As the Sacramento Kings entered the Orlando Bubble this week with their best shot at the NBA Playoffs since 2006, you could forgive even the most jaded fan for optimism. The team had turned somewhat of a corner after late January, and had won 13 of their final 20 games of the season. They’d gotten mostly healthy over the 4 month break from basketball, looked kinda-sorta together in the three scrimmage contests, and proclaimed they wanted “all the smoke.” If the Kings wanted to finally break through that playoff drought, prove all those who forgot they existed as fools, and finally, finally, drag this franchise back into a modicum of respectability, this was their moment to back up their confidence. So… how’d that go?
The Good: Star Fox against the Spurs
De’Aaron Fox came into Friday’s contest against the San Antonio Spurs ready to go. Anyone who cared enough to acknowledge Kings’ presence in Orlando knew that Sacramento would only go as Fox led them, and he came out with a fire in his eyes and a storm in his step to rival anyone. Fox finished with a career-high 39 points and 6 assists on 17-33 shooting, with a highlight reel of basketball poetry. He slid past most defenders with ease, and used his handle and insane change of direction to move others out of his way like a Chessmaster on a giant 94 foot board. He was as aggressive as he’s ever been in a Kings uniform – he hit his career high in field goal attempts in the 3rd quarter – and produced arguably the best Kings performance since DeMarcus Cousins’ famous un-ejected 56 point game. It’s just a massive shame that no other King (aside from Bogdan Bogdanovic, who had 24 points) wanted that victory as much as Fox. By the time crunch time came around, the Kings defense fell apart, the offense was listless without Fox full-on demanding the ball, and the Spurs took advantage for a 129-120 victory.
Fox’s insane aggressiveness evaporated on Sunday as the Orlando Magic controlled the game from tip-off. He finished with just 13 points on 5-10 shooting, and sank back down to the motivation level of the rest of his Kings teammates. Sacramento’s shot to ride the lightning and follow Star Fox to a playoff birth probably ended against the Spurs – we’ll have to see if De’Aaron’s hyper-aggressive play resurfaces in their final 6 games.
There’s a star player in Sacramento, waiting for the right team to be built and optimized around his unique, game-breaking talents. But he’s not a transcendent player – he cannot singlehandedly drag a terribly utilized, defensively milquetoast, listlessly coached roster to success. Here’s hoping the someday the Kings find that right team and coaching staff to build around Star Fox, or they’ll be right down the same depressing path they took with Cousins. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
The Bad: Defense? The hell is Defense?
The San Antonio Spurs came into Friday’s contest missing LaMarcus Aldridge, SMC-Legend Patty Mills, and Bryn Forbes, three of their top four scorers who combined to average nearly 42 points a game this season AND they lost Marco Belinelli to a sprained ankle in the first half. The Spurs still dropped 129 points on 53% shooting and 44% (11-25) from three – a stupid number of them open looks.
The Orlando Magic averaged 107 PPG this season, 25th in the league. They passed that 107 point mark in the 3rd quarter against the Kings, and finished with 132 points, scoring 132 points on 52% shooting and 47% from three (18-38).
The defensive low-light of the week came in the second half of the Spurs contest. After scoring just 2 points in the first half, DeMar DeRozan exposed the Kings defense for 25 points. He took advantage of their tendency to overhelp, and dished out 10 assists in the process. And late in the fourth quarter, he began to hunt down Nemanja Bjelica, as the Spurs ran play after play to get Bjelly switched onto DeRozan. Despite knowing this was probably a matchup to worry about – the Spurs had been running DeRozan at the 4 lineups all their time in Orlando – Luke Walton just stuck with Bjelica. Go watch the tape and see how that worked out.
The worst part of the Kings defense is how quickly it collapses – they seemingly give up immediately upon tipoff. San Antonio scored 43 points in the first quarter against the Kings, which was outdone when Orlando scored 44. The gameplans, strategies, or motivational processes Walton and company are using to get this team to play defense are so broken, the White House wants tips for their COVID-19 response strategies. What’s the point of continually watching film and telling everyone you’re going to go watch the film when your team is pretty much cooked 12 minutes into each contest?
