Domantas Sabonis had an incredible year in his first full season with the Sacramento Kings. He helped lead the Kings to 3 Seed in the West, ended the playoff drought, was named to the All-NBA Third Team, and finished 7th in MVP voting. Sabonis averaged 19.1 points, 12.3 rebounds (a league high), and 7.3 assists for the year. What’s more incredible is that Sabonis did all that while playing through a fractured thumb. That injury can cause players to miss a couple months, but Sabonis missed two games.
So the question now is how good can Sabonis be now that he’s fully recovered?
Astoundingly, Sabonis’ stats for the season as a whole are nearly identical (and in same areas better) than if you look just at the first 31 games before the injury. And yet we saw throughout the year that Sabonis’ thumb was still bothering him at times. As Domas now enters his Age 27 season, can he continue to improve? We’ve already talked about the importance of a reliable mid-range shot for Sabonis, but I also wonder if a healthy Sabonis can reach heights we haven’t seen yet.
Dame to the Bucks!
If you ask me, the winner of this trade is whomever gets Jrue Holliday,
He fits great with Miami, Phoenix and both SoCal teams.
Clearly the Blazers have zero incentive to do any wheeling and dealing with the Heat. And Jimmy Buckets is not happy about it at all. Ironically, JB accused the Bucks of tampering…lol
Heat did not have the right assets and lost Strus + Vincent who were somewhat assets.
Heat wanted something for not much.
I think the Bucks won.
yes. Dame to Bucks- ok, Bucks now East favorites. Blazers take a step back….maybe. Sometimes losing a dominant player opens up the rest. Scoot can Scoot, Ayton is a hidden asset. Numbskull but talented. Sharpe maybe ready and Simonds is solid.
They will not win much now but are poised for improvement
It is interesting that all these teams like the Bucks trade for stars and give-up first round picks- but those picks are not lottery. Look at OKC- have lots of picks but not many of super value.
Yes, the winner- at least temporarily, is the receiver of Holiday.
Too expensive for Kings- Kings have moderate salaries and Jrue has a high salary. And Blazers want future picks. and he is not a good fit with Fox.
The Mongoose seems to have a plan and a type- and Jrue does not fit in either way.
A team does not need super stars to win. Once a team wins, the best players are labelled super stars. Get them at the beginning- not the end.
To quote Siskel & Ebert: “Four stars.”
You better believe he can!
Divac, demanding the refs call a jump ball, wiping out a game-winning shot at the buzzer.
I think that the two surprises will be the mid-range jumper of Domas and the three-point shot of Davion.
He’s going to need to be better. He was the one piece to the puzzle the Warriors figured out to completely disrupt our offensive flow through 3 games to end our playoff experience. For us to get where we want to go he’s got to figure out how to dominate when the DHO is getting choked off and / or cutters aren’t getting clean looks and making shots.
duds focused on disrupting DHO- the heart of the Kings offense. But the Kings won first 2 games. DHO was blown up and cutters were chucked to prevent movement. Lots gets let go in playoffs.
The strategy was obviously more effective in games 3-5 but Kings won 6. and 7 – Kings ahead at half time. This was a close series
We could also say that the Kings blew up the duds triangle set along the sideline- just got in the middle and disrupted that.
Brown went with TD for too long in game 7- worried that Davion could not hit the 3. That’s a choice.
There are counters to all of this- the counters did not come in last years first series but will be developed throughout this year.
For one DS has to hit the mid-range to stop Looney-tunes from dropping back 5 feet and Davion has to hit 3’s.
I believe Sabonis comes into the year with a solid jump shot either from the top of the 3 or a nice midrange go-to shot. That GSW series spotlighted his weakness in this one element of his game. He knew what he needed to work on after the series. One does not get embarrassed on national TV like that, through 7 straight games, and then comes back without improving anything.
Badge Legend