The regular season is fast approaching, and it has been a Kangzy preseason so far. The Kings played the Trail Blazers on Tuesday and lost with nearly the entire core of the team not playing.
Sacramento seems to either be super confident about how things are going to click once the regular season begins, or tanking already. They did not play Zach LaVine, Domantas Sabonis, Malik Monk, Ben Simmons, Darius Acuff Jr., and De’Andre Hunter in the loss against the Blazers. The Kings started Leaky Black, Keegan Murray, Precious Achiuwa, Nique Clifford and Elfrid Payton.
Murray played 19 minutes, finishing with 10 points and 3 rebounds. Achiuwa finished with 12 points, 11 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 steal and 1 block in 25 minutes. Jonathan Mogbo was an impressive +15 for the game, including 15 points, 10 rebounds and 4 assists. Mogbo seems to impress every time he is on the floor.
Clifford was 0-11 in 30 minutes, finishing with 2 points. Payton had 2 turnovers in 8 minutes. That’s it.
Following the game, Doug Christie really didn’t provide any clear reasons as to why so many players were held out. He mentioned “health, soreness, and workload.” Keep in mind, Damian Lillard, who is coming back from a left Achilles, played 23 minutes in the game.
Anyway, the last preseason game is Friday against the Spurs. We’ll see if the Kings can manage to put their team on the floor then.
Dylan Cardwell out two weeks
The Kings announced Tuesday that Dylan Cardwell has a left calf strain. He is expected to miss around two weeks.
The front court rotation just got even shorter with Maxime Raynaud already sidelined for a good amount of time.
Get well soon, Dylan.
Precious Achiuwa Hurt
To add to the list of injuries, Precious Achiuwa left Tuesday’s game with a right ankle injury, leaving the front court even more depleted. Achiuwa serves as a good comfort blanket at times for the Kings, settling things down with both solid defense and surprising offense. Let’s hope that injury isn’t too serious.
Draymond Green and Darius Acuff Jr.
In Saturday’s Sacramento Kings game against the Golden State Warriors, the camera panned to the sideline where Draymond Green was having a discussion with Darius Acuff Jr. Green shared what he was talking about recently. The talk was related to a possession in which Acuff was the only player on the Kings to touch the ball.
“I saw something in that game that he had the ball the entire possession. … My advice to him was just, ‘Hey man, you remember that possession? … Who else touched the ball that possession?’ He’s like ‘nobody’ and I was like don’t have many of those because you can end up having a bunch of those with the Sacramento Kings this year and a few things can happen, you can get guys start plotting against you, guys that don’t really wanna see you do well, guys that start bickering on the side to other guys… you can get guys that get upset like ‘ah man they wanna give this rookie this, they wanna do that, f*ck that!’ … And so, for me when I saw that, I just wanted to give him a little game about that.”
Following the game, Acuff was asked about the exchange and he said he agreed with Green.
“He was telling me read the game a little more. … He’s playing against, but he’s also watching the game, trying to teach me. I was listening to him. … I agreed with him.” He would later say: “It was good advice from him”
Interesting tidbit early in the rookie’s career. Acuff of course, has looked really good on offense, including his passing abilities, but Draymond, love him or hate him, brings up a fair point about dribbling too much and what that might do to a team if it happens too much. How Acuff operates on the floor is largely dictated, or at least should be dictated, by the coaching staff so it probably matters what Doug Christie has been saying to him in this regard and what sort of leash he is being given, and what learning experiences they are trying to instill.
The Kings need a legit franchise player though and so far the rookie is looking like that. He has plenty of time to learn how to operate on an NBA team and he seems like a good student so there is no reason to think he won’t be able to take lessons and implement them.
Coaching is vital here though, and let’s hope Christie is up for the task.
Kings sign Vikto Lakhin
On Wednesday, it was reported Sacramento has signed Viktor Lakhin to a non-guaranteed camp contract. The Kings had previously cut him, but with so many injuries piling up they are bringing him back for a stint.
Badge Legend