Can the Kings afford to start KZ Okpala?

Lets just start with a caveat: its preseason. Not only that, it’s just one game in the preseason. Even more: it’s the first game of the preseason.

THAT BEING SAID, according to Mike Brown, the battle for the other starting forward spot next to Harrison Barnes is wide open. And while it is preseason, it’s not too early to start combing through the data and film to parse out systemic issues from the general lack of refinement that comes with offseason rust and new teammates. Let’s also dispense with the idea that starting does not matter; it absolutely does. Starters play the heaviest minutes against the opponent’s best lineups, with the team’s best players alongside them. It changes both matchups, lineups, and the overall flow of the game.

Starting absolutely matters.

So far, KZ Okpala has pole position to grab the starting spot. Not only is he practicing mostly with the first unit, but he also started Monday’s preseason game against the Los Angeles Lakers. So what does the first game tell us about Okpala’s fit with the rest of the starters?

Lets start on defense. Okpala is probably the most versatile defender on the roster. At an athletic 6’8 with a 7’2 wingspan, blessed with terrific lateral quickness and fluid hips, Okpala can defend nearly every position on the court. His first task was to check LeBron James. Okpala was quickly physical with James, picking him up in the backcourt and applying significant pressure whenever LeBron had the ball.

He gets called for the foul here but I love the physicality. I am a big believer in a defender making himself physically known to his mark early; it throws off an offensive player’s rhythm, and as a result even routine actions become harder. James had a game to forget, going 0/7 from the field with only 4 points in his 16 minutes of gametime. Is that preseason rust or Okpala’s defensive pressure? I’d like to say its both.

Okpala’s versatility really stands out. Here he is picking up the 6’11 Anthony Davis, with Davis settling for a contested jumper:

And here, Okpala picks up the 6’1 Patrick Beverley, cutting off the drive and any advantage to the rim, forcing the offense to look elsewhere to create a shot.

This versatility makes him particularly useful in a switching scheme. Barnes had himself a very solid defensive game as well, and next to the like-sized Okpala they can just switch to erase pick-and-rolls.

James and Davis are one of the most lethal pick-and-roll combinations in the league, and they try to create an advantage here with a simple ballscreen. A lot happens in this clip within a few seconds, but the main takeaway is that Barnes and Okpala erase this action completely. First, they switch the initial screen and seamlessly switch back in the blink of an eye while LeBron surveys the court. Davis then flips his screen to keep testing the defense but Okpala and Barnes cleanly switch again. No advantage is created and LeBron looks for offense elsewhere. That’s the power of switching ballscreens with versatile, like-sized defenders, and Okpala is the best on the Kings’ roster.

Okpala is also a good rebounder willing to mix it up in the paint, but also is unafraid to push the ball in transition himself after securing the ball. Here, he grabs the errant pass and brings the ball up the court, which leads to a wide open three for Kevin Huerter.

His defense isn’t perfect. He’s still only 23 years old, so he’ll make occasional mistakes due to his youth and hyperaggressive style. Here, he unnecessarily fouls Lebron on a three pointer to give up three free throws.

However, offense is the biggest question mark for Okpala. He’s not completely useless; he’ll hit the occasional three, and he has a good feel for cutting without the ball. Here he sees his defender dig into the paint to help in the post, and cuts to the rim on his defender’s blind side:

But unfortunately, the reality is that teams just won’t defend him on the perimeter, even if he does shoot a decent percentage from three. In Monday’s game, he was 0/2 from three, so not only did the Lakers muck up the Kings’ spacing, but they also were not punished for doing so.

Compounding this, teams will sag off of him to offer help in the paint.

There are teams that can get away with Okpala’s lack of floor spacing. I’m not sure the Kings are one of those teams. For one, their starting point guard is De’Aaron Fox, who teams will also leave wide open to shoot threes from the perimeter.

That tends to have a compounding effect on the offense as a whole.  The Kings’ main playmakers, Fox and Domantas Sabonis, rely on rim pressure to create offense for teammates. With Fox and Okpala both on the court, Sabonis found very little room to operate in the paint, ultimately taking only three total shots in his 15 minutes. Sabonis isn’t just the Kings’ best passer, he’s an important scorer; last season, he scored 19 points per game on .637 TS%, which are elite marks. The Lakers are a particularly big team with the 6’11 Davis and 7’1 Damian Jones patrolling the paint, but Fox and Okpala did not make things easy for him.

Okpala’s unreliable shooting also puts more stress on the two shooters in the lineup (Barnes and Huerter) to hit their threes. On Monday, Barnes and Huerter went a combined 1/6. Add Fox’s 0/3 and Okpala’s 0/2, the Kings got almost nothing from the three point line. Beyond the benefits of spacing, three point shooting is also in and of itself an important source of offense in the modern game, and the Kings got almost nothing from the perimeter against the Lakers.

Now, Barnes and Huerter aren’t going to go 1/6 that often. And Fox and Okpala will contribute occasionally with their threes. That’s just the nature of shooting variance. But there will be games where the “perfect storm” of nobody hitting threes will happen, and when you have Okpala in the lineup, the chances of “perfect storm” happening will go up.

So what are Mike Brown’s options here? The obvious alternative is Keegan Murray, who is coming into the league as an NBA-ready three point shooting threat and moves intelligently off the ball. Defensively, Murray has solid tools himself at 6’8 with enviable fluidity. And he would turbocharge the offense because, as shown in Summer League and against the Lakers, he can create offense himself just as well as he fits in next to the Kings’ main threats.

But he’s just not as good defending on-the-ball as Okpala, and, as a rookie, he’s going to make more defensive mistakes. There is a certain logic to playing a low usage roleplayer like Okpala next to four offensive-minded threats in Fox, Huerter, Barnes, and Sabonis. It would also send a message that defense is a priority for this team. Murray is almost certainly going to be the longterm starter, but in the interim as he adjusts to the league, Okpala makes sense.

Brown has an important decision to make here and there is no easy answer. That being said, the options definitely trump what the Kings had last year at the position, where the epic training camp battle featured Mo Harkless, Marvin Bagley, and Chimezie Metu. There’s still time before the regular season starts, but this remains Brown’s most consequential decision to make.