Dalembert for Nocioni-Hawes: Perspective from a Sactown Royalty

Hello all, 

I'm Aykis16, one of the Associate Editors over at the SBN Kings Blog Sactown Royalty.  Today the Kings traded Spencer Hawes and Andres Nocioni to the Philadelphia 76ers for Samuel Dalembert.  Here's my take on this trade for you guys.

Front paged by TAFKAMB. Good post, however depressing it may be that we're now more hamstrung by the cap then we were before. Either me or Jordan will put something up tonight for some rational thoughts rather than gut reaction. I'm still confused.

If you head over to Sactown Royalty, please be respectful and not advocating Louis Williams for MVP. Thank you.

Andres Nocioni is by far the weak link of this trade.  He is on contract for 2 more years, with a team option for a 3rd year.  He is known for his tough defense, which in reality, isn't that great.  Nocioni is a fierce competitor though and he hates losing.  Unfortunately, thats not a good thing for Philadelphia, as (no offense), they're not exactly going to the playoffs on a regular basis as of late.

Nocioni had a couple times where he mentioned that he wanted out of Sacramento because of the losing and the fact that he wasn't part of their future.  The most recent case was about a week ago.  Is Nocioni a part of Philadelphia's future?  Maybe, but I don't buy it.  He's a decent 3 point shooter (38.6% last year and 37.5% on his career) but he also tends to make silly decisions with the ball, and often try to force offense when it isn't there (as witnessed by his atrocious 39.9% FG% last year).

He's also not a good ball handler, turning it over more than he creates for others, and tends to foul quite a bit on the defensive end.  He likes to get physical with his defender, but he's not very quick.  He's on the downside of his career and likely won't enjoy moving from one rebuilding project to another.  

The real part of this deal for Philadelphia is the acquisition of young Center (22 years old this season) Spencer Hawes.  Standing 7'1 and probably one of the better passing big men in the league already, Spencer has intrigued and frustrated Kings fans who see so much potential in him for the last 3 years.  The biggest problem with Spencer have revolved around work ethic and attitude.  This year especially, he had various disputes with the Kings organization and Paul Westphal about his inconsistent playing time and his decision not to attend the Vegas Summer League.

Spencer is not your typical center.  He's definitely in the mold of Brad Miller and Vlade Divac (and soon to be NBA player Greg Monroe), in that he likes to play in the high post and pass the ball, as well as shoot jumpers.  He actually has a pretty advanced post-game down low, but his lack of strength and explosiveness causes him to get his shot blocked quite a bit.  Additional strength is a must for Spencer to end up succeeding.

Spencer definitely has range on his shot, although his percentages aren't that great, but he can hit the mid-range jumper at a dependable rate, and his 3 is good enough to keep defenses honest.

By far the biggest reasons Kings fans have soured on Spencer are the fact that he's not a defensive presence in the middle (something the Kings have lacked since Bill Russell was the coach) and he's not a particularly good defensive rebounder, only grabbing 17.7% of Defensive rebounding opportunities.  The only starting NBA centers that had worse Defensive Rebounding percentages last year were Nenad Krstic (16.0%), Roy Hibbert (15.5%), Darko Milicic (16.9%), Channing Frye (17.6%), and Andrea Bargnani (15.9%).  The bad thing with rebounding is its not something that improves too much over time.  Not many players have made the jump from poor rebounders to good rebounders.  And because of the way Spencer plays, its not likely he'll ever make that big of a leap in that department.

Lastly, Spencer is in the final year of his rookie contract, going into the season at the age of 22.  He hasn't really had a stellar season yet, although he's shown flashes of greatness, but that just means that Philadelphia would kill their future cap space even more if they opt to re-sign him at the end of the year, which could be costly if Spencer never pans out.

Both of these players are polarizing figures who will both excite and frustrate you at times.  It remains to be seen if the destination was worth the ride.  

For now I think the Kings won this trade, as it gets rid of their worst contract and provides them with the type of defensive and rebounding presence that they were sorely lacking last year, but depending on how Spencer Hawes grows as a player.

Some Spencer Highlights from this year:

Some Nocioni Highlights:

P.S. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments.