Thanksgiving break is sadly coming to an end. I hope we can all look back on this time with fond memories made with family and friends. And if not that, at least we can all relish in the fact that the Kings beat the Lakers. Before heading back to the grind on Monday, we had one last chance to enjoy some Kings basketball this afternoon as the Kings took on the Memphis Grizzlies. Memphis was without their star point guard, Ja Morant, who is resting a knee injury, but I didn’t expect this to be an easy game by any means. It is still the Sacramento Kings we are talking about after all. Let’s all soak in the last few hours of the long weekend, finish those leftovers, and see how the Kings did:
Quick Stats
Outcome: Kings lose, 128-101
Sacramento Kings: 101 pts, 34.0% fg, 21.4% 3 pt, 70.3% ft, 17 ast, 49 reb, 8 to
Memphis Grizzlies: 128 pts, 48.1% fg, 33.3% 3 pt, 75.0% ft, 30 ast, 68 reb, 9 to
The Kangz are back and ruining my life. This game was painful. Memphis pulled away early, gaining a 13-point lead by the end of the first quarter, and never looked back. The Kings responded to the punch in the gut by rolling over and letting the Grizzlies walk right over them for one of their most embarrassing losses of the season so far. The Kings got glaringly outplayed in every category except the one extra turnover that the Grizzlies had – but even then, that could be attributed to the Grizzlies just having more energy and moving the ball around more which resulted in one extra mistake. Five Grizzlies players finished in double digit scoring, led by Dillon Brooks’ 21 points. De’Aaron Fox never touched the floor in the second half, and we saw Damian Jones (6 points), Louis King (12 points), and Jahmi’us Ramsey (6 points) all get extra time on the floor.
The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly
The Good
- It’s Over: The only good thing about this game is that it was an afternoon start so I am able to make it to my dinner plans on time.
The Bad
- A Sunday Wasted: I hope you practiced some self kindness and relieved yourself from your fandom duties for the day. You deserve so much better than this. If, like me, you spent your Sunday afternoon watching this garbage, all I can say to you is: I’m sorry and get some help.
The Ugly
- This Team: The thing I loved so much about the win over the Lakers, aside from the fact that it was a win over the Lakers, was that the Kings showed consistent fight and an insistence on being respected. But all that fire, all that fight, all that flow, was completely nonexistent tonight and the Kings lost all respect they earned from their past two hard fought wins. No matter which five guys Alvin Gentry tried to put on the court, (and he really tried, playing all 12 available Kings), the defense was consistently atrocious and the offense never produced any successful flow. The lack of visible leadership, accountability, or just straight giving a damn on the court is disheartening to see as a fan. If the guys on the court don’t even care about being embarrassed, why should we?
The King of Kings
Two crowns go out tonight to Mark Jones and Kayte Chritensen for being professional, eloquent, and analytical throughout the entire game. They traveled all the way to Memphis to call this game and maintained a level of professionalism through the entire thing that I clearly could not emulate. As Kings fans in the middle of this storm, we are lucky to have them as reliable anchors who always show up and do their job well.
Up Next
Tuesday, November 30th vs. Los Angeles Lakers – 7:00 P.M. (PT)
Fire the entire franchise.
No, just change the name from Kings to Democratically Elected Representatives, and maybe that will produce better results, and stay consistent with whatever Vivek’s Basketball 3.0 means.
Or maybe change the team name to something lower to make us feel like overachievers, like the untouchables, or dung beetles, or you could go with a collective noun like “amoebic dysentery”, and that courtside fan who upchucked on the court could be the mascot.
Make the players fly home coach on Southwest, with three stops.
And check them in just a few hours before takeoff, so they board in the “C” group.
Southwest is too nice for this crew. Try spirit airline, and charge them $500 flat fee for every item requested, from every cube of ice to napkins. Make them sit by the engine and bathrooms, preferably the middle seat with drunk people and crying infants. Make sure their luggage get routed to the east coast so it takes them forever to locate them. Instead of listening to the flight crew and the captain give announcement, make the kangz players apologize to the customers for their lack of professionalism and beg the kids give more efforts than them in school.
It looks like something the chicken did?
Send a message by benching some of the starters
This game is not worth a comment!
But that’s a comment.
Another embarrassing loss. This team has no identity. Fox seems overwhelmed leading a team at the moment and unable to find a way out of his shooting struggles. Fox has just played himself out of the untradeable category to me but I do think he’ll find his groove eventually. Hopefully sooner than later.
Enough games like this and maybe the FO-Owner will allow for the right thing—a rebuild.
And I’d like to see Gentry get players to improve-do certain things on court.
Like Hali shooting-always. 4 or more 3 balls to begin with. or Davion attacking more. Etc etc. Actually help them
improve.
The sooner this team
gives up this idiot quest for the play-in the faster youngsters can develop.
You’re giving Vivek WAY too much credit. He’s the most incompetent owner in professional sports. He has no idea how to run a sports franchise. And he has the final say in everything this team does. We’re screwed.
Yeah, I don’t think Vivek will actually back off but decided to pretend to believe it might happen so I could experience what Hope feels like with one’s NBA team
How dare calling this team out for having no identity?! They suck and suck the souls out of their fans and basketball gods is their identity!
Good call. I think you hit on the King’s new name. Soul Suckers
Tristan Thompson has made the entertainment press a few times for his exploits in clubs (based upon his spouse). Seems like he enjoys the Kardshian fame from time to time (which is fine). He’s stuck in Sacramento with its nightlife.
So, Tristan showing out for the locals in other cities makes sense.
As do the road / home splits eventually flipping in the second half as the off the court grind wears him down
I feel like TTs god-awful free throw shooting was a big reason that Memphis pulled away in this one. It felt like hack-a-Tristan was a sound strategy.
Other than just shooting 3 balls, what else does the team know to do for their offense ?
In contrast, the Grizz plays easy ball, set a screen for mis-match, and feed the ball to their bugs against Kings’s small, and score the basket with ease.
Really disappointed with the effort, defense, offense.
The passing game is so uninspiring in theory and delivery. It’s like they just opened the chapter on passing in their textbooks and they are still trying to learn the vocabulary of it all.
A bounce pass should bounce between you and your teammate, do not aim for your teammates toes, that would be bad.
The life of a Kings fan is complaining about a loss against a team you’re “supposed” to beat even though there literally zero teams in the league that you can consistently defeat.
The only teams the Kings can beat consistently are Detroit, Orlando, Houston and NOP. The first 3 are trying to lose, wanting to lose to the Kings and the last just can’t help itself. When Zion gets back, that bet is off.
And OKC? another team trying to lose? Kings can’t consistently beat them at all. Right now the serious tankers will finish below (above in their view) the Kings: OKC, Detroit, Orlando, and Houston. The bad teams but not explicitly tanking- SAS and NOP may do the same. That leaves the Kings at #7 from the bottom and minimal hope of getting to the 10th seed only to lose and be eliminated. To get to 10th, need to finish above 5 teams in West- Houston, OKC, SAS, NOP and who?
Tanking usually requires trading current assets for future assets but the current assets are not worth much future assets. Honestly, I think they are stuck unless they trade what they got for pennies on the dollar and hope for luck in the lottery. None of the lousy teams want any of the Kings assets so the future picks are all around #25-30 which are usually terrible. The only advantage is to just try to lose more than those who are far more committed to losing. Stuck, like the guy who rolls the rock up the hill.
I think the last time I actually thought the Kings might be good was with Malone. I can’t think of a time since that has inspired any hope of a good team. Maybe with Joeger and 2 pick before the draft.
I had hope after the end of Joerger’s last season considering they were actually a few games above .500 by March before fizzling out at the end. Then unfortunately right when the season ended my hopefulness ended when they canned Joerger and replaced him with Lose Walton, who I knew was a bad hire the second I heard he got hired.
Other than that, the only other time I had hope in Vivek’s tenure was the start of Malone’s second season until he got fired. Funny how Vivek will blow things up when the team is actually appearing to turn a corner but also let bad hires and signings continue to fester and run things into the ground for so long before doing anything about it.
It’s Lose Alton, no Ws
This never gets old…always makes me smile after a shitty game.
Disagree on the anchors
Im not really that embarrassed by the players, they are only a reflection of the fact that management doesn’t know jack squat about running a franchise. I am embarrassed by Vivek “Montgomery Burns” Ranadive. As the Kings’ owner, his constant meddling in affairs that are below his pay grade is truly disheartening, and its time to get some grass root movement together to impeach him.
Tank for Chet.
Anybody planning on seeing him when Gonzaga visits UOP?
Hey, the Kings only lost by 27. I thought they might lose by 45.
If Gentry really want to push the pace…then he should play more Rasmey.
Look at fast Ramsey react to those loose ball, he waited no time to run to the front court

Also, Ramsey can finish some tough basket, and not afraid to drive in
He carried the ball twice but officials did not care by that point of useless game ! If Ramsey is the solution than there is no hope !
Hi Kings Herald people, are y’all ready to write that potentially painful article about Fox yet?
Nah, keep hoping that Bagley might actually turn in to something good. Hope is eternal or something like that I guess
Sending something to the writers….. but I would like to rock a Kangz shirt that has a pic of a single fan hunched over in his chair with puke on him. That guy is basically our mascot for a while.
Badge Legend