Kevin Huerter is in a slump.
This isn’t something entirely new. We’ve seen Huerter have bad months before. Last year we saw Huerter deal with month-long slumps in February and April, with the April slump unfortunately carrying over into the playoffs. Huerter got grace from most Kings fans due to how well he had played throughout the season, and how intergral he was to Sacramento’s success. But now, with Huerter experiencing yet another down month, the grace is fading and impatience is growing.
The Kings need more from Kevin Huerter.
Looking at Huerter’s month-by-month splits, October was bad but was only 3 games, hardly a sample size worth analyzing. November was a solid month for Huerter, averaging 14.3 points, 4.6 rebounds, 3.2 assists, and shooting 39.6% from three. Those numbers were closely aligned with Huerter’s season averages from last year, but with a nice uptick of an extra rebound per game. But December has been an outright disaster for the Kings starting shooting guard.
Through 11 December games, Huerter’s December averages are just 7.8 points, 2.9 rebounds, 2.2 assists, and shooting 32.6% from three. Shooting slumps will happen, but the dips in other areas are concerning. If Huerter isn’t making shots, it’s hard to justify keeping him on the floor. He’s never been a great defender. You can live with the bad defense if Huerter is offsetting it on the offensive end, but Huerter lives and dies by the three. He doesn’t score often enough in other ways to play through a bad shooting night.
To Mike Brown’s credit, he seems to realize quickly when Huerter needs to just sit on the bench. In December Huerter is averaging 21.6 minutes per game, compared to 28.1 in November and 29.4 last season. When you’ve got Malik Monk off the bench, it’s easy to sacrifice Huerter’s minutes. But what about when Monk is also having an off night, or when Monk misses a game? The Kings need to be able to count on getting some sort of positive contributions from Huerter every night.
Hopefully Huerter can shake this current slump soon. History suggests that he will, and that he’ll return to form and be a positive for the Kings overall. Let’s hope so, for his sake as well as Sacramento’s.
Monk has also been kind of cold recently, possibly because of that irritated right foot, but he will still dive to the rim if given the opportunity. You go under a screen on Monk at your own peril.
Agree that Brown has handled Huerter correctly, reducing his minutes, but not yanking him from the starting lineup. It’s an opportunity for Monk and Ellis to get more minutes, and the dam wrecking Huerter’s shooting will burst at some point. He’s got to be in his own head on every shot, which is death on your percentages.
They need to get that motivational speaker from The Natural.
I wrote it earlier; teams are mainly working to disrupt the DHO, of which Huerter was the main beneficiary last season. And neither Brown nor Huerter have made proper adjustments, it seems.
Not only have teams focused on it, the Kings have moved away from running it as much. While I appreciate introducing more variety to the offense, there are times our offense stalls and I wish we’d run the DHO more with Sabonis and Huerter.
True but the dubs really disrupted the DHO in last years playoffs and took Domas out of his game. Coming into this season every coaching staff has had to study in depth what the dubs did to domas. It might not be that they don’t want to run it as much as they can’t because the league has caught on to how defend it.
Yes, he’s in a bit of a slump, but I’m not too worried. His 3pt% are at a career low, but a 25 year old doesn’t forget how to shoot. Teams have keyed in on his role with Sabonis and his DHOs are being limited. Every other part of his game, like rebounding and passing has remained consistent. Shooters are just streaky at times who live and die by the three.
As Greg stated, Brown has recognized the struggles and as a result Huerter’s minutes are at a career low. Give it time, he’ll figure it out, and we’ll be talking about Huerter Heater before too long. Just go check out his game logs from the middle of November where over 5 games he shot 23-47 from deep, good for 49%. He’s still capable.
He seems more inconsistent this year. Lots of reasons.
and teams are focused on the DHO.
and Kings have not even paid for him yet.
Kings seem to lack size and physicality on the wing. Markenon has one of those two parts and I old love to have him
While technically true at this point, the owed FRP will convey this year, unless the Kings are in the lottery which is unlikely at this point. For all intents and purposes, Huerter’s been paid for as there is no longer any uncertainty in regards to the cost or the timing of the payment.
In addition, if any trade-deadline move were to take place where the Kings 2025 FRPs and beyond need to be included, a simple call to ATL to secure an agreement to waive the protections and convey the pick immediately would be performed. ATL would happily accept as it puts another FRP in their asset bin to be used this season should make an offer for Siakim or someone else.
OT: Just watched the end of that Nets-Pistons game trying to root for Detroit. Cade was special down the stretch, and it seems that Bridges was trying to sympathize with Detroit, but to no avail.
Painful to watch the end, it’s like there’s a funeral there when the buzzer sounded.
Man, can the Kings play Detroit already? Because the more their streak goes, it’s more likely that they will win. Law of averages always win, right?
Kevin is a good basketball player. I think he will break out his slump, but damn I wished he would have developed a mid range , a floater and some playmaking this off-season. Something to help him when his 3’s are off. The kings should trade him because we need weight and length. He is 6’6 190 with a short wingspan. If we had length at the 4 and 5 I would keep him. Both him and fox are too skinny along with monk to stop the opposition from driving.
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