When you’re looking for a good renovation project, you start by looking for a house with good bones. You want a strong foundation free of cracks. You want beams that are free from pest damage and a roof that will keep the weather out. You want toilets that flush and lights that work. There are a lot of items that you can replace on a home, but the larger the structural issue, the bigger the risk.
At this point in the offseason, Vlade Divac is looking like a master craftsman. He has turned $9 million in cap space, Jason Thompson, Carl Landry, Nik Stauskas and a future No. 1 pick and his 2015 draft pick into six rotational players – Rajon Rondo, Marco Belinelli, Kosta Koufos, Omri Casspi, Willie Cauley-Stein and Caron Butler. And there are murmurs that he will add Andrea Bargnani to the mix as well.
Divac has added shooting, playmaking, defense, rebounding and veteran leadership to a team with all of these needs and more. He has silenced many critics and given his future Hall of Fame coach a ton of options. The Sacramento Kings are one of the clear winners of the 2015 NBA summer, but they still have a huge question that needs to be answered.
Did Divac do a thorough inspection of his house before he put in new windows, paint, carpet and hardwood?
Regardless of how many players Divac wrangles under the cap, the bones of the Kings’ structure are the same. To succeed, Sacramento needs DeMarcus Cousins to be the All-Star player he was a year ago and then some. They need Rudy Gay to continue to prove that he can be efficient. They need Darren Collison to stay healthy and Ben McLemore to take another huge leap forward.
This group of four players are still the core of this team. Cousins is the foundation. Gay is the roof. Collison is the plumbing and McLemore is the electrical. Without each of these players fully on board and pulling the same rope, his team will likely fail to reach its potential.
Is it possible that Divac built this house on sand? Absolutely. Cousins’ people have pushed hard for the 24-year-old star to relocate out of Sacramento. He already has a divisive personality, and he and Karl are still on shaky ground. Divac has repeatedly said that he won’t trade Cousins and that he doesn’t intend on firing his head coach. That doesn’t leave much room to budge. These two men have to move forward or the Kings’ season is doomed from the start. If ever there was a single player that held an entire franchise’s hopes in his hands, it is Cousins.
Gay has been excellent with the Kings. He plays hurt. He is an elite athlete and he fits perfectly in Karl’s system. The previous regime locked up the 28-year-old wing with a three-year extension and he has responded by recruiting Rondo, Wes Matthews and even close friend Josh Smith. There are a lot of new weapons for Gay to compete with this season, but if he stays in his lane and the Kings win more than they lose, he will get the recognition he deserves.
Why is Collison the plumbing of this team? Because he is the guy that not only has to lead when he is in the game, but he also has to push Rondo to stay in line. Divac took a major risk when he dropped $9.5 million on Rondo, the talented but maligned four-time All-Star. But he made the gamble with the understanding that if it all goes terribly wrong, he still has Collison to fall back on. After starting all 45 games he played in last season, Collison will likely come off the bench for Karl at both the one and the two. The Kings need him to be every bit as good as he was last season before he went down with a season-ending injury.
McLemore is the final piece to this machine. An athletic wonder, the 22-year-old guard has struggled with consistency in his first two seasons in the league. While Belinelli will push McLemore for minutes, he is more of a specialist off the bench than a full-time starter. Divac has bulked up every position on the team, but McLemore remains the best defensive option on the perimeter. If the third-year shooter can become a three-and-D specialist, he will have no problem holding onto his starting position.
For the most part, Divac has been exceptional in his first summer on the job. He has added role player after role player, but his core remains the same. If they let him down, it doesn’t matter who Karl turns to off the bench, it likely won’t be enough.
Divac had options. He could have made even more substantive changes to the roster, but clearly he likes the bones of this rebuild. He’s either got the makings of a winner or he’s put a ton of make-up on a pig. Only time will tell.
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