The Kings are back in preseason action tonight, their second-to-last before the regular season begins. Let’s get to it.
Who: Sacramento Kings vs. Portland Trail Blazers
Where: Golden 1 Center, Sacramento, CA
When: 7:00 PM PT / 10:00 PM ET
Watch: League Pass
The Kings are 0-3 in preseason action, and while the wins and losses certainly don’t matter to this Kings fan, I can’t say the on-court product has been particularly impressive. But that is just my view! Watching Doug Christie talk to Kings media Tuesday, he seems pretty happy with the progress so far. Even De’Andre Hunter’s dreadful minutes!
Christie only has one preseason game remaining after this one, so it’d be great to see more minutes for whatever the projected opening night rotation actually is. Domantas Sabonis has played 10 total minutes. Ben Simmons, 9. Keegan Murray, 8. That just isn’t a lot of time to build on-court chemistry, and if the Kings start slow when the games actually mean something, it’ll be pretty easy to point the finger at an unproductive preseason. So, yeah. Let’s let these guys play a bit, shall we? And if the reason why we haven’t seen much of them is injuries, I will recant my statement as soon as the Kings report said injuries properly.
Prediction: Kings 109, Trail Blazers 98.
I’ve read that the Blazers’ new owner
Has turned his team’s fans into groaners.
Is he cheap? Just a tad—
Near “Vivekian” bad.
Every statement he makes is a boner!
+1 Could Portland use an upgraded arena?
At least this one is on NBC Sports CA.
I was excited for this game until I saw the Kings’ starting lineup. Man, Keegan should have threw the ball up to that guy for an alley-oop.
Wtf. Holding everyone out? Why.
Listen, let me tell you something. Christie knows exactly what he’s doing when the regular season starts…duh. He’s busy trying out 7 players to help us make that playoff run.
Ha. It seems ridiculous. So, on brand for Kings and Doug.
Doug the idiot who doesn’t/didn’t believe in tanking.
I was tired of his bullshit after the first week of him coaching.
and he’s still running a Reed and react offense, despite having Sabonis, who is useless unless you’re running the offense through him.
I’m not looking forward to Woodson taking over. His iso-offense will be dreadful.
Who the flip are Leaky Black and Tristen Newton?
What the heck is the idea of this weirdo lineup?
Doug Christie’s sinister plan to SHOCK the league when the regular season begins.
“Real G’s move in silence like Mogbo.” -Mark Jones …huh?
Real G-leaguers?
Running this bull scat lineup with one preseason game after tonight. Lol. Holy shit. WTF are we doing here? So Lillard and Ja can play but Acuff needs to rest?
EVERYONE is predicting this to be the worst or second worst team in the NBA, and we’re sitting half the team, when we’ve lost everything this preseason, showed nothing, and this group hasn’t played together at all, with one preseason game left? WTF is even happening here?
Ranadive-ism
Kings basketball as usual
The owner thinks he’s smarter than everybody else, despite copious evidence to the contrary
Seems Christi is getting the Stockton Kings ready for their season. This franchise doing a great job of resting any player with ability .
I watched the 1st half and that was the stupidest Kings related event I’ve watched in a while (and that is saying something!).
what was even the point? Kings should have just forfeited if they weren’t gonna get any value at all out of the game.
Not watching the game (I no longer have cable and have yet to pay for streaming service that will show the game) but shit, how dare the Kings charge admission to a game where they sit everyone.
Fun fact: According to the interweb bots, no NBA team that lost every preseason game has ever made the playoffs (not sure if this is true, but the AI overlords say so).
Superbox. I got one and they are great. Can basically see any game.
I basically posted the same thing elsewhere. It’s such a slap in the face of fans to sit that many guys.
Never slap someone in the face after you shit all over them ~ Confucius, probably
I just don’t understand how this team can rest players heading into the season, when they need so much more practice together to be good. I think the blind are leading the blind here.
This team is going to be so bad. I still see them as a bottom 3 team. Grizzlies, Clippers, Nets, Pelicans are their competition this season to stay out of the bottom 3. Probably the most pessimistic I have been with this team for a while.
Switched to hockey after 10 minutes. Didn’t realize the California Classic was in October now.
Reminder, the Kings still have an open roster spot and an open 2-way spot.
Room for 2 more bad players that we will hear lots of hype about.
Clifford Nique’d the rim 11 times but couldn’t get one to fall. Tristen Newton sounds like a Nabisco mini-bite cookie. I’ve got nothing for Leaky Black.
I don’t know that I’ve ever held less enthusiasm for the Kings going into a season. Acuff seems destined to either crash and burn or play his way to a demand out of here. The outlook for the Kings is Bleaky Lack (hey, I guess I did have something).
Yeah, I am pretty close to ending any hope for Nique. I think Price is already passing him by on the list of who should get some minutes.
As for enthusiasm, I am still moderately excited about a few things. First, is Acuff. Whatever he is it is clear he is going to be entertaining and has a star mentality, which is a nice change for our young Kings prospects!
Second, I am very intrigued by the Ben Simmons redemption story. Marc Spears was just interviewed on the Jump this morning and it is worth a listen. I am rooting for the guy and want to see what happens.
