Update: 7:30 p.m.
The Sacramento Kings lost to the Minnesota Timberwolves 117-103. The Kings fall to 6-20 and are in 14th place in the Western Conference.
Zach LaVine left for the locker room during the game with a left ankle injury. Dennis Schroder returned from his injury absence and scored 17 points off the bench in 25 minutes. Keegan Murray played 39 minutes and while he had trouble shooting (3-11), he had 8 rebounds and 5 blocks. It would be nice to see Keegan score a lmore consistently, but his defense is very valuable. It is difficult to ignore that he is shooting just 25% from three this season though.
Maxime Raynaud started the game strong, but cooled off, finishing with 8 points and 6 rebounds in 26 minutes. Precious Achiuwa played well off the bench, finishing with 17 points and 6 rebounds in 27 minutes. Achiuwa knows his role and plays smart basketball. Someone who needs to define his role is Nique Clifford. He played 13 minutes and finished with 1 steal and 1 turnovers. Clifford shows flashes of his versatility at times, but disappears a lot. This roster and its massive problems doesn’t help.
This team does not play like a cohesive unit in pretty much any form of the game. But hey, the tank continues to get stronger.
From Earlier Preview:
For the apparently hundredth time already this season, the Kings are facing the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Kings actually won their last matchup with the Timberwolves in what was one of the more entertaining games of the season, coming back from 10 points with under three minutes left to win in overtime.
Who: Sacramento Kings (6-19) at Minnesota Timberwolves (16-9)
Where: Target Center, Minneapolis, MN
When: 4:00 PM PT / 7:00 PM ET
Watch: NBCSCA / League Pass
Sacramento’s injury list is fairly sizable for tonight’s game. Along with Domantas Sabonis, who has been out for several weeks already, the Kings will also be without Drew Eubanks, leaving rookies Maxime Raynaud and Dylan Cardwell as the Kings only active centers. The Kings will also likely be without Dennis Schröder who has missed the last several games with a hip injury. Keon Ellis is also listed as questionable.
The Timberwolves will be without Mike Conley for sure, but also list Anthony Edwards as questionable. Edwards being out would be good news for the Kings, as they haven’t had an answer for him this season. In the three previous matchups this season, Edwards has averaged 33 points on 49.2% form the field and 37.9% from three.
Even if Edwards shouldn’t play, this is going to be a tough matchup against a Wolves team that has a huge size disparity at almost every position. The Wolves are going to be able to play very big lineups, and it’s going to be interesting to see how the Kings respond. I’m looking forward to seeing how Maxime Raynaud does when facing his countryman, Rudy Gobert. Maybe we see more of Max out on the perimeter, something he has only done sparingly so far this season.
As always, go Kings!
Facing Minny again on the road;
“Extra” game the league has bestowed.
The chances are good
We will lose as we should
With the Kings in full Vivek mode!
+1 How many times have we faced the TWolves this season?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Minny is the team I think will trade for Schröder. Their media and fans acknowledge that they need a primary ball handler next to ANT and Conley just doesn’t cut it anymore. They need help if they are to make a deep playoff run.
Dennis for Conley and Joan Beringer is my ask. Plus, the Kings can then of have the “French Connection” with Maxi and Joan as their future front court pairing If the Kings need to add a 2nd round pick to get Minny to eat Schröder and give up Joan, then so be it.
And Conley is an expiring deal, so that opens space for Ellis to get his extension!
Ellis would have to be a fool to sign an extension here, though. I’m sure he’d rather be a UFA and leave Basketball Hell.
I think you are right. It’s really the only logical reason he’s being benched. His camp may have already told the Kings he won’t sign the extension.
Well then maybe MONTA Ellis is available. He is only 40 and we could add him to our aging collection of guards.
Do you think Fox is having more fun being option 3 on San Antonio or would he prefer being Option 1 on the Kings?
He’s having more fun playing with better players and for a better organization.
Are you intimating that playing in Bball Hell is not fun?
Go Kings!
How soon until we see an injury report that shows:
Zach Lavine – OUT – being traded
Demar DeRozan – OUT – being traded
?????
New narrative alert. Doug Christie is not in an enviable position as a coach. Hey what’s up with the 1995 dial up speed with this website? Just asking -is this something that’s going to be fixed?
TKH now sponsored by AOL.
Everytime I login I think AOL dial up.
Even TKH can’t be bothered to care. The game previews and post game summaries are one article now as well.
And I don’t blame the folks running this site one bit. This franchise is no longer worth the trouble.
By the time this reply hits the server, the Kings will have lost another game.
Free the Croatian Coke Machine!
Dennis is Irascible and cantankerous says Jones. Alrighty then…lol
Watching DeRozan dribble the ball all the way down the floor and take a mid-range jumper just hurts my brain. I don’t care if he has the skills to pay the bills Jones.
