Barring an injury-replacement selection, the Sacramento Kings will not be represented in this year’s NBA All-Star Game. Domantas Sabonis was snubbed, despite averaging 20.9 PPG, 14.5 RPG and 6.6 APG. De’Aaron Fox also was not selected, and while he’s had number comparable to other guards selected for most of the season, his recent inconsistency makes the exclusion more understandable.
Sabonis is a likely candidate to get a nod if another big man misses the game due to injuries, but it should have to come to that. Sabonis has had a much better season than Alperin Sengun, who got the nod on the back of Houston’s record.
Team success is an arbitrary standard that is inconsistently applied, and it often seems to me like a convenient excuse to justify excluding deserving players.
Ultimately I won’t be upset if Sabonis (and the rest of the team) can use All Star weekend to rest and allow their bodies to recover, but it costs Sabonis significant money in contract incentives, and it just sucks to see such a great player not get the credit he deserves.
Sengun got in. I guess winning does matter?
Pretty rough having the 3rd best record in the league and can barely scrape up 1 All-Star
Maybe Vivek can take him out to dinner instead.
Wing Stop. Oops, I forgot. We don’t do wings.
In ‘n’ Out. References Domas’s stats (double double), as well as our playoff run.
I got it: Raising Kangz.
“We don’t do wings”
KFC banned too
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/52612169/usa_today_9540851.0.jpg)
Raising Kangz is diabolical. Next TKH shirt please.
And Raising Canes is not good absolutely no flavor… sauces are decent but the chicken is just bad
Fox doesn’t like In ‘n’ Out, hence the coming trade.
Re-posting from the other thread:
If only this would work for the owner
Just to ruffle some feathers…
Domas is better than those 4.
A center with those numbers who could be in the damn 3 pt contest and still snubbed. Sacramento tax is real.
Leads the League in rebounds
Leads the League in double doubles
In Top 3 for 3FG%
Second in Triple Doubles
Oops! Plays for the Sacramento Kings

Now two years running! He got All-NBA last season, which is better, but still, should be both. Both years.
I thought the coaches vote for the Reserves. If so – what gives there?
I’d argue this is even worse than the Sac Tax because we saw Cousins get selected from much worse Kings teams while not doing nearly as much as Sabonis.
Happened last year, too. Domas still made All-NBA last season, and should again this season.
Did Sengun win the popularity contest over Domas?
I have less of a problem with the Sengun getting selected as I do seeing Harden get in. Norm Powell a better Clipper candidate, in my eyes.
People (rightly) beefing about Sengun, but given the way Jaren Jackson disappears when Sabonis is on the court, he’s ought to disappear from the roster, too.
Who cares about the ASG selections but JJJ and Sengun over Domas is laughable.
The NBA is a big popularity contest.
Am I surprised? No. Do I care? More than I would like. I know every player at the end of the day cares about stuff like this to a degree (cough cough all nba selection supermax). But we as Kings fans know how much better Sabonis is than the other bigs that got in over him and to see our guy snubbed year after year for someone not as good or with numbers that can’t hold up against him just sucks. Team wins is just an excuse as well. Lebron AND AD started last season while not even in the playoffs at the time. It’s BS. It is what it is. I’m not losing sleep. Just want Sabonis to get his recognition he’s been deserving 🙁
That looks like it would hurt.
Sacramento been getting snubbed 40+ years as an ASG host city. It’s better to just pretend Sac doesn’t exist for Adam Silver.
Sac literally doesn’t have the physical infrastructure to host something like that. Their vision from a few years ago of making up for lack of hotel rooms by docking cruise ships in West Sac was absurd.
I love my hometown and sing its praises wherever I travel, but it doesn’t have what’s needed to host. Hell, even Portland, which is slightly larger than Sacramento, hasn’t hosted. Also, much to my surprise from some quick Googling, Boston has never hosted either!
Why does an ASG require more hotel rooms than, say, a Taylor Swift concert?
Are there more people that would travel to Sac for an ASg than for a Taylor Swift concert?
Sure, there is some extra media…how many extra rooms for media? 500?
Doesn’t make sense to me. But I’m not claiming to be an expert.
Yes. It is a national event for the league and people travel from all over the country to attend. A Taylor Swift concert primarily draws from the local population.
I think this has to do with the lack of hotel space in Sacramento. Hard to believe that Sacramento hasn’t addressed this issue in decades. They’re losing out on getting other events too that could bring in a lot of money.
Have to take it up with the local developers, like . . .
Matina’s family.
Hmm . . .
I could see not wanting to spend hundreds of millions of dollars building hotels for people coming to town for an event that might be in Sacramento once every twenty years or so.
OT: So, I guess Collins and Ingram were involved with the Kings at some point?
