The Sacramento Kings are facing the New Orleans Pelicans tonight. The Pelicans are on the second night of a back-to-back, and are missing key players to injuries.
Yep, the Kings are doomed.
When: Sunday, February 5th, 4:00 PM PT / 7:00 PM ET
Where: Smoothie Kings Center, New Orleans, LA
TV: NBC Sports California
Radio: Sactown Sports 1140
For Your Consideration
The Sacramento Kings will once again be without De’Aaron Fox, who is missing the game due to personal reasons. The New Orleans Pelicans will be without Zion Williamson, and Jonas Valanciunas injured his knee yesterday against the Lakers and seems unlikely to play today.
The Pelicans won against the Lakers yesterday, snapping a whopping 10-game losing streak. They’ll be eyeing a Fox-less Kings team as another opportunity to get-right. The Kings, meanwhile, will be trying to weather the storm and get through this extended road trip. After this game the Kings have two games in Houston before finally returning home. This game will be no easy contest, especially without Fox. The Pelicans, despite their recent woes, are a talented team with the likes of CJ McCollum, Brandon Ingram, Herb Jones, Trey Murphy III, Jose Alvarado, and Larry Nance.
Losing Valanciunas is huge though, and presents and opportunity for Domantas Sabonis to feast inside. But we know Domas will deliver, he always does. The key to this game is going to come down to two things; can the Kings finally start hitting their threes again, and can Davion Mitchell step up. Davion finished with just 3 points on 5 shots, 1 assist, and 1 rebound in 22 minutes against the Pacers. That simply won’t cut it.
Prediction
Domas drops a triple double, Davion finds his groove, and the Kings party like it’s Mardi Gras.
Kings 133, Pelicans 119
First game ‘gainst New Orleans this year
As they’ve fallen way out of top tier.
Without Zion around
Their team’s gone aground.
Now somehow get our offense in gear!
Light the beam!
Holy cow!
https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1622324668047794177
Shit, does this mean Irving will be Steph’s injury replacement and Fox gets shafted again?
He was voted in – Fans/Media/Players as a starter. That’s a tough call for The Commish. I know our bias
Most likely or they’ll let him play in the “east” squad. Over/Under of Kyrie staying long term in Dallas? Anyone?
Can’t get paid if he doesn’t play and he gives Luka a second star – a proven star with Lebron.
Dallas is a Top 4, Top 5 market. Cuban agreed to this deal and will go above and beyond to make this work, IMO.
I say Kyrie signs a favorable deal and plays it out. Luka is no longer a Lone Star in the Lone Star State’s biggest market.
Kyrie is running out of options, though I could see either LA team, the Knicks or Chicago chasing him. I am a bit surprised Da Bulls didn’t throw an offer (maybe they did?). LAL/Palinka/Klutch did not have enough to seal the deal, because I guessed them as “most likely” but they couldn’t have done it and not included Russ, and that was a non-starter for KD.
LOL…not at you, but at the thought of Kyrie doing something unselfish like that. No way that ever happens, Kyrie will squeeze every drop out of Cuban that he can…Kyrie’s only concern is Kyrie.
I am not expecting anything but a bumpy ride, but at a certain point, staying put is as unpredictable as mucking up the works.
As he ages the desirability to put up with his crap, and the substantial investment involved, including capital, will diminish. A time will come when Kyrie is less apt to wear out his welcome if he just isn’t worth it (anymore) and he has nowhere else to go. (see Westbrook, Russell as a version of an example)
On the flip – he could just as easily decide to walk away from it all.
Leverage is a MamaDog.
That would truly suck but more time home with his wife and newborn plus the weight of that chip might workout better for him and the Kings in the long run
Nah – got a new child – they extra $ in his next contract is needed more than ever – he’s got mouths to feed!
All Sprewell kidding aside, he deserves the honor, the accolades and the associated benefits.
Again; deserve has nothing to do with it.
Nothing? Maybe “less than it should”?
I wouldn’t be surprised if Anthony Edwards got the nod to represent the TWolves – who is also playing at a high level and is more of a League favorite (gotta sell jerseys!).
Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
The Dutch are a cold people
Hey, I’m just repeating what Greg Wissinger wrote.
I don’t deserve this!!!
FWIW, I think De’Aaron gets announce this week as the injury replacement for Steph. He’s next up.
Also, you always deserve it fake Marist grad.
University of Amsterdam, est. 1632.
Do they have computers yet? I bet you have beautiful handwriting?
Never realized before now (mainly because I never looked) that Rotterdam and the Hague are basically part of the same metro area.
That’s cool beans.
I guess I have to agree with you Rick as somewhere down the thread you made a nice warm comment about some babies wanting to stay in the nest a few days more than others
PLUS Rick you got Kingsguru21 to do some chirping about babies which is a THING!!!
I won’t drop this here, but Chris Mannix tweeted that Kyrie’s in the game regardless of conference since there are teams and no longer conferences.
So, when you look at injury replacements for the game, the question is who would Steph get replaced with? Fox? Brunson? Gordon? Siakam? The question is who is the biggest snub of those 4 IMO.
