Did Sacramento make the right move by inking the 6-foot point guard?
After the Kings skipped over Noah Vonleh for Nik Stauskas in the NBA Draft last Thursday, Sacramento made another shaky decision yesterday – agreeing to terms on a three-year, $15 million deal that could spell the end of Isaiah Thomas’ days in Sac-town. The deal has earned its share of criticism in the Twitter-sphere.
One idea for the Kings might be to just let Isaiah Thomas be their point guard. He’s pretty good at it!
— Dan Devine (@YourManDevine) July 3, 2014
Like, I get that Isaiah Thomas is very small + that it is hard to build an elite D with a small PG. But … like … he’s good! For real!
— Dan Devine (@YourManDevine) July 3, 2014
Yes, Thomas is short, but so is Collison (6-0), and it doesn’t seem to make an ounce of sense for the Kings to give up a guy who in 2013-14 put up near-identical statistics to (and arguably better than) Kyrie Irving, who just got a max deal from Cleveland; and for a guy who has never excelled as an NBA starter.
Collison boasts career averages of 11.9 points, 4.9 assists, 2.7 rebounds, 1.1 steals and 2.2 turnovers in 28.7 minutes per game during his five years in the league. He’s started 254 of his 376 regular-season contests, so starting is nothing new for him in his career. D.C. and George Hill were a decent duo for Indiana, but eventually Hill became coach Frank Vogel’s guy, and Collison was shipped to Dallas. Even coach Rick Carlisle, known for running very few plays and valuing free-flowing O during his tenure in Big D, grew tired of Collison driving the Mavs’ car and turned the keys over to the likes of Mike James, Dominique Jones and Derek Fisher more and more frequently as the season went on.
Collison took a pay cut and signed a two-year deal for just under $4 million with the Clippers last summer, but declined his player option for 2014-15 and hit the open market. Having reportedly agreed to sign under the assumption he’d be the team’s starting point guard, it appears Collison is welcoming the opportunity to step out of Chris Paul’s shadow. Ironically, his two best seasons in the league were played as a backup to Paul (rookie year in New Orleans, last year in LA). He even thrived when called upon to start in place of an injured CP3.
Collison turns 27 this summer, and if he’s going to make a name for himself as anything more than a backup point guard, this appears to be his chance to do so. It’s still possible that Thomas eventually re-signs with the Kings and Collison slides into a reserve role, but at this point it looks highly unlikely.
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