Kings vs Celtics Preview: As Luck Would Have It

The Sacramento Kings are playing… again. De’Aaron Fox is questionable with ankle soreness, the Celtics are fully healthy and, if you’re living on the best coast, this game starts while most of you are wrapping up work and commuting home from it. A tender mercy if ever there was one.

You’ll come to see if this is the game the Jason Tatum/Jaylen Brown pair gets torn asunder forever, but you’ll stay to see if the De’Aaron Fox/Tyrese Haliburton tandem has played its last game!

It’s 15 days till the trade deadline, baby and everything is on the table!

When: Tuesday, January 25th, 4:30 PM PT

Where: TD Garden, Boston, MA

TV: NBCSCA – Kyle Draper (play-by-play)

Radio: KHTK Sports 1140 AM

For Your Consideration

Luck of the ‘I Wish’: This is just a little public service announcement from someone who cares about your well-being. I’m sure most of you have a Twitter account by now, just so you can keep up with the slow rolling destruction of the world as we know it, and if you did, you probably saw the person I’m about to mention. For those of you who are smart (aka without an account) there was a freelance sports writer slash fan of the Celtics who got some heat yesterday for posting a scenario that basically boils down to Brad Stevens, in all his demanding glory, calling up the Kings and saying they want Tyrese Haliburton and Harrison Barnes but Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and the Timelord himself, Rob Williams, are all off the table. He finished with a very sweet, very delusional “How can we make this happen?” Now, we all got a fair amount of deserved punches in, and the guy definitely doubled down instead of just admitting he doesn’t watch teams outside of Boston, but I have to remind everyone here – we do the same amount of bullshit as a franchise. I’m not trying to downplay the man being stupid, I’m just trying to say I’ve seen people in our own fanbase, some fairly prominent ones who overvalued our guys and undervalued others outside the league to the point of true and tangible second hand embarrassment.

As we head into the trade deadline, there’s going to be a lot more reports swirling about availability and asking price and emotions will run high when you hear your favorite player might be involved in a deal with another team. Get annoyed, get grumpy, go through the whole five stages of grief for the things not yet come to pass… but when you get to the bargaining stage, would you please try not to embarrass yourself as much as that guy did. I like you too much to be cringing and scrolling quickly by your rant on how you wouldn’t trade Buddy Hield for Kevin Durant.

About the game tonight: Boston has the 5th best ranked defense in the league and struggles to score and hold onto big leads. They’ve had a disappointing year in Boston and they’re still sitting square at the .500 mark. Must be nice.

A Thing To Read, Watch, or Do

Read Tom Ziller’s “Can You *Really* Build Around De’Aaron Fox and Tyrese Haliburton” 

This might be a little less about the article itself and more about the Zillgod in general. There’s some things in here that I’d generally disagree on – mostly that Kings fans just want the team to be good enough to get into the play-in game. But outside of that I think his discussion on the difficulty of threading the needle on the Fox/Hali backcourt is spot on. No, I don’t think it’s time to give up on them, but I do think that anyone not allowing that consideration into their mind is a bit behind.

Ziller being a proud ex-fan of the Kings used to fascinate me when I was much younger and much, much dumber. The man shaped much of my existence today as both a fan and a writer and to see him abandon his chosen team was legitimately hard to hear way back when. Now? I completely understand and even at times consider loud and in the open about pulling away, becoming a fan of the NBA in general, sitting in the virtual stands looking like Rob Lowe in his NFL cap. Ziller is the Andy Dufresne of the Sacramento Kings fandom in that, I have to remind myself that some birds aren’t meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. Yes, even with Ziller there was this part of me that knows it was a sin to lock him up to just one team – his success since backing out of the fandom has been pretty remarkable. And, yes, the place we all live in is that much more drab and empty now that he’s gone… But I have to say, the allure of skipping out on this franchise, to pull back and love them all, grows stronger every year. Strong enough now that I certainly ‘skip bail’ so to speak and watch an OKC game over the Kings.

Ziller’s been right about much over the years and I can’t help but think more and more, he’s right on this one too.

Prediction

Tyrese Haliburton nabs himself a triple double. Jaylen Brown pulls a Buddy Hield and begs the Kings to take him back to Sacramento. The random blogger we talked about weeps when it’s just for Buddy, Bagley and a protected first because his glorious GM is a rube.

Kings: 121, Celtics: 111