Well, the Sacramento Kings have set out on the road, looking for fame, fortune, above 30% three point shooting from their star point guard – all the usually fare when embarking on a four game road trip. Their first game up: former cellar dwellers and now league darlings: The Phoenix Suns. Phoenix is walking the line here a bit. Yes they were a team of destiny last season that came shockingly close to winning it all for Chris Paul, Devin Booker and company, and they return much of the same roster that got the two games from a ring ceremony. On the other hand, they’re owned by an absolute Dollar Store beach bucket of rat scat and any win for this group of men equates to more money in Robert Sarver’s pocket. I can root for Deandre Ayton to get his financial worth, I can root for Chris Paul to find his true smile, I just… I just can’t do much more!
The Suns have started the season 1-2, having recently gotten bushwhacked by 29 points against the Blazers after the previous evening laying it on thick for the (hopefully) hapless Lakers. Outside of missing Cameron Payne and Dario Saric, they are healthy, they are dangerous and they aren’t going to want to drop to 1-3 to start their first full season of high expectations in a long, long time.
When: Wednesday, October 27th, 7:00 PM PST
Where: Footprint Center, Phoenix, AZ
TV: NBCSCA – Kyle Draper (play-by-play)
Radio: KHTK Sports 1140 AM
For Your Consideration
Rise and Shine: Okay, we gotta start here: it’s a mite too early in the season to freak out over the Kings. Are they trending in the wrong direction? Yeah sure, L’s are never fun to take this early on, especially in games that would come in handy to have in the W-column during the middle of say, a playoff race at the end of the season. Has anyone really played particularly well outside of Harrison Barnes? No, not particularly. Is Luke Walton still 1000% Luke Walton-ing? Absolutely. At the end of the day, we all knew the Kings were going to have a rough eleven games to start this season. They snatched one from a team they’ll try to be in striking distance of at the end of the year and dropped two that were fairly winnable against good to great teams in the West. The teams the Kings have lost to are the remaining undefeated teams in the West, and while it would be nice to see them a combined 5-2 instead of 7-0, those weren’t the breaks. The Kings deaths right now are by a thousand cuts, which is a small improvement over the cannonball to the chest cavity of last year. The fact that three quarters of these games have been watchable so far is reason enough for me to hold off on going bananas this early in the season. There’s a decent chance they’re going, like, 3-8 in these first 11, 5-6 at very best and while neither is very good, it isn’t a high speed remote-to-the-wall for me just yet. Healthy concern though? Heck yeah.
I promise, if and when the Walton fully hits the fan, I’ll be here shaking my head, scratching my chin at my keyboard or asking Jerry leading questions while furiously slamming chips, with my mic on, in the background. I’m just not there yet on this season.
Onto the actual game here. The Suns are a damn good team that hasn’t quite hit its stride yet. No one on the team is averaging over 18 points per game and while Mikal Bridges has upped his per game a few points, Deandre Ayton has dropped his nearly that same amount. Chris Paul has been dropping dimes like a Coinstar machine in an earthquake, dishing out nearly 12 a game in his first three contests, but outside of that, the Suns have been lowkey fairly bad. This means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme and will change immensely over the next month but currently the Suns are: 19th in offensive rating, 29th in defensive and 27th in net rating. They’re letting opponents shoot 43.1% from behind the arc on over FORTY attempts per game. If ever there was a time for the Kings to get their offensive rhythm back – it would be right now, tonight, before the Suns remember they’re the Suns again.
Phoenix has a few decent excuses they could play: They started out with three games in four nights against incredibly talented teams. Devin Booker apparently had COVID-19 right at the start of training camp, which means he still needs some time to get his legs under him. But that doesn’t explain why a big man like Ayton, on the cusp of what should be his best and most lucrative season to date, is suddenly in a love-hate relationship with the glass: inexplicably swinging in rebounds from six boards, to fifteen and then to three. Three rebounds? Sure Portland ate them alive, but he still played 25 minutes and Jusef Nurkic ain’t that scary. Frank Kaminsky had five boards in 9 minutes. Devin Booker, Abdel Nader and Landry Shamet all had three or more. I know I’m getting off the path here but Ayton, and maybe the whole group outside of Chris Paul, seem a little distracted.