The Ugly: The Kings Playoff Chances
With their two losses, the Kings now sit at 28-38 – tied with the New Orleans Pelicans for 11th place in the West. The Memphis Grizzlies still sit at 8th, and still have a two-game cushion even after they’ve lost their first two bubble games. The Spurs (2-0 against the Kings and the Grizzlies) now sit in 9th, and the Portland Trail Blazers (1-1, beating the Grizzlies but losing narrowly to the Boston Celtics) are a half-game behind the Spurs. Even the Phoenix Suns, who many in the media mocked for even getting an Orlando Restart invite, are now just a game behind the Kings after they’ve won against both the Washington Wizards and the Dallas Mavericks.
The Suns may be the ultimate referendum against the Kings – Phoenix has almost no mathematical shot at the 9th-seed play-in games, but they’re still thriving in Orlando (the development of the Suns, MIKAL BRIDGES foremost among them, has been a joy to watch). The Kings had an OK shot at the 9th seed, and they’re embarrassing themselves. Unless they turn this rudderless, listless ship around, Sacramento could end up last among these Western bubble teams – both for the Playoff hunt, and for future success of their rebuilds. Would any Kings fan not trade rosters and coaching staffs with any of the Pelicans, Grizzlies, Trail Blazers, or Suns at this point?
Our buddy Tim Maxwell wrote an carefully-crafted, mathematically detailed article last week breaking down the path the Kings need to follow to make the playoffs.
But after losing their first two games, I can make this even simpler. The Kings can’t lose if they want to make the playoffs. The math may not agree with me on that, but Kangz history sure does. They’re 1.5 games back of the Spurs, and don’t currently have a tiebreaker in their favor against any of these teams (unless they beat the Pelicans twice in the next six games). Sacramento has four games this week, starting with he-who-shall-not-be-named and the Mavericks on Tuesday. Let’s hope the Kings give a damn by then.
Comment of the Week:
Side note: As I write this, I still have a few minutes left in my birthday. When the NBA released the schedule for the restart, I was ecstatic to get to watch a Kings game on my birthday. Now I sit here looking back on the last decades of my fandom in sheer abject wonder at my Stockholm-syndrome-esk relationship with this team I convince myself I pay attention to for fun. Someday, this Kings team will be worth the attention and loyalty we give them. But that day is not today. Cheers to the Kings Herald staff and all of you readers a reason for me to still care about this woefully inept and embarrassing organization.
Barf.
edit: Not the article. Nice article Bryant. The team is barf. I have nothing else.
I appreciate the edit lol
I honestly don’t want to hear anyone complain about the lack of respect from the national media anymore. The organization doesn’t even respect itself.
How else would they justify allowing such an incompetent person to run the basketball side of the house? What self-respecting organization gives the GM an extension after after the decisions he’s made?
This franchise is an irrelevant shitshow and the national media really isn’t losing out on much by ignoring them. Respect is earned and the Kings have not earned it in over a a decade.
Happy Birthday, Bryant! Thanks for writing this. Sorry the Kings couldn’t pull their head out of their bung holes for your Birthday.
Other than that, fuck Vivek, fuck Vlade, and Fuck Walton.
#0for8ToTerminate
#HereWeBurkle
#HereWeHinkie.
If not a billboard, how about bumper stickers with the 0for8ToTerminate?
I think the ugly right now is that these bubble games are not a fluke and more fans are finally coming to the realization that team is simply not very good.
We have some young, promising talent – like Fox and even Bagley (still a bad pick, but he has promise). Buddy and Bogi are both nice player, but are 27 and closer to their ceilings.
We simply are not very good and our team is in the bad position of being poorly constructed, poorly coached, getting passed by from teams who started rebuilding after us and are younger than us, and getting into a bad cap situation.
