Knix might have gotten a bit lucky.
I think we wanted KO'Q back but he wanted to Win elsewhere.
In his place we got Vonleh who is 5 years younger.
Maybe we would have picked up Vonleh anyway, but if KO stayed you lose a roster spot for one of Trier/Dotsun/Mitch. And maybe fewer mins for Vonleh, if we brought him in.
KOQ has played sparingly for IND.
The two fill-in games in which he got over 12 mins he played quite well. 12 Pts on 6-11 FG / 10 boards 2 of each assists/blocks/steals in
27 mins recently v. ORL. I saw half that game and O'Quinn the mighty eskimo looked spry.
3rd game of the season he had a 16 & 8 2 blocks and a steal game in 19 mins.
I thought KOQ was a great lockerroom guy and held the team accountable on D and made things friendly and fun.
But our lockerroom seems just fine. Despite a lot of positional competition, guys seem to root for each other and get along well. Kanter seems one of the fulcrums of team disposition now. And Fizz.
Maybe an emphasis on D has sipped a bit. Mitch certainly tries but goes for fakes and is foul prone. Vonleh a stout defender but also foul prone at times. I liked how KOQ would make hard fouls, which send a message. Now we foul a lot but they're often dopey minor fouls. Sometimes way out on the floor or away form the ball. At least our foulers are mostly guys trying to play defense hard (include Franc in that).
Anyway, seems that we didn't need KOQ and neither does IND apparently. But he's a good solid bench player. he might have just gone to the wrong team.