Sad to see TKH so dead.
I missed the game for some family time, but yeah, Vivek and co. are killing this fanbase.
It’s almost hard to believe how bad our team and front office are.
And to top it off – as if the orchestrated gameplay and squandered resource management isn’t bad enough – the announcers are insulting our intelligence. Alas – I’m not laughing at their cringeworthy jokes – only at their tragic cluelessness.
I signed a lease to a new apartment unit before Thanksgiving and was moving this weekend. Spent the whole day today cleaning and unpacking while I binged Disney movies, and still not close to being done yet.
The loading of site being slow, comments not appearing refreshing/appearing in real time, adding comments being slow, even giving a comments a thumbs up being slow, has made me not as active here.
The content is still great, but the delivery is leaving a lot to be desired.
This.
Using this site has become frustrating.
Agreed. I’ve mentioned it before. Like the Kings front office, the TKH management doesn’t seem to think there’s a problem. It will be a 3-5 year rebuild.
Mark just said you can understand why Doug went with Precious over Cardwell tonight due to the formers play. This, as Kayte explained that there’s plenty of time to comeback. Lol. What a disaster…
“Precious remains imperturbable.” -Mark Jones.
I like Precious. At his age we should keep him. Plays hard and has a good IQ. Rebounds good and makes good decisions.
He seems like a guy they can sell high on to a playoff hunting team. If he stays in Sac, that’s fine. I like watching him play.
Agree, young , getting better and seems like a player that could be part of a rebuild and good team .
This organization takes all the fun out of fandom, if they were committed to tanking I would be enjoying these results. Instead I have to watch washed vets attempt to win games and worry they might start winning too many games.
Keegan’s trajectory has been off and slow for awhile now. Brown taught him to play defense but his offense has been regressing or stagnant since his rookie year, I don’t see the value or need for his extension. Maybe if it was a good deal but they paid way too much for a guy who shows no progress on one side of the floor. I’m fine with him continuing to shoot and figure it out but I would’ve let this year finish and then offered him a contract of fair value for what he has performed thus far. They rewarded potential that hasn’t been and may never be realized, foolish move. I’m all for a youth movement but not committing big money to guys that aren’t showing significant development and results right now.
Just popped in to wish everyone a merry holiday season and to officially announce I have never been less interested in, or less inspired by, the Sacramento Kings.
Old, boring and obviously no plan or clue about how to move forward.
But at least I am comforted by the fact that our most recent and equally clueless GM is telling us to be patient.
Dear fanbase,
Sorry we missed you all. We forgot there was a game tonight due to the addition to the schedule. We had already made arrangements for a Kings Management holiday party on the Delta King – one of the murder mystery kind. We love those, because so many of us figure out by the end whodunnit; and then we share high fives and an affogato. It was only when we saw the game on at the sports bar that we realized our mistake.
Figuring things out is so easy. Just like this team, and how we assembled so many all-stars on one team. The haters have been warned. It is time for a splendid uprising of our character, toughness, professionalism, discipline, accountability and team-orientation.
By the way, the bartender wanted to watch a rerun of real housewives of Las Vegas, so we never got to see the ending of the basketball game. We assume we won, but the purple big light thingy must not be working? We will have maintenance look at it tomorrow.
Sincerely,
Management
Big purple light update: maintenance says it is working fine but the bulbs have not been tested in a while. You should be seeing purple lighting in the skies soon. Scotty P tells us there is plenty of time to be “in the mix” for a play-in spot.
Outrebounded by 12. Out-3point-attempted by 14. 9 Kangz suited up, 6 of whom were guards. Its the same shit over and over. When does it stop?
Soon. IMO trades coming.
Tied for third worst record in the NBA! Keep the losses coming!
OT: the star treatment at the end of the PHX-LAL game was horrible.
The refs gifted that game to LAL. Early Christmas for LeBron.
Can someone explain how, in a game where LaVine left early because of an injury, Nique only played 13 minutes?
Can someone explain why, in a game where DDR played 39 minutes, Keon received a DNP-CD?
Can someone explain why, after a game where he worked hard and played decent (yes, even in garbage time), Carter got rewarded the next game with a DNP-CD?
I mean, I’m not even a Carter fan. But he got back from Stockton, played hard and disciplined and this is is the message the coach sends him in return?
Can someone here still state with conviction that Doug Christie is a good coach?
Does anyone want Christie anywhere around a young core in case of a true rebuild? Remember that also in rebuilds, a team will have some (expensive) veterans on the roster…
Perry needs to trade the vets to save Doug from himself. Just remove the options for Doug, and force his hand to play the young guys.