Yet, if you believe CD and some of the Kings’ insiders on Twitter, there is virtually a 0% chance that we move on from our GM or coach this offseason – meaning the clock will be ticking down on Fox, Bagley, etc. as our team continues to be mired in mediocrity and there is a high chance we make a poor draft pick and hand out more questionable contracts.
We are in an ugly situation that will not be resolved until we change our front office (at a minimum). Teams like Dallas, Memphis, New Orleans, and Phoenix are likely going to put more distance between themselves and us over the next few years. And we have already missed out on some of the high-potential GM candidates / proven candidates like Arturas Karnisovast, Weaver, and Sheppard.
We are falling further behind, yet seem to be convinced we have the right pieces in place in the front office, coaching staff, and personnel. This arrogance or complacency is not the way to build a winning team and we are only putting ourselves in a worse position by delaying the inevitable. In no other industry would this type of gross mismanagement be tolerated.
Agree with all this. The cherry on top is the fact that the team is reportedly losing serious money, and ownership’s heavy investment in the DoCo area is likely going to bleed for the foreseeable future. That doesn’t bode well for them throwing money around to fix the management problem ala Jed York.
Remember, this is a FO that thought we were just one post-torn-Achilles Wes Mathews away from competing.
It is abundantly clear they have even less self-awareness (in terms of where the team is and where the market opportunities are for Sacramento) than they do talent recognition.
Agreed. Once upon a time, I thought that Vlade might be a solid VP who would help to manage personalities, while hiring an A+ GM to lead the organization and handle the more detailed strategy and player evaluation. However, that has not happened and repeatedly, Vlade has shown poor judgement even in basic team construction:
+ As you noted, he thought that some combination of Mathews, Rondo, Belli, and Koufos would make us a playoff team, enough so he gave away unprotected picks / swaps
+ He traded away from a set of very strong prospects in Mitchell, Monk, and Collins to take JJ and Giles (note, I am onboard with the Giles pick, but less so trading out of a strong tier)
+ He went against the grain passing on the perfect modern day primary ball handler to draft a big man who can’t shoot well or defend (to be fair, he does have the potential to shoot and defend the perimeter)
+ He stated he didn’t want to take the ball out of Fox’s hands as reasons for passing on both Mitchell and Doncic – despite virtually every elite team having multiple primary, wing ball handlers
+ He stated Bagley could play SF, despite…. um, everything
+ He has acquired shooters, but has given us no rim protectors and very few long wing defenders like other elite teams
+ He signed Harrison Barnes to a well above market rate contract, while other, similarly skilled SFs like Warren are getting ~$10M less per year, feeding into a miserable cap situation we are approaching
Vlade simply doesn’t understand them modern NBA or what it takes to win and has surrounded himself with his friends like Peja or fallen for snake-oil salesmen like Williams instead of turning day-to-tay control of the team over to a proven, competent FO leader.
Oh man, giving Barnes that contract when teams were playing to unload similar players was/is frustrating.
Point of accuracy though, Rondo, Belli, and Koufos were signed with the money Mathews turned down, I believe. So they thought Mathews was the answer. Rondo, Belli, Koufos was the backup plan.
Yes, agreed, we wouldn’t have ever had all of them. Tried to communicate by saying “some combination of” which may not have come through the way I intended it to.
I remember back in 2016 or 2017 saying on the old site that shall not be named that if the Kings did things correctly they could be back in the playoffs by 2021. I got crapped on for being way too pessimistic by a number of folks but low and behold it looks like that was way too optimistic. The reality is we are going to blow by the all time record for playoff futility in a sport where over half the teams make the playoffs.
I think the question now becomes where does it end? I now doubt that any of the players on the current roster, including Fox, will make the playoffs in a Kings uniform. Lets say that the current front office is fired after next season and bring in a competent front office at that point (maybe that’ll actually happen one day), I would guess it would still take 2-3 years of flipping the roster and rebuilding to get us to a point where we could compete for a playoff spot.
