Welp, the season from hell just keeps getting worse as the Kings have officially dropped to the 7th overall pick. To rub salt in the wound, the Utah Jazz, who they were tied with and lost a coin toss to at the end of the season, jumped up to the 2nd overall pick. Washington won the 1st pick, Memphis got the 3rd pick and the Chicago Bulls jumped to 4th. The Pacers fell to 5 and so their pick went to the Clippers as part of the Ivica Zubac trade, and the Brooklyn Nets fell to 6th.
This is considered to be a deep draft, so there should still be a very talented player available for the Kings to take at 7, but this is still a blow and will take the Kings out of the running for AJ Dybantsa, Cameron Boozer, Darryn Peterson and Caleb Wilson in all likelihood. The Kings will instead likely have a choice of someone like Darius Acuff, Kingston Flemings, Keaton Wagler, Brayden Burries or Mikel Brown. It’s a very guard heavy draft, and the Kings do find themselves in need of a new young Point Guard.
The NBA Draft will occur on June 23rd and 24th. The Kings officially now have the 7th, 34th and 45th picks. The Kings have picked 7th quite a few times, the last being in 2013 when they selected Ben McLemore. The Kings also selected Jason Williams with the 7th pick in 1998, Bobby Hurley with the 7th pick in 1993, Walt Williams with the 7th pick in 1992 and Lionel Simmons with the 7th pick in 1990. Recent 7th picks have been Jeremiah Fears, Donovan Clingan, Bilal Coulibaly, Shaedon Sharpe and Jonathan Kuminga.
Smells like Acuff, Wagler, or Flemmings at 7
Smells like trade back
I’d prefer to trade up, but the draft is deep enough where trading back could make sense
Cash considerations FTW!
that would be my prediction. I like 2 of those 3 and might come around on the third. Going on bpa , I have Yaxel Lendebourg in my top 7.
FAFO
Lolz
What a f’n DISASTER. Doug Christie is another classic Kings player whose enduring legacy will be screwing this franchise out of a top lottery pick, this time in the last year where tanking mattered. IDIOTS.
Vivek has to be happy though. He’ll pay less for a #7 and now he can pick Acuff, who is a prototypical Vivek player, an all scoring and no defense guard who, with the Kings luck, will be another Zach LaVine.
The only upside here is that maybe, MAYBE Acuff makes it less likely for them to trade for Ja Morant.
And maybe after another couple years of failure, Vivek can launder and destroy Chris Webber’s reputation by making him GM and Mike Bibby’s by making him coach.
Doug and the owner both suffer from ego idiocy. Stubborn. Egregious approach to running and coaching an nba team.
There are no basketball gods. There are only an idiot owner and his dumb goons.
I said above, the basketball gods are not cruel, they’re just! They punish incompetence and the Kings are the most incompetent.
I’m not discussing theology with you!!!
Bball gads aren’t cruel-this owner is. He’s taken this franchise-that we saved from moving-driven it into the ground and treats the city of Sac and the fans like shit.
He’s not just incompetent-he’s an asshole.
Demar, devin, and a bunch of 2nd rds for no. 5. Butt pulled idea. Unless MEM is desperate to unload Ja and give up no. 3 which is highly unlikely. Sorry guys, im just delirously fucking upset over the last 3 wins fuxking us up.
Kings tanked the lottery.
Welp, they were supposed to tank BEFORE the lottery. NBA -3.0
I’ll go the other way and say the basketball Gods are not cruel, they are just. They reward smart teams and punish dumb ones. The Kings are dumb and therefore deserve nothing.
It’s horrible for the fans, but this team deserves to lose in perpetuity and experience zero success or joy because they’ve run a cheap, incompetent organization. I didn’t watch a second of Kings basketball last year and I am seriously considering relinquishing my fandom after 41 years.
What exactly is the point of rooting for this team? They aren’t ever competing for a championship. Heck, they can’t even compete for a playoff spot. I would not be remotely surprised if they break their own playoff futility streak of 16 seasons with this current run their on.
The only and I mean THE ONLY thing that could change any of this is if Vivek sells the team. That’s literally it. It doesn’t matter what front office they put in place, what coach they hire or what players they sign or draft. All of it is utterly inconsequential when compared to incompetent ownership. None of it matters. So, why stick around? Why even bother? Finishing with a top-5 pick in this draft, given where they were at after the all star break was the biggest layup imaginable and they failed so miserably, that it almost defies belief.
It will be “interesting” to hear what kind of spin the local media will give this.
For the last few months, they were like ‘I’m not going to be upset about it because it’s a lottery and the may move up”.
Now we’re probably gonna hear ad nauseum how deep this draft is and what gem we can get at #7.
Reductive hindsight: The wins at the end of the season got us to a 50/50 shot for a draft slot that ended up being a lottery selected top pick, which ironically became the best percentage at moving up. Unintentionally, that coin flip was our best chance. Two of the bottom 3 teams dropped out of the top 4 with better odds than us but worse odds than the coin flip. Either way, the lottery is a joke and the Kangz are cursed.
There are six players in the draft who are relieved by the results.
Knicks have looked great under Mike Brown this series. Glad for his success.
Badge Legend