The Sacramento Kings have lost 4 straight preseason games, including back to back losses to the Golden State Warriors. The team is showing terrible effort on defense, and through four games are shooting 28.9% from beyond the arc. Clearly the offseason moves have been a failure, and this season is going to be a disaster. We should all panic.
Except that previous paragraph is about the 2023-24 preseason. The Kings lost their first 4 preseason games, finishing 1-4 overall. They lost back to back games against the Warriors. They shot 28.9% from beyond the arc in their first four games, just ahead of this year’s 25.2%. And yet none of that correlated to the regular season in which the Kings still won 46 games.
While last year’s preseason provides important perspective, it was still a season that ended in disappointment. And if there’s a common theme to be found between last preseason, last season, and this preseason, it’s a concern about Sacramento’s level of intensity on a game to game basis. What we’ve seen for the past year is an unfortunate team-wide attitude of thinking they can simply flip the switch and turn it on when needed. I still can’t get over the what-could-have-been thoughts around the way last year’s Kings played against bad teams. The Kings lost a game to each of the Trail Blazers, Hornets, Pistons, and Wizards season, games they should have won but they failed to either start strong or finish strong (or both) in.
I don’t care about preseason stats, the sample sizes are absurdly small. I don’t care about preseason results, they are meaningless in the grand scheme of things. And I don’t think that a lack of intensity in preseason automatically means the Kings will struggle with it in the regular season. But given the pattern of last year, that’s the one thing I am worried about.
Wake up Kings. The season is upon us, there are no easy wins, and every game matters. Time to act like it.
The sky isn’t falling but it does appear overcast with low darker clouds . Hope a little sun light pops thru soon .
Playing down to the competition has been a staple of this team for a while.
It wasn’t a real issue when we were so bad that there was very little competition.
But now it is.
What drives me crazy that you have key player who has a constant motor and works hard 99% of the time in Sabonis, and somehow it doesn’t rub off on most of his teammates. You lead by example, and Domas does that, but somehow it isn’t translating. Maybe Domas should be a bit less nice to his teammates?
I also heard some weird quotes from Brown saying essentialy that the players are supposed to be professionals and it isn’t his job to get them sharp and focused before each game (I’m paraphrasing). Guess what, coach. you are in charge of getting the team to win games. If there is a pattern which leads to losses, it is up to you to step in and fix it.
(I hope I can laugh at this post in a month’s time.)
If Fox is the same player as last year (inconsistent motor on the offensive/defensive ends along with shooting too many threes)…and Brown hasn’t evolved as a coach to implement new offensive/defensive schemes…we won’t be laughing at this post.
26.6 points per game and a league-leading two steals per game. Made thirty-seven percent of his threes.
So inconsistent on both ends
The inclination of some to reflexively shit on De’Aaron Fox has been, and remains, an utter mystery to me.
If you watched the Kings at all last season it was abundantly clear that Fox regressed from his clutch performer of the year he had won the previous year.
he was lazy and settling for the 3 instead of going strong to the basket or pulling up for a mid range jumper. You will also know that yes he did get more steals, he also got more fouls. That’s once again due to his laziness to play solid D without reaching.
In all Fox was ok but not nearly as good as he was the previous year. His 2 point percentage was way down and it was obvious he was not as good.
… and the team missed the playoffs. It’s obviously not all Fox’s fault but he’s the leader of the team and the team played like garbage against a lot of terrible teams. That’s definitely somewhat on him regardless of his numbers.
Lest we forget, Fox injured his shoulder in December badly enough for it to clearly affect him, and also sustained a knee injury in February. Guys play banged up, but Fox thrives on fluidity and athleticism. He wasn’t inconsistent, he was hampered by injuries that were freak occurrences and that he tended to tough it out through.
I actually think that’s where Sabonis and DDR and Barnes have and will continue to have an outsized impact on the team. They’re tough. They handle pain. DDR is going to bring a level of big game/league respect that no one has ever brought to Sacramento since Chris Webber and Mike Bibby. I think we’ll see less barking at refs and more respect leaguewide this year.
The team missing the playoffs boiled down to the team melting down like Greg discussed against teams it had no business losing badly to, and the Pelicans just having our number. The Lakers are lucky they dodged us in the Play-In.
They’re still on summer break. The first report card better wake em up.
Preseason can highlight individual growth, but as a team I don’t believe it says much. Guys are not going 100%, they don’t want to get injured, and none of the stats/scores matter. It enables a free-wheeling, loosey-goosey, try-anything style of play which can lead to a lot of mistakes (which can also lead to learning and growth). They simply won’t play the same once the games matter – let’s all just wait and see how they look then.
plus playing a lot of players who likely won’t be on the team or won’t have major minutes
And guys who will play like JMac and DDR are just figuring out where they fit
I don’t think any excuses should be made. The Kings are not unique in the preseason. Every team is playing with new guys and players that won’t be there on opening night.
my only point is that the end score doesn’t mean a lot. as long as coaches are getting what they want in terms of seeing how various combinations and plays work, i’m not too worked up about being 0-4 or 0-5 in preseason.
being 4-0 in preseason 2022 would have let one to think that the kings were ready for the regular season. where they promptly lost their first 4 games when it mattered.
In terms of individual growth, Keegan has seemed to add a few new wrinkles to his defensive game and is taking it to the hole more frequently, too.
Have loved what I’ve seen from Keegan. Would like a couple more rebounds and more consistency getting to the FT line.
I think his FTs will increase as he gets inside more.