So optimistically, the earliest I can see us making the playoffs would be around 2025 and that’s only if they actually hire competent people and draft better. That would put the playoff drought in the 19-20 year range. That’s legendary ineptitude spanning multiple owners, front offices and coaches. That’s incredibly impressive. The Kings as an organization will have hit the lottery in reverse. Is the opposite of a lottery a tragedy? Probably not, but I like the idea of saying we hit the tragedy.
I think there’s actually a path to short term 8th seed competition and longer term competition. But it will take a number of tough moves. Basically, trades for overpriced vets + picks/lottery ticket youth. Features guys like Horford, OPJ, etc.
It also features taking advantage of other teams’ thirst for 2021 cap space for a historic FA class by helping them create cap space.
I think the road map could be there if this front office had any idea how to build a roster. There are some pieces here and I don’t believe the cupboard is completely bare but Vlade is so far out over his ski’s, that there is no shot of him figuring out how to make it all work. And simply looking at the Western Conference, who isn’t going to be better next year than they are right now? The Warriors clearly will be. Memphis, New Orleans and Phoenix should all be better. I think the Kings finish much closer to last in the West than the 8th seed next season.
Oh yeah, it’s a long shot and it’s going to take a MUCH better FO.
Agreed – this is far from a hopeless situation. There are assets to work with. But Vlade keeps using them inefficiently and there is little reason to believe he will be able to turn the ship around.
Now, if you REALLY wanted to get crazy and full re-build, I think there are some situations you may be able to take advantage of to get teams to overpay:
The Knicks desperation for a PG. (Fox)
The Nets suddenly immediate championship window. (Hield, Bogdan, Barnes)
The many teams’ wanting 2021 FA cap space. (Taking on money. This is obviously hampered by our current contracts, but they could make initial moves to prep)
The Sixers being in their window and desperately needing shooting. (Hield, Bogdan, maybe Barnes and high value backups like Bjelica & Holmes)
Probably more. I’d have to think about.
Healthy Blazers. Spurs with a few smart signings.
in short, EVERYONE!!!
Yeah the only team that might continue to really stink is the Twolves because I can’t imagine a team with DLo and Towns actually winning much of anything.
That’s the thing, the Kings have been lapped. Memphis, New Orleans, Phoenix, Denver, Dallas, Utah are all gong to be very good for years to come. I’m not sure the Kings currently aren’t the worst team in the West. In all seriousness, which roster would you rather have: Kings or TWolves, because that is the bottom of the barrel at this point. Keep in mind the TWolves are likely getting a top 3 pick this year.
Yeah I think the Wolves and Kings are going to be the two worst teams in the West next year unless something drastic happens. The only team in the league I trust to screw things up as bad as the Kings have would be the Knicks. Other than that, I assume every team will improve at a much greater rate than we will.
That said, I think the Wolves have an easier path. They have the tent poles (though one is shorter than the other). A smart GM can back fill with 3-and-Ders and get there pretty quickly, I think. They also, IMO, are in a good position to draft a guy that is a nearly ideal fit next to Towns (Okongwu, though Tillman later would work) and a potential 3-and-D wing (Vassell, Williams, etc.) Or use their two picks to potential go get a present NBA player.
One point I have made before is that while this could be true depending on how badly we let Vlade make this mess and given how competitive the West is becoming again – getting a new GM could lead to a quick rebuild.
We don’t have to blow everything up. The Warriors kept Curry and made some good picks / trades around him. Ujiri kept Derozan and Lowry, while trading Bargnani and Gay, while making other savvy moves and the Raptors turned things around very quickly.
Our team is a mess, but we do have some talent. It is completely feasible that if we hire a talented GM that he / she could spend one year trading Barnes and Buddy, getting us another ball handler, and some long wing defenders. Then hiring a new coach going into year 2. And boom, we are right back in the playoffs.
Hence there is a real opportunity cost to complacency and letting Vlade tie up more long-term cap space and waste the years we have cheaper control of Fox and Bagley.
I agree. It pains me to think about the clean slate this org had when Vivek and Co. took over. The opportunity was there to tear it all down and rebuild fairly quickly.
