The Kings are back in action Sunday afternoon, playing host to the Portland Trail Blazers. We’ll see if the Kings can get a win after starting the preseason 0-2.
When: Sunday, October 13th, 3:00 PM PT
Where: Golden 1 Center, Sacramento, CA
TV: Kings.com (locals only)
Radio: Sactown Sports 1140
The injury report remains the same for the Kings with no Trey Lyles, Devin Carter, Jordan McLaughlin, or Kevin Huerter. Huerter was cleared for 5 on 5 action, but will still need more practice time before we’ll see him in game action. Malik Monk is listed as questionable as he’s been dealing with a personal matter.
For the Blazers, Shaedon Sharpe and Robert Williams III are out with injuries, while Anfernee Simons and Matisse Thybulle are questionable.
As I mentioned above, the Kings have started this preseason 0-2, but I am not concerned at all. The starters have looked great, but the Kings have struggled a lot when the bench units come in. Monk, Huerter, Lyles, and McLaughlin are four rotation bench players, and missing 4 out 5 second-stringers is going to take a toll. Obviously it would be nice to see more a next-man-up success story with the end-of-bench guys, but it’s hardly the end of the world that they’re struggling. It helps the coaching staff and the front office identify potential bright spots, like Isaac Jones, Boogie Ellis, and Isaiah Crawford, while also taking note of weak spots and which guys may be expendable. Despite all that, here’s hoping the Kings give the hometown crowd a win today.
While you’re here, I’ll also mention that we added a bunch of new designs to our store. Grab yourself a new shirt or mug for the start of the season. You’ll look dashing and it helps us keep the lights on.
Since it’s preseason, this post will serve as both the preview and the game thread.
Go Kings!
Maybe Monte can send out some of the bad bench pieces for Kris Murray.
The Jones crew and the other four guys nobody knows about for a gifted NBA player. Profoundly obvious and viable deal.
I enjoy basketball and sarcasm.
Who is this?
Is my username hidden?
I like the game preview combined with the game thread. Might be nice to do the same in the regular season. Just a thought.
In Portland things have been weird
With a team as bad as they feared.
Their choices seem strange—
Leaving them out of range,
And again for this year bottom-tiered!
The Cooper Flagg NBA recruitment.
Ayton has been mediocre enough to make Marvin Bagley III not as atrociously embarrassing a pick as he was.
And that segues to the thought that many Blazers fans want to give Scoot the boot. He was a (now laughable) #1 pick consideration very early in the proceed until Wemby played a minute. He was a strong second choice and Portland picked him to replace Dame Lillard. He’s looked very Markelle Fultz level disappointing.
At least we Kings fans can see more of the 3 TWC (Mason, Isaiah, Isaac) and hope that Colby Jones, Terry Taylor, Skal Labissiere and I thought that was Jalen Slawson but it’s Brodric Thomas can click in a performance that makes you nod your head. I’m already sold on Boogie Ellis – or at least his stock is in a holding pattern- it can go up or down- but the others are all a sell for me, thus far.
I again expect the starters to look smooth and shiny. Last season, the Blazer youth seemed to make the Kings look slow and sluggish. I hope this season, they can just outclass them. Expecting lots of 3 pointers and running from Portland.
So few top ten picks live up to the expectations set by the millions of fans that know nothing about basketball.
That’s true. But the fans don’t make the selection
Exactly. It is also October 13, 2024.
This just in from James Ham on X
According to Mike Brown, Jordan McLaughlin has gone through the return to play process, playing 1v1, 3v3 and 5v5. He is ready to step on the floor.
This from Jason Anderson on X:
According to a league source, Sacramento Kings guard Malik Monk will be available for today’s preseason game against the Portland Trail Blazers after missing Friday’s game due to personal reasons.
Terrific news. Bench desperately needs some steady veteran hands. Cant wait for KH and Lyles to get cleared.
Hamm vs. Ayton
The titans of media in a once in a lifetime battle for the scoop that is available now that Woj is done.
ooops Hamm vs. Anderson
autofill got me!
“Ayton has been mediocre enough to make Marvin Bagley III not as atrociously embarrassing a pick as he was.”
Like in an alternate universe, maybe. The Marvin Bagley pick being atrociously embarrassing had zero relation to the prior pick and everything to do with the pick that came after, so I’m going to disagree with you, emphatically.
If you wanted to segue to bust picks that were relevant you could’ve gone with “speaking of Greg Odin…”
But Marvin Bagley not being an embarrassment of a pick can only come from something as egregiously heinous as Luka Doncic spitting on a child en route to intentionally torpedoing his team’s shot at a championship right before pushing a little old lady in front of a moving bus while singing “Death to America” at the top of his lungs.
And even then I’m still picking Luka.
When can current reality be ok to deal with?
wtf are you talking about?
Derozan and Sabonis have been getting it done and I expect that dynamic duo to continue to gel into a great pairing of talented and high IQ players. Ellis is trying to score too much. Keegan has so far held his own playing out of position as an undersized power forward alongside the undersized center that thrives. Fox is what he is and will always be until he loses a tad bit of speed.
I wish the current bench could simply be replaced in its entirety. Like a simple announcement during a substitution. “Now playing for the x, y, and z is a, b, and c. Also x, y, and z have been removed from the roster.”
Sabonis can stop with the bad passes any time now.
Is anyone watching on kings.com? I’m getting a server error
Same
Clingan will be starting over Ayton before the end of the season.
Looking at the box score and Ayton is the best they have.
Sloppy second quarter. No intensity. Letting Portland have whatever they want.
Kings in midseason form by losing to a vastly inferior opponent
It is halftime. Keon can pull us out.
