Sacramento Kings Coach Reggie Theus Making Small Mistakes That Count

Reggie Theus has got the Kings working hard and that’s no myth. Spencer Hawes, the young center, seemingly became a fantasy basketball dream overnight. He’s even shown a bit of humor by calling himself and Brad Miller the “Ivory Towers.” Now that’s funny.

However, my support of Theus has waned in the recent weeks. Here are two examples why:

Nov. 18: Sacramento Kings VS. Memphis Grizzlies

It started to hit me when the Kings were playing the Memphis Grizzlies a few weeks ago. Guard Kevin Martin was out so Theus started Bobby Jackson beside point guard Beno Udrih.

First of all, at 6-1, Jackson does not have the size to start as a shooting guard. And second of all, starting Jackson forced Theus to play third-year guard Quincy Douby and rookie Bobby Brown side by side at the guard positions later in the game.

This was a disaster waiting to happen because both Douby and Brown are talented, but very inexperienced. In other words, I’m glad they’re on the Kings, but I don’t want to see them playing side by side unless the Kings have a 20 point lead with 3 minutes left.

Well, needless to say, the Kings lost badly to the struggling Grizzles. Douby went 0-9 from the field and scored 2 points, and Brown went 3-11 and scored 7. This was quite disappointing because Brown has been pretty efficient this season in limited minutes.  

It was quite obvious that coaching substitutions was part of the problem. Brown and Douby, side by side, was a train wreck.         

Although rookie Donte Green is even less experienced, at an athletic 6-11, he provided needed size when he started in subsequent games in place of Kevin Martin. Starting Green also allowed Jackson to come off the bench to play beside the less experienced Brown and Douby.

Dec. 2: Sacramento Kings VS. Utah Jazz

Eight days later when the Kings played the Jazz, a similar problem occurred. After keeping the game close against an injury plagued Jazz squad, Theus inserted Douby into the game for the last 3:59 after he hadn’t played the entire game. Forward Francisco Garcia, who had just came back from an injury, could no longer play and had to be taken out right at the end so Theus called Douby’s number.

By putting Douby in, Theus made a grave mistake. He should have anticipated the possibility that Garcia wouldn’t be able to make it through a certain amount of minutes – coming back from an injury. If Theus anticipated this, he may have chosen to put Douby in the game at an earlier point so he could get warm and get into some kind of a rhythm.

Certainly Theus didn’t think that Douby would take a shot in such a close game, right? Wrong.

"I was looking for someone who might knock down some shots down the stretch," explained Theus, "And also, I think 'Q' defensively could fight Korver a lot better going around picks, and he did a good job of it. He just didn't knock down shots."

Douby ended up taking two shots, missing both, in those final minutes. During one of the shots, guard Kevin Martin was open on the wing, and during the other, Beno drove the lane and passed out to Douby on the wing.

Theus needs to work towards more consistency with his rotation. Douby should have played a few minutes in the first half to get him involved in the game, and he should have anticipated that he would need to call on Douby

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