Here is the thing: that opportunity always exists. There is never a bad time to improve your franchise. Yesterday’s opportunity is gone. Today’s opportunity is right in front of the organization’s face. They either take it or they don’t.
Vivek has literally never taken it or shown that he even has the wherewithal to take it in his 7 years as managing partner. That’s what’s so damn depressing about our situation. I just can’t fathom how he is so incompetent at running a basketball team.
I just think the biggest problem is that it seems abundantly clear that Vivek is not going to get rid of Vlade and Luke this off season. So if they are going to be here for another full season, I would imagine that Vlade is going to hamstring our cap doing everything in his power to keep his job. I’m sort of baking that into where I think we’ll after next season.
Agree on all points. One thing I would like to add is the franchises narrative, especially Walton’s, is the constant, “we need to get better…we need to learn” bullshit. I’ve noticed Walton has been saying that kind of stuff often. This might make sense if the Kings were a young team like Memphis, but the Kings are anything but young. If they haven’t figured how to adapt to a zone defense or close out on shooters by now, it isn’t going to happen anytime soon.
The young excuse is a bunch of gaslighting, when the fact is the team jus isn’t very good. I can say with full confidence that no one on this team is untradeable. I used to think Fox is the cornerstone, but he doesn’t have that superstar edge to him. Right now we have a bunch of 2nd and 3rd fiddles that can’t play together being conducted by an imbecile.
Agreed.
First, it’s a bit scary that we don’t hear any real strategic feedback / fixes from Walton or the players (which the coaching staff should be teaching them). It’s always about playing harder or learning.
And second, you are right. Buddy, Bogi, and Barnes are 27. Holmes is 26. Bjelica is 31, CoJo is 28, and Bazemore is 30. Yes, Fox is our most important player and is only 22 and Bagley is 20.
Our team isn’t young and while Fox is not a savvy vet – Doncic is leading the Mavs at 20 and Jokic had the Nuggets winning 46 games at 22. It’s reasonable he is still learning and not perfect, but he has enough experience to be nailing fundamentals and playing smart basketball. Really, Bagley is the only player with a real excuse due to his age and missed games.
And look at the Griz who are well ahead of us with Ja and JJJ being 20, Melton 21, and Clarke and Jones 23. And with fewer years of experience for their two young stars.
I’ll give Giles some leeway too, due to age and minutes. But yeah, I think we’ve all moved past the “this is a young team” narrative.
Good point. I mostly didn’t include Giles since we don’t give him many minutes and we didn’t give him a QO, meaning there’s a solid chance he isn’t here next season.
Absolutely. I think it just poked my personal feeling the we often seem to talk about Giles as if he’s a mid-career vet that isn’t going to improve from here, while we talk about guys like Fox (5 months older than Giles) and Bagley (11 months younger) with all the upside of youth.
I celebrated my birthday yesterday, too!
Six games from now, Vivek should advise Divac and Walton that they are unemployed. Vivek should himself pay the remaining salaries for both, as ultimately, it was his decision to retain Divac, who then hired Walton.
I don’t know where you go next in terms of general managers, but they should look to one of the up-and-coming front office people from Houston. OKC, Toronto, etc., in order to find someone who can get rid of all of the bad habits this organization clings to. Speaking of which, Peja and Bobby Jackson are gone.
The new GM should be given complete control in terms of who he or she hires as head coach. I want these two individuals to act as though they share the same mind. No legacy hires. When your organization has not had any real success since Oscar Robertson was on the court, you sweep clean, pour bleach on everything, hose out the place and start over.
I’m sure others would be better versed as to who some viable never-before GMs might be, so I’ll leave you to that.
The Kings as an organization have moved beyond irrelevancy, and become one of the worst things that you can be: Boring. The fan base has no expectation at all of positive change happening, just none. When you draft high in the lottery for a decade, and your roster contains only one potential superstar (Fox), you need to go.
The front office is still full of people from nearly twenty years ago, and it’s time to burn it to the ground and start fresh. Hit it with dose after dose of chemo until the entire malignancy is gone.
