All respondents, keep in mind the legal repercussions of anything you post.

The team he's put together is fine. He's given us Childress (healthy or not), Al Harrington (fit or not), and our strongest roster since we returned from the grave. That the results haven't been there isn't necessarily the fault of Hudson.

Hard to complain about a roster of Cadee, Markovic, Carter, Thornton, Prewster, Childress (Harrington), Garlepp, Hill, Khazzouh, Brandt. Plenty of talent

Markovic is a solid basketballer. Cadee is a streaky scorer, sure. But he's NBL quality. Khazzouh is hardly soft as butter, and is one of the best bigs in the league. Jeromie Hill had a solid college career, but sure, maybe Kay is better, but I thought Hill was a good signing back then, and I still do now. I'm a bit puzzled that his minutes have dried up. Thornton is a 2nd round draft pick who has started to come around and has put together 2 fairly solid games. I thought his defense last night was actually pretty good, too.

Before the season, this team was picked by many here to be one of the best in the comp. It hasn't panned out, and I don't think that's Hudson's fault. I don't get the irrational dislike of Hudson to be honest, and I think it's about time people got over the whole Razorbacks 'thing'.

I don't care if Cotter had a say or not in the team he is coaching. He is a coach, not a general manager. That's how it often works. Some coaches may have a lot of input into their lineups, but at the end of the day a coach is paid to coach the team that the front office has put together. You can complain about Cotter/Heal/Moose decisions and I would probably agree given none of them have worked out (jury is out on Cotter so far), but it's not like there is a wealth of head coaches out there waiting to be picked up.

"Before this season, weren't the Kings one of the favorites???"

Like last season, when the Crocs were one of the favourites after performing well in the Blitz?

Conklin had his best season last year with Markovic not playing much, so I'm not sure that's. great example, however I agree he should be playing more for the Kings if he is fit.

The team put together is probably the worst defensive team in the last 8-10 years, they're like watching an old-school NBL team. Recruitment is a big part of that, but Cotter's coaching has to be a lot better too.

Last night Melbourne just relentlessly put Khazzouh and Cadee/Thornton in on-balls and their efforts to guard them were embarrassing, putting Sydney into rotations withut even really having execute the on-ball properly.

Yet Cotter kept Khazzouh guarding Kickert, who just toyed its him and effectively left the Kings a defender short on numerous possessions and Jules sailed harmlessly past on a shot fake. There was no way Sydney could win that game with the defensive plan they had.

Cotter needed to mix up his match-ups, switch more away from the ball, match-up zones, get Khazzouh on a non-shooter, put Thornton on the SF and see if they get the ball in the post and if the have a post-up game or a passing game out of a double. As it is, we just wait for Childress to inject a bit of heart into the team.

Markovic is not being used as a PG. He's playing off the ball and struggles to get involved. I guess that's Hudson's fault though, because Cotter didn't sign Markovic.

Did people really tip the Crocs to be one of the top teams though?

Kings were fancied on paper regardless of Blitz results.

Whatever issues Markovic had in Townsville are with him in Sydney. Cotter might've expected more from that signing. If Garlepp isn't feeling the love, that's somewhat on Cotter.

Khazzouh's been decent in the games I've seen. You can still get a lot from a scoring big regardless of their defence, though I imagine it depends on the players around them.

The sad thing is that Cotter is probably going to lose his job over a roster that he had virtually zero input into and that's desperately unfair.

The sad thing is that Cotter is clearly out of his depth, and some Kings fans think he's doing a great job.


Hudson gave us a competitive roster even without Childress , yet somehow Cotter has turned it into a complete joke. I wonder what the atmosphere in the Kings FO is like? It can't be great, especially when during a game the coach gets heckled, by intoxicated upper management.

That heckling is a tradition, isn't it?

Maybe some folks at the Kings should remember how many coaches said no to them last off-season and act in a way that might attract quality candidates when the job is next up for grabs?

"Do most NBA coaches pick their players?"

Most, if not all the coaches Cotter is against do, so he is at a disadvantage. That doesn't excuse the way they are playing by any means, but it is a factor.

Chris,

You don't have a competitive roster.

Cadee and Garlepp aren't starters on championship winning teams. Would both be good as the first guard and first big off the bench. But that's about it.