This seemed like the likely suspect to me, at least I hope!
Were the Warriors, Blazers and Jazz also not giving 100%? Were they free wheeling and loosely-goosey as well, or is it just the Kings who play like that?
You argument seems to suggest that if the Kings were going 80%, and another team was going 80%, then if the Kings were truly better than their opponent their 80% would be greater than the other teams. This is just a false equivalency.
Every team has something different they’re trying to do/get out of the preseason. There are way too many factors (who’s healthy? who’s taken a step forward? who’s trying new plays/schemes? who’s getting adjusted to a new team? who has NBA experience? who knows their rotation? etc. etc.) to make this a 1 to 1 comparison. You cannot compare Jazz apples to Kings oranges in the preseason.
If the team is 0-4 through 4 regular season games then we can have a conversation. For right now, all I’m hearing is knee-jerk, reactionary nonsense.
Huh? Your statement suggests the Kings are playing a less engaged basketball through preseason because the games don’t matter. “Guys arn’t goning100%.
I just wondered if the same went for the Kings opponents? In not, then there is something wrong with the Kings motivation and effort. If they were playing a “loosy-goosey” as the Kings, then why were the Kings beaten so badly.
In the end, I’m of the mindset that if the Kings are in someway playing with less effort or precision just because it is pre-season and other teams are not, then we have a problem.
I absolutely guarantee no rotation-caliber player on any team is going 100% during the preseason. This is not a Kings-specific issue, nor an issue at all.
This is exactly what my first comment points out – it is apples to oranges. The things the opponent is trying out during preseason may lead to more or fewer mistakes than what the Kings are trying out. Coaches are toying with the gameplan, players are seeing what they can and can’t get away with. When teams are sincerely trying to beat one another in the regular season, then we will see where things stand. For now, any panic over the results of preseason games is purely reactionary.
+1
The NBA league leader in preseason scoring right now is Bulls PG Coby White averaging 22 ppg. J Mac and Keegan are top 4 in the NBA in steals right now.
The top scoring defenses in the NBA right now are GSW, PDX, DET and LAC. The bottom include MEM/DEN/MIN/IND/ATL/CHI
The top teams in the NBA based on pre-season standings are: NYK/BOS/DET/MIA in the East and GSW/LAC/UTA/PHX/MEM in the West.
The Mavs, Kings, Nuggets, Magic and Cavs have zero wins.
Analyze that to death, and when finished, try to ensure your correlation isn’t viewed as causation. There are lots of confirmation bias things to assume right now.
I do believe the preseason is not predictive of regular season win-loss record and individual’s season-long performance. For me, I can get some sorta NBA action before the regular season starts and get a look at some of the Stockton Kings before the start of their season. In other words, it means nothing.
This reminds me of last years game playing the Bulls… Have that same mentality going on right now with inconsistent play.
https://www.nba.com/game/0022300883
Hopefully some solid defense can get these guys to run their transition up tempo with these players. This is their strength, not trying to trade baskets for 4 qtrs with soft defense.
Here is too a healthy season and hopefully a playoff run!
What is this thing “solid defense” that you speak of?
Thanks, pass.
Wasn’t there a preseason during the Boogie years we went undefeated? It’s a vague recollection that we took a lot of hope from that.
We’ll see what happens when the rubber meets the road in the first ten games.
In football the KC Chiefs went 0-3 in preseason, and now they’re undefeated in the regular season. Preseason games are training camp, a chance for the guys on the bubble to show they can make the team. For everybody else, it’s just more practice sessions. That said, if the Kings start out the regular season 0-4, it will be time to start worrying.
They did exactly that in ’22-’23, and the world ended every ten minutes like clockwork.
So we got Doug McDermott? Meh. Not much size or athleticism, nor defense.
https://x.com/ShamsCharania/status/1846621230498975815
My god, this is like the anti-archetype of what we should be adding to this roster.
The other through line from last preseason onward is the incomplete roster missing length and athleticism up front, and the front office’s seeming obliviousness to it.
Zero injuries=perfect preseason, I find everything else irrelevant until games are meaningful. Seems we’re doing pretty well on the injury front so I will wait until I see a regular season game to comment. Can’t wait gonna be a fun year!
I don’t sweat the Ls, but the continuing spread between O3% and D3% may have officially moved from fad to fashion. When it happens as consistently as it happens with/to the Kings, it’s more than just mere bad luck.
For all of the talk of the lack of a rim protector, it is perimeter defense (beyond the arc and inability to stay in front of your man) that eats this team alive on that end of the floor.
That’s my concern here, too. Yeah, we got blocked 12 times by the Jazz, but some of that is shot selection. Everybody wrung their hands over the lack of an athletic big, but the reality is that they’re getting absolutely demolished on the perimeter, not down low. That needs fixing in a hurry.
Yep. Domas’ weakness is help defense, so stop asking him to help so much! Keep him out of foul trouble. He’s pretty solid on his man.
They missed the playoffs right? After being the 3 seed the previous year? Seems like it did kinda correlate a little bit assuming we aren’t grading on the Kangz curve.
2 wins fewer than the year before in a much stronger conference and with more injury woes. That’s not grading on a curve, that’s just the reality.
Yeah but to say it didn’t matter isn’t correct either IMO. Some of the issues WERE a problem last season and the exact same problems look to be present this year. Which makes sense because they’ve done nothing to address their biggest issues. I think they’ll be fine this year but another play-in trip and an underwhelming season wouldn’t be a huge shock.
Badge Legend