Yeah, quickest way to make me stop paying attention is to lose badly to the Blazers. Sure feels like the same ol’ Kings of 2023-24. This shit better change in the regular season, but I’m not holding my breath.
It is only halftime. Come on! Get tough boys!
The Kings are going to struggle in many, if not most games, unless they start to play much better defense. If the Kings don’t start to play significantly better defense, a lot of games this season will be far too close which increases the chances of losing.
Looking at the box score today and watching the first two games it is clear that this team has not changed defensively. The roster is built to score. That is fine until we play the vast majority of NBA teams that can also score against a team without any defense.
Exactly. It’s a sad reality. The Kings are so small compared to even the most terrible of teams.
It is good to see that the bottom of the bench now has some forwards and centers instead of guards. Only problem is they are not NBA caliber bigs.
Wow, what a terrible start to the 2nd.
Took the Kings three minutes to figure out the refs were serious when they told them to start the the third quarter.
Only preseason. But Mental toughness This team rarely shows. Talent is there.The intangibles to get to the next level.No Way.
Mental toughness will come from Derozan and Sabonis.
You’re counting on a 35 year old player. Who has the worst plus/minus in a playoff history Verifiable. And a regular season wonder boy. Who also is God awful in the playoffs as your difference makers. Ok.
Giving up 60 to the worst team in the league. I strongly disagree with you. You cannot buiild a championship team around Sabonis.Thats facts.’
Your opinion not facts but I understand and respect your opinion. There is definitely tougher players out there. Derozan and Sabonis happen to be the toughest competitors on this team in my opinion. Tough and the Kings are two words that do not belong in the same sentence.
Verified
Verified what?
What a BS late foul call on DeRozan.
Demar will not let it get to him.
Scoot is going off. Put Keon on him to shut him down for life!
Fox needs to find a way to get to the FT line this season. Jacking threes isn’t going to do it.
I wonder if Brown has tried any new techniques to convince them that the third quarter is real?
I wonder if flooding a Kings site with half the total posts on a thread results in people getting blocked repeatedly from that site?
Well, there’s not that many people on the site AND there’s a Kings game on. Does it matter if there’s only a few folks who want to chat about the game? Is that ban-worthy?
Not yet. But it’ll happen eventually.
What will eventually happen? People are just chatting about basketball. Are you a moderator?
I have no idea how they will finally end this third quarter trend.
Do they need to burn down the locker room and hire a shaman?
Glad to be talking basketball with you today. Hopefully the Kings figure some stuff out in this game. Have to play through some issues right now and get better.
What do you think about the game?
All these teams picking up long players like Deni Avdija and the Kings can’t get any bigger? The Kings are too small. No defense and too small.
I have been thinking about defense and size. Even for being small the small players are not defensive players. So we add some size and still have soft guards.
+/- right now:
Sabonis -12
DeRozan -27
Fox -14
Pretty pathetic. Making me glad it’s not available on TV.
That’s a very negative post. LOL…Wow, every player is a negative except Jordan M.
JM decided he didn’t want to miss out and now has a minus 6, lol.
What about Keon?
What about him?
His +/-? I figured you had the information in front of you so I asked.
Keon hit the first 3 and the Kings are 2/17 since then. I hope good Huerter comes back soon.
We need Huerter in a bad way. No defense means every game will be a shoot out. One player that focuses on defense does not win those games.
Shoulda sat the starters for the second half. They let a 9 point deficit become 24.
Hopefully they are embarrassed.
The nicest thing I can say is that it’s preseason so who cares. But it seems that size in the middle and pesky defensive forwards remain the Kings’ Achilles heel.
Keegan was ok defensively as a small forward. By pushing him to the unnatural position of a power forward he has lost some of his defensive advantages playing against bigger forwards and being rotated to guarding the center at times.
How many G-League players are the Kings currently rostering?
The Jones’s and everyone else below them.
Why is Skal here? Isn’t it pre determined that he will be in Stockton before the season opener? Will he have to fight Timme for a spot in Stockton?
I have to remind myself that Carter will be back this year and he will help defensively. However, Thybulle or Finney-Smith could really help balance this roster out. Hopefully the Kings close games out better this year, but that would equate to only 2-3 more wins. Defense will be what determines how far this team goes.
That was F@€k’n horrible to watch. The kings looked like hot garbage. I’m officially worried. I didn’t think they were capable of playing that bad.
I was profoundly mistaken. All my excitement has been transformed into fear and sadness. I know it’s only pre season but damn. Painful to watch. Absolutely painful.
Is this going to be the sameO sameO as last year. Can’t beat a team we are supposed to. I know this is preseason but I still can’t help being worried.
Yeah, seriously. If this year is a repeat of last year where we get blown the F out by truly inferior teams, I’m going to spend a lot more time playing guitar and a lot less time paying attention to the NBA.
In fairness, the starters looked good against a smaller team in GS and most of the bench is recovering from injury. But the Portland blowout felt disgustingly familiar.
All the pieces are in place for a playoff run, aside from the well known need for size in the front court. Despite Monte blatantly missing on adding size at PF this offseason, Mike Brown is in the hot seat right now. Lack of a bulky PF only goes so far as an excuse when you’re regularly giving up wide open three balls. MB is allegedly the defensive coach, but the team’s glaring defensive lapses are pretty awful at all levels.
Are they missing Jordi?
Luke took over as defensive lead. The team didn’t defend the 3pt line when Jordi was in that role either.
I wish I knew what the root cause was. As Hobby points out, the issues with defending the perimeter have persisted from year to year, even during Jordi’s tenure. Ultimately, it falls on the head coach to resolve it. I don’t want to overreact to preseason games, but it does look like the same old problems may stick with the team again this year.
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