The Kings really have to take advantage of some of these other good teams early missteps if they’re going to have a shot at playing past mid-April. The Kings are still the Kings and will drop a few to the Houston’s and OKC’s of the league – a win tonight in Phoenix helps soften those losses a bit. Whether they can or not? We’ll see.
Prediction
Kings blow the Suns out. Ayton demands a trade and the universal package is enough for the sun-baked mud bubble that is Robert Sarver to demand it be accepted. Kings are 2023 NBA Champions. I view the celebration from a padded cell.
Kings: 122, Suns: 104
Great, they schedule us to play the Suns right before Halloween when we’re all dressed up.
🙁
Luke Walton trying to make half time adjustments:
Fluke after game
4th Q Rotations:
I feel seen:
“Will, you’ve sure got a chip on your shoulder!”
(Will looks at chip on his shoulder…picks it off and eats it…stares at us.)
I have had numerous occasions where I was eating and had shit all over my shirt, grabbed some of it, popped it in my mouth, and had the unpleasant realization: That is not food.
¡Vivé me!
Been there.
Yeah you have!
There are matchups we all want to see.
How will Davion guard CP-3?
Maybe Booker instead?
Can he get in his head?
Make him struggle to try to get free!
Davion on Booker
I have a bad feeling that very shortly the Kings are going to be 1-6.
Look on the bright side, that would be six steps closer to firing Luke walton.
OT:
Ziller put out a good morning basketball today saying, “Wiseman over LaMelo and the Warriors braintrust’s continued attempts to justify it stick in the craws of many smart Golden State fans, and for good reason. The Warriors braintrust has earned mountains of deference and reverence for building the dynasty. But deference and reverence is but a grace period in modern sports, and the Warriors haven’t won anything since 2018″
Has he lost touch with Sacramento? There are 27 other teams who would love to be able to say they “haven’t won anything since 2018”, the Kings especially. Do people honestly believe Wiseman over LaMelo is worse than Bagley over Luka?
He’s not saying it’s a worse pick, or that the Warriors have a long drought. He’s saying that the Warriors haven’t had success in the last few years and that it’s been long enough that their previous success should no longer shield them from the criticism of blowing that pick.
I understand the sentiment, but it really sounds like the fans are entitled now that they’ve won a few championships. 3 years really isn’t that long and the jury is still out on Wiseman vs LaMelo. If the Kings had won a ring in 2018, would fans be upset with this team now?
History tells us that yes, fans will be upset at their team for anything, no matter how recently they won.
Did they blow the pick?
Bigmen like Wiseman take time to develop. Seems a litter early to call that pick blown.
(I mean, look at Mo Bamba now, out here putting it together now and proving 1951’s genius!)
I’d say they blew the pick considering their goals at the time of that pick. They are trying to maximize the end of the Curry/Draymond/Klay era. Whether the pick becomes trade fodder or plays alongside those guys, there were definitely players who would have helped more.
Don’t you want to see him play a game in year 2 before me make such proclamations?
Remember Fox’s rookie year? 😐
I feel very comfortable that Wiseman’s second year won’t convince me that he was the right choice over Ball, or Haliburton, or Edwards.
No fucking way.
I understand that Sarver is a cheap bastard, but our ownership didn’t even have the cash to replace Luke “two 9-game losing streaks” Walton…
And our owner told he’d bring the Monarchs back, right?
https://twitter.com/bleacherreport/status/1453453552320348162?s=21
Maybe Vivek is the one guy who actually thinks Sacramento is part of the Bay Area.
East, East Bay.
Wow if this happens, I’d go to more WNBA games than Dubs or Kings games.
Not sure I understand the concern level. We couldn’t have realistically expected to be 3-0 given the schedule. We look like about the same team as last year (Fox is much worse and Barnes is much better, seems to be about a break-even) which was…expected? Davion has been great (biggest plus of the season) so that has been a major positive. We need a coach and another talented wing…without that this team is going nowhere interesting. 36.5 wins is our Vegas over/under, not like anybody realistically expected us to compete unless Fox/Hali took another leap and somehow King can play productive minutes. It sucks, but that is just the reality of who/where we are.
Looking forward to more of that Fox ISO at top of key while his teammates stand motionless in awe offense. It’s ground breaking.
It’s remote breaking.
He just needs more time to develop.
If only we were the Sun-Kings…
Kings – 117
Suns – 111
Badge Legend