The fact that Olgivy, Ellis, White, Hill and Weeks are playing with confidence and shooting well for other teams, tells me Cotter has no idea.

With the current roster, Kings should be in the top 4 (Childress or not).

What is Cotter's record since coming in? Something like 12 Wins, 27 losses is just not good enough.

^^ Ellis playing with confidence and shooting well?

20% FG

What's Ogilvy's form got to do with Cotter?

Yeah, unfortunately can't say that about Cody, but when you see the likes of White actually shooting and making shots, you know your team is playing badly against them...

There's a bit of truth in most of these comments... Cotter didn't pick this team, fair enough, that's got to work against you, and a few players probably aren't up to scratch, but they'd be your 9th and 10th players, you should be able to work with a core of the talent that they've got... It's also not entirely balanced either, but he's not showing any imagination or gift to subbing or match ups or plays... That's on him...

The injury to Chill had a huge impact, but also so did not starting pre-season training until a month or so after other teams had already started theirs and those are teams that were mostly unchanged (Perth, Cairns), you'd think that with most of a new team, you'd want them working together as soon as possible... They're still not gelling as a team now, I wonder why?

Cotter is clearly outmatched and out of his depth, which is just highlighting all the other things that are wrong with the team... It sucks, but he can't just blame the players like he did after the last home game, and he needs to cop some of the responsibility as he hasn't done his job, either...

Ownership and front office are still a frigging case of nutbags... Is Dunny heckling Cotter now as well? His mid-game drunken stoush with Hammer was obvious, but I didn't know that he had stooped to doing that to Cotter as well, and is a major issue with the below being so very true...

Ultimately there's a very good reason great coaches like Rob Beveridge and Brian Goorjian looked at this organisational setup and said thanks but no thanks to being part of it. Paul touched on it - there's a certain reputation that franchise has earned over the past five years.

The whole Bevo thing before Cotter was weird as I remember reading after the Kings saying that they'd gotten in touch or something with him, that someone posted that they'd heard that Bevo hadn't heard anything from them... The whole set up is one of the most unprofessional arrangements I've seen, and it says a lot that budget on player spending aside, Bevo would pick the mess that was the Hawks organisation over the Kings... Have we heard anything about owners or management meddling with Bevo or the Hawks this season? No... Because they saw common sense and somehow convinced Bevo that they wouldn't muck things up again and have since stayed out of his way (at least as much as hasn't been obvious to the general public).

I said it so many times before we signed Cotter... Great coaches can pick and run their own teams and the owners don't need to do anything... They bring quality players with them and are a drawcard to building an even more quality team... Cotter was supposed to have a relationship with Mitch McCarron, coaching him with U19 at some stage? Where's he now? averaging 8ppg or something overseas when he could be a standout in the NBL and building towards a bigger OS pay cheque... But there wasn't that potential to be developed with Cotter to be able to do that, so he's overseas already... If Cotter was able to bring quality players to the Kings, surely they would have been picked over the couple of duds that people are complaining about?

I'm not saying the players are innocent in all this, their lack of effort, as a Kings fan, is really disheartening, but that all stems from problems higher up in the team food chain...

Who would be better coaching options though? There's no-one around like a Bevo that the Kings could just give the reigns to, surely? Especially with the Bullets coming back next season? Could they draw Matt Nielsen early from a Wildcats assistant role? He's inexperienced as a head coach, but pretty much Kings royalty, could no doubt bring some talent in, and work with our bigs to give them some fracking backbone...

Someone on Ozhos mentioned Mick Downer, but who else is around? Could they get someone in that can bring in talent for next season already? Lock someone in along with the coach? Let them set up next season already if this is a write off?

What are you on about, Jumpshot?

Ellis has been terrible this season, Hill has rarely made it on the court, White is playing no differently than he has the last couple of years, and Weeks was only unearthed by Wollongong due to injuries to Lische and Martin.

Without Childress, the Kings would barely crack top 4. It's a very competitive comp this season with Townsville and Adelaide finding ways to salvage wins and every team (apart from perhaps the Breakers) getting better on paper.

Not that I mean to vindicate Cotter, but you've made a pretty poor argument apart from stating his record as coach.