Why the hell is the coach overruling the GM on trades? This isn’t the NFL for god’s sakes. Maybe this explains why Monte didn’t want to hold a press conference after Mike Brown was fired. You go through the time and effort to setup a deal and then the coach negates it. Crazy.
I mean, current numbers aside, there is a reason Collins was available for peanuts a few years ago. Basketball is not strictly a sport where you add everyone’s numbers together and automagically win.
And1 – why didn’t anyone talk about whether or not Mike Brown wanted John Collins before they made a deal for him?
cannonball … cannonball coming …
Apparently Collins or Ingram were choice A and B. DeRozan was signed two days after those deals didn’t work out. So DeRozan was plan C?
So…you’re saying we had a better trade, two trades ago?
Sounds like someone in the FO trying to burn the guy they just fired.
Oh no, I won’t watch the game now!
I pretty much never do, but I won’t be this year too! What will all those advertisers the game is really about do without selling me their garbage?
It’s been a shitty week to be a Kings fan.
Carry on.
It’s been a shitty
week month yearlifetime to be a Kings fan.Ain’t that the truth. Have a rec.
P.S. I remember going to games at the first ARCO, and with the exception of the early 2000’s it’s been one looooong shit show.
Maybe it’ll be better in the next life. That’s all I’ve got at this point.
Obviously they’re letting him rest for the 3 point shoot out.
Hali didn’t make it, either.
OH NO! WE BOTH LOST THE TRADE!!!
I guess the Sacramento tax never wears off.
The disconnect between the head coach and GM appear to be the basis of all the dysfunction since game 7 of the playoffs. Vivek: your GM and your coach need to be in the same page, so perhaps you should allow your GM to hire the coach. I get that the owner is consulted on those hires, but at the end of the day the GM and the coach are working together on a day today basis so they have to be ont the same page. This is not rocket science.
GM wanted offense, Coach wanted defense. As the offense got worse, and the defense stayed mostly the same, the record got worse.
8th in offensive rating, 17th in defensive rating this season. The offense has increased by about 5 points per game since Doug took over…and the record has increased as well.
The GM might have a point about going more offensively focused. Or it could be a fluke. What the hell do I know.
It makes me wonder how much of that led to Sasha not working out here. With as much hype for him to come over he was never really featured and given a pretty short leash. Obviously his defense wasn’t great but with the level of shooter he is/was you think you’d try to mask that a bit and make up for it with plays to get him shots. He just put up 45 a few games ago on 8-10 3s
Yeah i think coach brown ruined sashas nba career
I’ll never understand why anybody thought Sasha was going to be good. I remember watching his film from Europe when we acquired him and thinking, “this isn’t going to work in the NBA.” And it very obviously didn’t work in the NBA. He lacked the athleticism to compete and he wasn’t big enough to make up for it. I was saying that before we brought him over. It’s fine. He’s a great Euro league player but he just wasn’t up to NBA standard.
I wasn’t expecting him to come over and be what he was in Europe, but shooting is a skill that usually translates. I just don’t think MB wanted him and didn’t set him up for success when we always need shooting but would always have minutes for KH to stink it up. We’ve seen with Keon how another coach uses you can change everything for a player.
The athleticism issue is a major issue as well though. I felt the same with jimmer and his shot making, he just couldn’t keep up guards
I hate this narrative that coach brown wanted defense defense defense and then he actions were to give dnp to keon so he could play huerter and doug mcd…please stop
I am basing this off of what Brown has said publicly.
Coach said and acted like he wanted defense. His actions (Keon mins) said otherwise.
I agree. Actions speak louder. I was just pointing out what was said by both parties.
The team stinks and they got their coach fired. I feel bad for Domas but it’s not that surprising he didn’t make it.
I’m feel bad for Sabonis because we all see how hard he works and how consistent he is. Clearly better than JJJ and Sengun. With all the crap swirling around the Kings now it would have been nice to see him get this.
I don’t know how the Kings franchise recovers from the brutal, excessive and unrelenting pummeling its been taking from the media. Between the so called Kings expert Sam Amick to local podcasters, national sports writers and assorted talking heads, the attacks are over the top and seem driven to take the franchise down. Its like a tag team match where each of the take their shots in rotation. The tone and the relenteness of it is emblematic of the harshness and meanness so prevelant today in our world. As we read all this one side hammering of the owners, front office and now coach brown over supposedly blocking trades that might have helped our team, I am wondering where is the balance and fairness in the reporting and commentary, and what is their end game here other than burning the place down?
I’m wondering where the balance and fairness in running this franchise is.
LOL. Killing the messenger.
It is not as if they’re making this shit up.
If you want to complain about something, maybe it should be about how this inept franchise is running itself into the ground and giving plenty of topics fro the media to pounce on?