I want this organization be be virtually unrecognizable from how it has appeared over the last two decades. Everything and everyone must go.
I say go full Hinkie. This roster needs a major overhaul, and I can’t think of anyone better for that “process.” It will at least be an entertaining ride.
A lot of the recently hyped GM candidates have been snapped up or promoted. Zarren is still in an assistant but it’s REALLY hard to see him going anywhere since he’s a C for life and in line to take over. I think Abdur-Rahim is an option. Certainly worth kicking Hinkie’s tires. Otherwise, I’m not really sure what the next generation of GMs looks like.
Happy Birthday!
wasn’t this series briefly called something like the Good, the Bad and The Beautiful?
Now it’s back to Ugly again? Makes sense.
Awesome! That was it; The Good, the Bad and the Awesome.
Yeah, that one was doomed from the get-go. Like a Kings draftee career…
I believe Bryant will be changing the the 3rd word depending on the week. I think he will find out as I did that it’s best to just keep it at ugly because that’s all we’re likely to see.
Yeah, as Akis said, I’m planning on changing the last adjective in “The Good, the Bad, and the ___” to fit the week. This week was clearly ugly. Almost made it pathetic.
This week it should have been: The Inconsequential, the Incompetent, and the Pathetic.
We have 6 more games. I am pretty sure Pathetic will come up…
Just a thought on roster construction:
Harrison Barnes is sometimes touted as one of Vlade’s better acquisitions (which he actually probably is because of low-bar-ness, but I digress).
Kings are paying him $24m this year, making him our highest paid player (Buddy’s money kicks in next year).
Anyone even notice him on the court these last two games? Probably not, which is understandable given he owns the worst +/- on the team the last two games (flawed stat example approved!). I certainly couldn’t even tell when he was playing or not based on impact.
Point is, that is just an example of how bad the roster construction is. Our highly paid vet player may as well not even step onto the court because he offers zero (or negative if we delve into the stats) net positive production.
Oh, and if you really want to hurt your brain, ponder this: Next season the Kings will be shelling out $43m on Barnes/Buddy: a nothing burger and a struggling bench guy.
PS – this is just the tip of the iceburg of analyzing how bad is the FO’s team building.
Other than that … Vlade will fix this! 😉
The Barnes contract was a disaster from before the ink dried. Even if we use the $22M average value – look at the other SFs in his relatively replacement-level tier and above:
Rudy Gay: $14M
Trevor Ariza: $12M
Danny Green: $14.5M
Ingles: $12M
Roco: $12M
TJ Warren: $11M
Josh Richardson: $11M
Kyle Anderson: $10M
Jerami Gran: $9M
PJ Tucker:$8M
Bertans: $7M
None of these are rookie contracts. But we are paying a non-star (or even semi-star) the same amount of money that the Rockets are paying for both Roco and Tucker.
This is a gross overpay. And it may not matter much for this season other than the opportunity cost of using that money to acquire another pick or player. However, it could certainly hurt us more as we sigh Bogi, Fox, and Bagley (assuming he turns out to be good) to extensions.
Yep. There is a reason you don’t pay the Barneses of the world Robin-type money (Batman’s Robin, not Lopez!).
He was never going to be Fox’s Robin. That’s just not who he is and as you demonstrate so well, Barnes’s role/production is easily replaced at a fraction of the cost.
And to be fair, I didn’t even really hate the initial acquisition. That 4 year $85m extension though!
Agreed – hard to be upset about Barnes for Zach and JJ.
But this contract was always coming and was always the scary part. The FO seemed to see Barnes as a star player and he simply isn’t.
Fox is Robin. Barnes is the Batmoped.
This is our reminder that the same offseason TJ Warren, Harkless, and Iguodala each came with quality pick attached.
Thanks for the Comment of the Week shoutout, Bryant!
Humorous GIFs are the only way I can stay sane following this team.
I hope to see your Nostradumbass badge displayed on your avatar someday
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