For a lot of people it’s Siakam. If that’s the case, he’s in the game 1st as the 1st injury replacement.
Just a quick aside but the question for the ASG (and really I haven’t seen it addressed anywhere so please correct me if I’m wrong) but I assume it’s entirely at Adam Silver’s discretion who gets replaced. Snce conference is no longer a factor in the ASG and Kyrie will be presumably healthy enough to play, then that settles that.
But Curry, Williamson? My guess with Siakam having a bigger stature (relatively speaking) than Fox, he’ll get the 1st nod. Fox will get the 2nd, Gordon 3rd and Brunson 4th on this pecking order.
But it all depends on how Adam Silver perceives it would be my guess.
Oh…so the injury replacement doesn’t have to come from the West? That’s a new wrinkle. It makes me wonder why they are even doing East and West voting if it all just gets scrambled up anyway.
https://twitter.com/JillAdge/status/1622343510648320000?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
This is why you don’t listen to me. I asked Jill who does pay attention to these things and she said Silver goes by that voting list. Which makes a lot of sense, actually.
And1: Here’s the final voting list:
https://twitter.com/NBAPR/status/1618779037975072768?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/JillAdge/status/1622347850779860993?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
I like this list much better!
Isn’t he going to take the ball out of Luka’s hands !?
? cuz I don’t know…….did Kyrie take the ball out ot KD’s hands?
Big gamble for Dallas. They seem to be desperate to give Luka the feeling that he’s getting some help. They would have been better off to give Brunson a fat contract.
Since their Championship they made some baffling moves.
Agreed, would rather have Brunson if I were the Mavs but we can’t deny Kyrie’s talent. If he doesn’t cause a ruckus for the next few months, they could be a fringe contender come playoff time.
I like this deal more for Brooklyn than Dallas personally, but I do think it’s funny this happened on the heels of these two teams meeting for the first time. Ah, timing.
Yeah, I think Brooklyn got the better deal as well. Finney-Smith and Dinwiddie are legit NBA players. That Nets team is deep and strong defensively. Dallas on the other hand may put up 130 points every night, but they are also going to give up 130 points most nights.
I was pining for a Monte sneak third team trade if Nets are looking to blow it up. Looks like they’ll try to win with KD as their lone superstar.
We think the Kings defense is bad….hoo buddy Dallas has got them on that side of things. I do not like any defense that has to cover for TWO guys they are hiding.
Both Luka and Kyrie are decent defenders when they want to be, they just don’t want to be very often.
Cuban better be petitioning for a major change in the rules, because the Mavericks are going to need to play with two basketballs.
I think it’ll work for the rest of this season. One of the two will always be on the floor and they’ll have to learn how to play together when on together. Luka has been overworked his whole career thus far.
I also don’t think the Mavs are finished. This is an all in for this season move with things being so wide open.
What a timing for the Kings to face the Mavs. I mean that should be an easier win for the Kings, right?
I sincerely hope everything is going ok for Team Fox.
Me, too. The lack of any announcements has become disconcerting.
Yes. I was wondering about that, but then again, some babies are happy to stay a bit longer in the womb.
While I’m by no means an expert, I would assume given their access to the best health care available Recee and the baby will be fine.
For all we know, the baby’s born and De’Aaron’s taking an extra day at the encouragement of everyone who has kids (which is like the vast majority of people LOL).
Kings are 1.5-point favorites for this one.
Whatever you think of Kyrie, IMO this trade propels the Mavs to that second tier of teams in the West a long side the Kings for this season..assuming Kyrie behaves which is a big question mark.
Funny to think the Mavs could have just signed Brunson a year ago to a really team friendly deal which he outplayed by the time he became a FA and the Mavs wouldn’t now be in this Kyrie game or without yet another first.
The Mavs are bungling surrounding their superstar with talent the same way they did Dirk’s whole career. It wouldn’t surprise me if two years from now neither Luka or Kyrie are Mavs, there’s only so much FO bullsh@t Luka is going to take.
And I’m still traumatized by Luka not being a King.
With it being a contract year, I’m thinking kyrie plays well and keeps quiet, for him. It’s after the year is over and they re-up him that I’d be worried as a Mavs fan.
I’m guessing this is exaclty what happens. Especially if they have a sccessful playoff run and everyone is on a high and by early next season the same problems will arise that have risen everywhere Kyrie has gone. This could really blow up in the Mavs face come next season and be the last straw for Luka before demanding a trade. But again, it’ll likely work this season.
Very weird that tonight’s game is absent from the NBA.com Kings schedule that I keep open always on my browser, even after reloading it.
And then it IS up on the Kings.com schedule page, except it’s already listed as a loss! A little worried that these are bad omens for this game.
Will there be a prediction post? Been refreshing all day
Oh, my bad…here you go.
I predict that there will be.
Man, with the package the Nets have got from that Kyrie trade. KD could also be up for a bargain. Could Barnes + Holmes + TD/Monk + 2029 1st and several 2nd’s cut it? And would you do it?
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