Johnny Salmons isn't the longest tenured King on the roster, but he's been around long enough to have a good grasp on the toxic environment surrounding the franchise in recent years.

Next up for Salmons is head coach Michael Malone, and things just may be different this time around. Under Malone and new owner Vivek Ranadive, the franchise is riding a wave of local support and a mentality entrenched in defense and teamwork. Every coach in the league preaches these things, including the ghosts of Kings coaches past. But as the regular season is set to kick off next week, Salmons can already see the change.

The youth, combined with a lack of direction from past ownership and management, has left the team in disarray for the majority of Salmons' tenure with the Kings. It fueled poor chemistry on the floor and produced a negative locker room environment. Last November, things reached a boiling point that pushed the not-always-vocal Salmons to lead a player-only meeting.

"I feel like his development is helping as well … DeMarcus has taken another step with leadership and taking a leadership role, I feel like that is helping the team a lot," Salmons told Sactown Royalty. "He's definitely a lot better this year than he has been in the past as far as leadership. We feed off of that."

"He's definitely being more vocal and helping the young guys out," Thompson told Sactown Royalty.

If the Kings are going to break through and end this season with positive momentum moving forward, Cousins will have to keep up the progress. It probably hasn't hurt that the new ownership group went all in on him, giving the sometimes tumultuous center a four-year deal worth an estimated $62 million. Shortly after the deal was announced, Cousins said it was a "relief" that there is finally some stability for the franchise and acknowledged that he has to stop getting kicked out of games and suspended.

Another thing Cousins and this team is working on doing is ratcheting things up on defensive side of the ball. Malone has had his squad on a short leash so far this preseason, calling quick timeouts as soon as serious lapses occur.

Defense is being hammered home in practice.

"There's times where it could be 30 minutes to an hour where we're not touching the ball — it's all about defense," Thompson said about team practices. "Definitely the structure and trying to have winning basketball on the defensive end first, finish with the rebound and then worry about scoring on offense later."

"We said we wanted to be a defensive team last year, but we weren't fully committed. It wasn't really drilled into us like it is this year," said Hayes, who referred to Malone as "almost a perfectionist." "He has a vision of how he wants us to play on defense, and it has to be that way … we go over defense every day."

"A win like that shows character, a win like that shows a team that didn't drop their heads and stop believing," Malone told reporters. "Now, we don't want to get into the habit of getting down 19 in Portland, getting down 17 tonight and having to rely on comebacks because that's not a good situation for you to be in every night. But I love the fact that our guys never stopped believing in themselves and each other, they supported each other."

Supporting each other and winning is something Thompson is ready for after what his last five seasons in Sacramento have been like.

"I've been through a lot of things man," Thompson said. "Pretty much a circus in a way – different coaches, I've seen the different players, owners … so it's good to see things change, definitely, we're going in the right direction."

It's not quite clear yet how many minutes the often-subdued Salmons will get this season, but he's not the type to worry about that. In fact, he's got nothing bad to say about his previous coaches in Sacramento, even if the results were less than satisfactory.

"All the coaches that I have played with here, I mean, they were all trying to do the right thing, they were all trying to teach us the right things, so I'm not going to throw the other coaches under the bus," Salmons said. "It's just a different situation going on here, it's different ownership, different management and all that stuff has a big part in what happens on the court, people don't realize that, but it does."

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