There are many things I have tried and failed at. I have a harmonica somewhere at my parents’ house that I begged for at some and then never got past “Mary Had a Little Lamb” on December 26th. I have a litany of screenplays and short story ideas and poetry that are unfinished in boxes and random books around my house. I still can’t for the life of me figure out how to spell Director Whats-her-name’s name without throwing a random H somewhere in her last name. Gherwig. Gerwhig. Gaardamnit, I’m not even going to start with this. The point is, I’m not going to even try to contain how happy I am that Luka Doncic is this good of a player this quick, nor can I ever hope to contain the profound displeasure and annoyance I have with I management for whiffing on home run when they were spotted three bases and a baseball made entirely of cork. I’m not going to try something I know that I absolutely have no interest in correcting. I’m going to die, still mad about it.

So the Dallas Mavericks are in town as is one of the best young players in the modern NBA era. I’m excited to see him take play in Sacramento and I can’t wait to see his handsome, boyish charms fade from his stupid face at the hands of Sacramento’s mismanaged menagerie of talented individuals. The Kings are irredeemably stupid tools, but they’re still our irredeemably stupid tools. Gerwigh? Ugh. Let’s talk Kings basketball.

When: Wednesday, January 15th, 7:00 PST

Where: Golden 1 Center, Sacramento, CA

TV: NBCSCA

Radio: KHTK Sports 1140 AM

For Your Consideration

All My Exes: There is a Texas sized gulf between the records of the Sacramento Kings and the Dallas Mavericks and had we been discussing this prior to opening night, given the opportunity to wager on who had the better record at this point… I’d have lost my life’s savings placing that dough on the Kings. The Mavericks on paper just didn’t seem up to the task. Now ten games separate the Kings from the Mavs and it might as well be double. Outside of Luka and the very fragile Kristaps Porzingis, where was the scoring help coming from on a nightly basis? Fast forward to now and the Mavericks have the best offensive rating in the league and score the third most points per game and the only answer I’m able to come up with is “everyone”. EVERYONE helps carry the scoring load on a nightly basis for the Mavs. Doncic scores just about thirty a contest through wizardy and wonder, the Zinger chips in seventeen a pop and then are six men that score between 13.9 and 9 points a game. On any given night the Mavs scorer by committee leans on Tim Hardaway Jr., Seth Curry, Dwight Powell, Dorian Finney-Smith, J.J. Barea and Maxi Kleber to help score over 116 points a game. Those names don’t jump out on the page, they aren’t sexy picks for a bench but they are producing in Rick Carlisle’s system. A team with a 20 year old super star, a hobbled star and like, ten 9th men have worked themselves into the 6th seed of the Western Conference. My teeth have been grit down to a very fine powder.

Watch tonight for the Mavericks toss up a bunch from deep; they’re 2nd in the league in attempts and 8th in percentage at nearly 36.4% a game. They’re also 4th in the league in 2 point percentage at 54.5% a game, so.. just look for them to be scoring at a high clip. All this of course, when running and gunning right? Mmm no actually, they’re dropping all these points in only the 22nd fastest pace. All that scoring, all that fancy passing from Doncic and company has got to lead to plenty of turnovers right? No, no, they turn the ball over at the second lowest clip in the NBA. I’ve got to stop now.

Prediction

Kings twitter has their heart break just a bit deep tonight and shows it by eating each other alive, but slowly and with a big frown on their face and a tear in their eye. De’Aaron Fox gets himself a triple-double, Marvin Bagley III leads the team in shot attempts, doesn’t lead them in points and Grant Napear is insufferable in his justification of all this.

Kings: 114: Mavs: 112