lowry wrote: Sun Jun 29, 2025 3:58 pm
Pick a playoff team, list a few aspects of game planning that you think are important for that team.
How can they maximize on their talent?
What could be dangerous?
What are they built for?
Rules: 1 point if you give thoughtful answers, which I will award after the timer ends for responses. The timer ends for responses at the moment the corresponding week's Sim is run.
Note: Use approximately 5 sentences as your bare minimum for 1 point. If you write 3 long, complex sentences, you'll still get a point. If you write 5, 3 word sentences, you will not get a point. Don't @ me.
Due: Due by the deadline for sim 10
I'll take a look at the Kings, since Darth likes to hear other people talk about them.
We know he furiously gameplanned in the Finals last season, and I would argue that it took a little bit of luck with Parish getting nicked up in the Western Conference Finals to get there... but every team in the Finals usually has a bit of luck (me included - the first Blazers finals appearance was probably helped by Magic Johnson being out with injury so the Suns went out before he could get healthy).
In the short term, Darth has to work around the loss of Wes Unseld, who I think has been underheralded as the "glue guy" that lets their big three of Gminski, Natt, and King flourish. He'll be back in time for the playoffs, but I think right now the thing that is keeping Darth up at night is the fact the Jazz are tied with him right now and have been playing very well. As tough as the West is, getting that bye in the first round is huge, and the Kings are fortunate that he'll be back next sim (in time for the playoffs) - but they have big matchups with the Jazz (twice) and the Warriors this sim, and those are two teams that play very differently - the Warriors are big-heavy and the Jazz are wing-heavy - and I'm sure Darth is furiously trying to figure out a lineup that can match up with both at the same time... though if he has to pick one, I think he tries to match up with the Jazz since they play twice and every game he loses to the Jazz kind of counts for "double" in the standings.
I do think the Kings are more susceptible to being beaten by wing-heavy teams than big-heavy teams simply because Gminski is almost certain to (1) hold down the bigs defensively and (2) not get into foul trouble - a wing-heavy team that puts Natt or King into foul trouble puts Kansas City in a very tough spot.
What they're built for is explosiveness from their own wings - this is a very high-ceiling team in terms of scoring, and if you don't have wing defenders that can hold down Natt and King (who are both equally capable of operating in the post or from the perimeter) you're going to have trouble. I do think if they run into the Bucks again, who are loaded defensively, they'll have a rough time, but again, let's see them get there first - the West is a gauntlet for sure and it looks like the path to the Finals is going to go through the Warriors again.