Doug has stated (to summarize) that he playing those guys because he is trying to win games…well, bud, that ain’t working. But he keeps trotting them out there. There is no consistent rotation, which players need to help them get familiar/comfortable with that unit on the floor. But in Sacramento, it’s just seems like they are pulling random names out of a hat at times to see who will be playing. Maddening!
You misspelled “it’s the owner”.
I can damn near guarantee that Vivek looks at the standings every morning and says, “See, we are only 4 games out of the play-in. Let’s keep plugging along!”
Chasing a play-in spot as a goal is truly setting your bar low.
Why not both?
We had some decent coaches during the Vivek tenure. Doug isn’t one of them.
Decent players too.
Your credibility is either completely destroyed—as it often is with former glory-day players—or you move on to greater success elsewhere.
I’m quite confident which outcome awaits Doug.
There’s no reason to believe the ball of incompetence has stopped rolling, and I look forward to the trade deadline revealing the new assets that are about to be mismanaged.
The crazy part of the lack of Doug’s consistent rotation is exactly what the last coach Mike Brown was doing. Its almost as though there is a hidden hand at work that is actually dictating who will play minutes and it has nothing to do with who the coaches are. Is Matina, in addition to secretly making all of the Kings personnel decisions, also secretly orchestrating the distribution of Minutes?
It’s funny how given what you stated, so many King’s fans “feel sorry” for DC. I don’t get that narrative. Dude is just a terrible HC thus far.
No, the Ellis minutes are unexplainable.
I have been a DC apologist all year considering the shit-show that is this franchise, but this ongoing crap with not playing Ellis is inexcusable and makes all of his comments about defense and culture absolute bullshit.
Bench LaVine and start Ellis going forward, otherwise DC and Perry are just spewing BS every time they speak.
I’m sure Kayte can explain this to you, but be prepared to be talked down to.
The FO and owner must love the away games. No chance for the fans to scream: “SELL THE TEAM.”
We need to get a chant played at Vivek’s mansion Say Anything style.
Read where LaVine goes to the Bucks for Kuzma, Portis, Anthony,Harris and an unprotected 2031 first. My question is are 3 of them(less Anthony) able to be traded? I like Anthony as a backup point guard but would do the trade of the other 3. Seems they would be either traded individually or one at a time. The 2031 first round pick would be a really good kicker.
That trade makes the Bucks even worse, imo. Maybe my opinion of Zach is lower than others. The dude isn’t a winning player. The Kings should do that deal in a heartbeat. Getting a draft pick AND moving on from LaVine?!?!?
The vivek special. Acquiring players who have no history of winning: Zach, Dennis, Monk, DDR, Sabonis.
I am perhaps a Schröder apologist, but there is no question that internationally he plays winning basketball, and has more NBA PO experience than most players on the Kings https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/s/schrode01/gamelog-playoffs/ (compare a similarly aged player/bigger “star” like Lavine https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/l/lavinza01/gamelog-playoffs/)
I get depressed thinking about the so-called rebuild on the horizon when I have zero confidence in Vivek, Perry, and Christie . Nice arena though .
My feeling exactly. It’s hard for me to judge Christie with this shit show of a roster. Perry has not impressed. I don’t have faith he’ll find a star in the draft. Vivek? What was it that Obama said about old Joe? Biden will find some way to fuck it up. Yeah, that’s how I feel about Vivek.
Sell the damn team, you f’n loser.
Hopefully the Kings “rebuild” includes the broadcast team. Kayte sucks the joy out of listening to color commentary. I don’t need a 3 possession commentary after the play-by-play guys says something about a player. Just give a quick thought and move on.
Games are much better when muted.
Lately the games are much better when not watched. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I was only able to tolerate 6 minutes of the first quarter of the first preseason game before deciding I’d better skip the games this season. Haven’t watched a minute of Kangzetball since, and I definitely don’t feel like I’ve missed anything.
Vivek sucks. Announcing team sucks.
I also chose not to renew my seasonal YT Tv sub because this team is worse than any group they’ve put on the court since 1985 and I have ZERO interest in watching an inadvertant tank with a bunch of over-priced useless vets collecting paychecks and sleep-walking through games while younger, hungrier, and better fitting players can’t get on the court to develop.
If they somehow trade all the vets and look towards the future, I’d tune back in.
Our broadcast team ,in my opinion , based on NBA League pass games would rank in about same spot as team. I am forced to mute when the game is interesting .
For De’Aaron Fox, the ‘grass is greener’….
.
https://andscape.com/features/for-deaaron-fox-the-grass-is-greener-with-the-san-antonio-spurs/
I’d imagine this is how all ex-Kings feel when they finally get the chance to escape Sacramento. Good for him.
I imagine this is how nearly every current Kings player feels looking from the inside out.
They should make a Netflix special “Grass is Greener- Surviving the Kings” and each episode would be of a player who leaves the Kings this year.
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