Third, I don’t hate Sabonis the way so many fans seem to these days. He is a really good player. He was a legit All Star for the Kings and a huge part of why they made the playoffs a couple of seasons ago. Is he perfect? Heck no, but I’d like to see a healthy Domas because he can really help Acuff and our young players.
I have no expectations or enthusiasm for Zach or Keegan though. Zach is a good player, I don’t hate him, but he was part of a crap trade pushed by a crap owner and so it was never gonna work here. And Keegan just isn’t anything other that what he is, so I am done expecting more.
That said, I am all in on this train wreck! This isn’t like the teams I really hated, full of DV perps and crap humans! I had no enthusiasm to watch those collection of misfits!
I hear ya! Domas and Acuff have potential to be lethal with pick and roll. Keegan is just disappointing and shows no personality. Zach should be benched because you can’t have flow on offense with his ISO ball and he can’t provide defensive cover for Acuff. Think we need to convert Mogbo because he’s non stop hustle and actually plays defense. I like Sharp also! Wish he was a few inches taller but he looks capable of guarding larger players. Loved Doug as a player however the jury is still out on him as a coach.
It is a likeable team/players, that’s true. No D-bags or criminals.
Sabonis is still really good, but the Kings don’t want to use his skills correctly.
Keegan ain’t PG13 or Kawhi. They just need him to be what he is…a 3&D forward.
Lavine I like the least. He’s just going through the motions until he moves on to playing losing basketball with another team.
Keegan needs to be used like how Denver has been using Aaron Gordon over the years. Just be the best wing defender, stay physical, and knock down the open shot when it is kicked out to you.
100% this.
You got to be physical first before you can stay physical.
Not saying Keegan is soft, but Gordon is a bruiser who relishes contact. Keegan just doesn’t.
He’s made one out of his last 21 shots. In the preseason. There’s just not anything there.
I think this may be the worst Kings team ever, in terms of talent. I think LaVine is going to spend a lot of time on the shelf, and they’ll spend all season trying to move Sabonis. The real danger is a mind-bogglingly terrible panic move that offloads a bunch of future picks to get out of the bottom three this season.
I do agree that I’d rather watch these misfits lose 81 games than the All DV team of several years back.
I’d just love someone to ask management what the plan is, as there is none
I’m almost at a apathetic/hate watch with this team which is sad.
There was a time when I’d get annoyed at the national media taking shots at this Franchise, now I find I agree with them
I realize preseason isn’t the be all and end all, but it serves a purpose, like get your core players some run, work on combinations, see what you rookies and new players are like with the core roster talent. Kings Mgmt hold my beer
Sabonis for all his flaws is decent NBA starter and this coaching staff looks at his talents on the offensive side of the game and gone, nah we are good. Do I rate Lavine, not really, again do they run plays for him or try to utilize his skills nuh.
I’m past the hate watching at this point. That’s not even worth my time anymore.
There is no plan, other than to let contracts expire and then….?????
I disagree that Scott has no plan. And I’m not standing in front of him as I have no clue if he is going to be a good or bad Kings GM. More importunately, I don’t know when Vivek’s impatience is going to flare up again and cause him to step in. Monty/Wes started to do good work, but ultimately Vivek went full Vivek. So, even if Perry is good and has a plan, there is always the V factor looming.
Part of it is letting the bad contracts come off the books. That’s not on Perry, but not sure what else he is supposed to do.
Perry seems to have an eye for talent, as his drafts look pretty decent in early analysis. He is starting to accumulate young talent while the old gaurd slowly withers away.
Finally, I think DC is kinda Perry’s Hudsucker Proxy. He is just a guy to shepherd through the slow tear down years. I think that is what gives the appearance of a lack of plan, as Perry isn’t really trying to win right now but Doug is and doesn’t know how to, and so the result is a mess in the present.
I think he gets more credit for his talent that is true, he has found bench depth and role players in Cardwell and Raynaud, Clifford eh time will tell. I think most of us could have picked Acuff
Its the overpay of Schroeder, when I suspect he was bidding against himself, if you wanted to overpay for one year with a team option for the 2nd I get it, but a three year deal. Then to get rid of him you take on more money with Hunter (and talk of well you could flip him for assets) and trade Ellis to get rid of him
I get you wanted to keep Murray, but that’s an overpay for the player he actually is
I think having cap space makes you able to sign a player who gets released from a good team
I’m not sure anyone who gets released is a good use of cap space. Good teams don’t release good players.
I don’t know about DC. I think Perry should go out and get a (young) coach that fits his vision of this team moving forward. If Acuff is the building block, get the coach that will grow with him. That is how OKC did it with Diagneault and the Spurs did it with Johnson. If you want to look at a rebuilding team, look at how Brooklyn poached Jordi.
The Kings, on the other hand, have an old inexperienced coach, that has shown he knows nothing about the job, being used as a placeholder.
Establish culture now, otherwise you risk completely blowing the development of Keegan, getting Acuff off on the wrong foot, and risk losing the locker room and vets because they know Doug is just a paper tiger.
“What plan?”
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