Well, its been a long tough Feb. It will be good to see this team hit the home floor today. Todays game im sure will pretty much look exactly like the previous road games as far as offensive and defensive stratagy & outcome if only for one reason. No practice time. I have talked to a few people & a lot of them are sayin "Whats the big deal? they still have their main guys even after the Webber trade" well... no, not really... Take a look at the following breakdown of the changes over the last two seasons... [IMGl]http://pageonesports.net/files/roster.png[/IMGl] Its quite a bit different when you only have 2 of your starters still there after two years and the majority of your bench has also changed (*Jackson while still with the team cant really be included as a reserve player this season) In fact of those reserve players listed there, only Jackson and Songaila were with the team in the 02-03 season. that makes for a LOT of changes that have to be looked at and evaluated on their talent. Herein lies the major problem the Kings have been facing all year. The consistant no-practice status of Webbers bad knee created a situation that forced the Kings into not being able to practice their starters as a group. While Mobley had done his best he could given the situation, the lack of practices is clearly starting to show up especially when you throw the new pieces that resulted from the Webber trade into the mix. This home stretch that goes 8 of the next 10 games could not come at a better time. Right now the Kings are clearly out of sync and the only way they are going to get back into it is by getting some practice time in. with 22 games remaining, there is no possible way the Kings will match their winning total of 55-27 from last year. They would have to win 21 of the remaining 22 to equal their mark from last year and lets face it... that aint gonna happen. That doesnt mean that the season is a total wash, but this is definetly going to be the worst the team has done since the 99 season when they went 44-38. While this team that is assembled is decidedly better than the team that year, there does stand the remote possibility that if they cant gather themselfs to playing better ball over the remainder of the season, the could wind up with a record that looks pretty close to the same. At this point, I would have to say that getting to 50 wins this year would be an amazing feat given everything that has gone on with the team this year but playing .500 for the rest of the season wont get it done.