Facts, not attacks:
We have made the playoffs once in the last 18 seasons, in a league where greater than 50% of the teams make the playoffs every year. 12 of these seasons were fully under Vivek Ranadive’s ownership (8.3% success rate vs. >50% league-wide).
De’Aaron Fox is playing for his fifth head coach in 8 seasons.
The Kings fired Mike Brown months after giving him a $25M extension.
The Kings drafted Marvin Bagley over Luka Doncic.
I hate it, but you can see why we’re repeatedly clowned by the national media.
Y A W N
When you love something you can’t defend, you can always blame the media.
The franchise’s failures exist whether the media reports them or not. The media’s job is to report the facts, not to find a “good” story to counterbalance every bad one.
No offense, but this is a little like me telling my doctor that it’s her fault I don’t feel good, because every time I see her she says I’m sick.
You just need a different doctor, Carl.

The team has a bad owner and a bad front office and continues to be make bad decisions. They are criticized for these things. If they want to recover, they need to make good decisions. It’s really that simple. And not just one or two, but a sustained series of good decisions that lead to good results. That’s how it works.
I think the voters know ball and got it right. I can care less about stats, every team has players that put up numbers, someone has to. The bottom line is do you play both ways and do you win. The Kings win at a very average level, that should not be rewarded.
Yeah, I disagree. Domas helps the Kings win, relative to the performance of the talent around him. Only one player has a better on/off (net rating) differential, of the All-Star reserves selected:
Domas +5.6 when on the floor, +11.6 differential (on/off impact)
Edwards +4.3, +5.2
Wembanyama +3.4, +13.5 (this cat clearly deserves to be there)
Williams +9.6, -3.4
Sengun +8.0, +4.6
Jackson Jr. +9.8, +7.7
Davis +0.5, +3.9
No doubt, some of this is an issue with the low quality performance of the Kings bench. But I’d say that makes the team’s record (and Sabonis’ performance this season) even more impressive. He’s basically held this ship together, night to night.
Combine that with the overall stats, this is highway robbery.
I agree. And if his teammates were shooting better he would be close to averaging a triple double.
I think the snub is mostly a hangover from the bad GSW series he had. Which BTW that is a lot like what his PHI game looked like.
The thing about the Philly game, he and Monk were the only two who had a positive net rating for the game – the team outscored Philly by 1.1 points per 100 when they were on the floor (the team was outscored by an astronomical 85 points per 100 when they were off the floor).
So even in games where the eyeball test might look negative, he’s generally doing things on the floor to help the team win.
Yeah. I wrote that it was one of his worst games (he only took 6 shots!) but still his impact was undeniable.
However, that also has a lot to do with the massive dropoff to Lyles and Len.
No they didn’t and never let facts/stats get I the way of opinions .
The only other player to have a season average like Sabonis’ is Wilt Farking Chamberlain.
Nice bit on Keon in the Ringer League Pass Recs
I hate the ringer and everyone that works there(so I won’t click that link) but I’m happy Keon is getting the recognition he deserves!
OT: I recall an episode of “The Run” where Vivek recalls his conversation to Fox: ‘I have this new team, new arena – like a shiny new sports car; but I need someone to drive it. Should I give you the keys?’ And De’Aaron said, ‘I want the keys, give me the keys!’
My take – The Kings have made nearly all decisions based on the idea that De’Aaron wanted to be here, wanted ‘the keys’, and wanted to win as a King. Somewhere along the way (when Fox switched to Klutch) and the agent started setting up Fox’s future to get paid (and rightly so), Vivek now feels a bit betrayed. He gave him the keys, now the organization doesn’t feel he has the same desire to be in the driver’s seat – essentially, the same loyalty to the franchise that the franchise believes it shows to him. I think Vivek wants to meet with Fox for dinner to ask point blank: do you still want those keys?
I truly believe De’Aaron came to Sacramento as a very young man, wanting to change the environment, wanting to win, and maybe was blindly loyal in the beginning. He is now a father, and someone who better understands the business side of the NBA, and realizes this team has not done enough to win. Can’t feel sorry for making a human, business decision that benefits your family and livelihood above the organization you work for.
I suspect this will end akin to a mutual parting of ways.
So after Fox puts up a stinker and we get blown out by OKC, I wonder what his next trade demands will be.
Dumb.
X has the guy who posted Vivek dinner meet (SpuReporter)
says 4 Team Deal, San Antonio Spurs fans will be happy with De’Aaron Fox deal.
Says Teams NOT involved are:
Suns, Lakers, Blazers, Chicago, Nets
So much click bait – who knows what is real until we see Shams/ESPN report.
Sounds like a deal is imminent- Kings play tomorrow. We’ll see who’s sitting.
Terrible shame to see yet another Pelican out, as DeJonte Murray tears Achilles – out for a long while, at least this season.
Ingram, Zion, DeJonte have not played one game together.
Badge Legend