There was yet another new face at Sacramento Kings practice today. Vance Walberg, who was named an assistant coach on Monday, stood present at the facility when the media arrived.
The mood on the floor was again upbeat. Players broke off into shooting drills, which included Reggie Evans taking long jumpers and DeMarcus Cousins launching 3-pointers. As most of the Kings left for the locker room, Andre Miller and injured Eric Moreland stuck around for jump shots, while Nik Stauskas and David Stockton switched off playing one-on-one.
There is still no update on starting point guard Darren Collison (hip), who is out for Wednesday’s contest against the Memphis Grizzlies.
George Karl and Walberg addressed the media today.
Coaches Notes and Quotes
- George Karl on his focus in practice: “Today was a defensive day mostly. Covering what San Antonio, Memphis and Portland can throw at us. A lot of post ups and pick-and-roll stuff. Offensively, it’s always trying to tinker with what you have and what you want, and changing up some stuff. Kind of get them a feel for spacing that I like and the shots that I like. My feeling is there’s a lot of good out there and that there’s not enough, there’s some bad out there. That we got to shink the bad and get the good to be stronger and better, and just become a solid team, an efficient team, an effective team and those teams usually don’t beat themselves. I’m thinking, both Boston and the Clipper game we had moments where we beat ourselves with our decisions and our offensive efficiency.”
- Karl on tuning up the offense: “It’s going to take some time. Our pick-and-roll game is quite different philosophy-wise than what coach Malone and Ty were running. We’re trying to get the ball for a layup and I think they were more perimeter oriented with their decisions. So we just got to, there are going to be nights like the Boston game where we had 25 turnovers. There are going to be nights where we throw it around a little bit. I think we have to be patient and just kind of get the philosophy to where I think, we’ll also have nights where we explode and look really good. And that kind of reminds me of training camp. I thought the Clipper game had that feel to me. We got busted early in the third, and I thought I was kind of experimenting more than I was trying to figure out how to win.”
- Karl on his history with Vance Walberg: “Five or six years ago, Vance and I got together and talked about the dribble drive offense, and the philosophies of it. I gradually every year decided to go more and more to it, until the last two years, and then we basically, I would say, we run it. It’s a combination of the pick-and-roll game and dribble drive and probably Phoenix’s philosophy with Steve Nash. It’s a combination of how to get the basket or into the paint with good spacing and good decision-making ability. It comes off a lot of different reads and situations. And Vance and I, he was on my staff in Denver for the last couple years, and he’s just really calming to me I guess, you know he’s kind of like my offensive coordinator. We have a very friendly rapport. I call the jack*** about every day.”
- Karl on why he runs a fast-paced offense: “We’re all trying to figure out the secret. We’re all trying to figure out the magic. And making magic, creating the strengths and weaknesses of this team and develop them is my job. I just think the game is easier played fast. You got to make good decisions. There’s a lot of things you have to do well to play fast, and the truth of the matter is it’s harder to play fast than it is to play slow, in my opinion. In my opinion, there’s no question that fast, as a coach I don’t have as much control. They have more freedom and more decision-making, and sometimes I feel comfortable with, especially now. Sometimes the ball is just in the wrong people’s hands, and how I organize and orchestrate getting the ball in a good decision maker’s hands the vast majority of the time is going to be important. Because right now I don’t know that probably. I don’t know what guys can make this decision, or what guys can make that decision. But in the same sense, no one’s going to feel sorry for us. We just got to go out and figure this out as we play every other night for probably the next three weeks.”
- Vance Walberg on how he got to know Karl: “I met George like eight, nine years ago. He flew me in for a couple weekends when he was with Denver and I was still coaching junior college, and he wanted to learn about the dribble drive and different concepts. We stayed in touch, and then I was with him for two years in Denver. Unfortunately when they let him go, obviously we all went, and I went to Philly. Now I had a feeling and we both had a feeling that one day we would probably get back, at least I was hoping to be able to have a job opportunity with him again.”
- Walberg on implementing an offense on the fly: “Be patient. That’s all I want to say. Be patient. It’s going to take some time. The one thing about coach is he’s a great teacher. He understands the way goes. This time of the year, we’re very fortunate these last two days to have some practice time. But when you play, practice, play, on, off, on, off, it’s really hard. It’s going to be more through film work and whatever ways, opportunities we can in the loop of the time that we have. But again, just to teach it, it’s a full year of just understanding the concepts the principles and so forth.”
- Walberg on seeing his offense implemented elsewhere: “It’s funny because I never really created it for anybody else. It just kind of came by itself, and players really create your offense. And at the time where I was at Clovis West High School, I had a ton of guards. And you don’t really have a lot of big guys in high school so I had one big guy. And at that time everybody (ran) the post down the middle, run the strong side. Well my big guy was probably my fourth or fifth-best player. And I got two guards, actually three guards that can really take it to the rack. So common sense, move them over, and from there, the whole thing just started to develop there. Now to watch other people do it, it’s funny. I do clinics all around the world and I watch these different people try and put it in and do it, and what you’re going to see, you’re going to see different variations of it. But the main things will never change. The attack mentality, the gaps and the spacing, those three main principles will never change.”
- Walberg on his offense having a big like DeMarcus Cousins: “It will actually work a heck of a lot better, if you want to know the truth. Because what happens is, part of the reason it came to fruition for myself was that we tried our big guy. And it’s a great way that you can hide him and still make him look good. Now when you got a big guy down there that demands a presence that he has, now imagine, I got to decide, ‘Do I stay on DeMarcus on the drive? Or I do help off? If I help off, DeMarcus gets the dunk. If I stay on DeMarcus, now we got a lot easier drive. So it actually makes a lot of different things. Plus when you reverse it and throw it inside, you have that extra option of the offense where there’s so many different things you can do off with it.”
- Walberg on how working with the 76ers helps him here: “You’re going to watch what they (Philadelphia) do. Struggling, you’re right, but I would say more of a growing and learning with what happened there. There’s a lot of players over there that aren’t very good right now compared to other NBA teams, but their growth was tremendous. Their work ethic was tremendous. And when you can develop a culture like that, I think that’s what coaches want, or want to do here. He wants to get that culture of working hard, understanding how to play the game, how to keep it simple.”
The Kings will host a shoot around tomorrow before playing the Grizzlies at Sleep Train Arena.
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