The Kings lost. Again. 4 in a row.
Full recap to follow.
Nov 25, 2024; Sacramento, California, USA; Sacramento Kings guard De'Aaron Fox (5) drives to the basket against Oklahoma City Thunder forward Kenrich Williams (34) and guard Cason Wallace (22) during the second quarter at Golden 1 Center. Mandatory Credit: Ed Szczepanski-Imagn Images
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The salaries for John Collins and DeRozan should match up pretty well, check it out. Just saying.
no. DeRozan is better.
You think? John Collins is like 18 and 9 this season. And he’s a big physical body who’s hitting 37% of his threes.
Kings probably could have had him for a 2nd rounder the last two off-seasons. They were saying the Jazz might have even added picks or players just to get someone to take his salary. Value probably went up now with how he’s been playing, though.
just watch how he gets his buckets. he is such a bucket-getter that if he and Fox are having good games, the best closing lineup might be Ellis over Monk. and that’s coming from a huuuuggge Monk fan.
What?
Agreed he’s very reliable with the ball. And the way he picks up fouls is crazy. And the value of a player who can get a bucket and/or a foul is immeasurable. I’m really not saying Collins is better than DeRozan, but I think Collins could be a better fit.
Collins plays 4 but he can even play 5, or play like a 5, or match up with 5’s. He also is a willing defender and rebounder. He can help Domas pick up the slack inside, and those two could basically rotate between guarding the 4 and 5 as necessary. Possibly most importantly, this would allow Keegan to guard the 1-3, as he does best. Keegan gets outmatched guarding 4’s and 5’s a lot. And when DeRozan is in the lineup playing the 3, that means Keegan has to guard the 4 because DeRozan absolutely cannot do that. Additionally, this would still allow Sabonis to initiate the offense at the top of the key, with Collins being a real low post presence. On top of that, he’s hitting 37% of this threes at decent volume. So no issue with him passing up shots or stopping up the offense when he rotates out to the wing. And, again, he’s a real rebounder at almost 9 a game this year. That would take so much pressure off Domas and Keegan as the only legit rebounders. He also would (hopefully) bring some grit and fire, which we desperately need. Plus, it seems like he gets buckets in the flow of the offense or cleaning up offensive boards without needing a lot of plays called for him, yet is still scoring 18 a game.
Maybe there’s a way to keep DDR and get Collins, I’m not sure. Maybe him for Huerter, but the salaries don’t really match up and Huerter is a tier or two below Collins at this point. Maybe Huerter and Lyles would work. But I have thought Collins is who we’ve needed since he was up for grabs with Atlanta. He plays more defense and gets more rebounds than Jerami Grant, with as good or better shooting and scoring. He’s also just as young as DFox and fits that trajectory. I just think Collins fits for a lot of reasons. The only possible cause for pause might be an attitude fit, but that doesn’t seem to be an issue at all in Utah and he might feel even more at home amongst this Kings team and in Cali.
Agree.
It’s about fit and what needs to happen to balance out the roster. Everyone knows DDR is better than Collins.
I’m old enough to remember when this team having a horrendous preseason was totally irrelevant!
Seriously though, fire up tankathon because this team isn’t anywhere close to making the play-in let alone the playoffs.
It only took 12 tries…
Tis the season
So real talk, he’s EXACTLY what this team needs and we’d be title contenders with Flagg. I’ve always preferred that route to “Hey isn’t the play-in fun?”.
I am grateful we had a year outside of the lotto but I just don’t see us doing anything special this year. If there were ever a year to be a bad team, this draft would make it a lot easier to cope
Agreed this draft is loaded with top tier guys.
You are going to get one.
Damn should we go there already lol
no
Where is this team going?
60% winning percentage
Wow.
How?
They aren’t getting remotely close to that. This team is broken in the most obvious way possible.
I’ve been there brother lol
Well we wanted consistency.
Kings went all in. OKC went at about 60% and owned us.
All bullshit aside, if they don’t get this together De’Aaron is about to leave…
He should leave. Be better for everyone. He is a good individual player. He is not a team player. This team needs a leader.
I mean leave for nothing in free agency.
Your IQ just went through the roof.
Is there a paradox here?
Your worried about the team losing enough that one of the players who doesn’t seem to have an effect on losing leaves
SGA or Fox is a winning point guard no matter where he goes?
Hint. The answer has an S.
Or maybe trade him before he sinks his trade value before he demands a trade with one year left on his deal.
If the thunder was willing to trade Westbrook and PG and rebuild the kings can trade fox and sabonis w no problem.
If the jazz was willing to trade Donovan Mitchell and gobert the kings can trade fox and sabonis w no problem.
fox is not the issue I think he does impact winning but the thing about our GM he did a terrible job building around his top 2 players.
the kings have been lacking a starting Powerforward and small forward for a decade. All we do is draft a center and guards every year.
The kings are our only real professional team. We should all as fans take more pride that our owner and gm is failing to bring us a championship or a playoff team with sky high potential. This is a basketball town Like the spurs like OKC and they are already 10 steps ahead w MVP caliber franchise players. We deserve better.
MCgenius doesn’t have the stones to do this and Vivek would never okay it. Those two love mediocrity.
But I’m with you, I’d trade both fox and ox and rebuild around KM and whatever we get back in trades.
I prefer he leaves than to give him a super max. Last I checked he’s never won a playoff series. Can’t keep overpaying players who have won nothing.
With Portland and Minny coming up we are likely moving to 14 in the conference. Divide that by two and we edge are way into relevance.
Why didn’t Len play more? I was thinking he might be injured til he came in at the end. I thought he would match up decently with Hartenstein.
Len’s best night ever does nothing in this game.
Hartenstein was getting off all night just banging around. Len has trouble guarding more athletic bigs, but Hartenstein plays on the floor just like Len. Could have probably slowed him down and kept him off the glass a tad bit more than ORob.
Welp…I’m glad I subscribed to League Pass’s monthly plan instead of the annual one. If this starts spiraling out of control, I’m probably going to cancel it before my next billing date. 🙁
Right there with you Klay which really stinks.
Same here. Might as well keep that $19.00 in my pocket or take wifey out for a cheap date rather than sit and watch this crap circus show unfold
I’ve never been a big believer in Fox and Ox and also totally understand that the past 2-3 years is probably the best basketball team in 20 years…buttt is this fun? Unless Fox leaves, this team is locked in for next 4-5 years
Another thing I don’t like is the “aw shucks, it happens” vibe after every loss in the postgame interviews. Somebody light a fire under somebody’s ass for God’s sake, please!
Live by the 2, die by the 3.
Things can get better, if Brown will be better and more flexible, if people will start hitting outside shots, if Monte gets us some much-needed length and athleticism and if we manage to shift our defensive focus to stopping the 3.
Perhaps there will even be a marked in provement if we do 2 or 3 out of these 4.
I’m just not very optimistic that these things will happen, but starting Keon over Huerter is a start.
Hope springs eternal.
Does it? I just don’t really see any tangible reason why any of these things would change. The shooting just is what it is at this point. They have no spacing and employ too many poor shooters. Brown probably isn’t changing his scheme at this point. The bench is still gonna be bad. I don’t know, this just feels like who we are and the issues are too deep to overcome without a roster overhaul.
But those who hope in the Kings will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like black falcons; they will run and not grow weary, they will shoot from 3 and not miss. (IT 40:31)
{no offense intended}
Part of me thinks that they can’t keep shooting this bad and will progress to the mean. Another part of me thinks Kangz.
I’m afraid Huerter is broken and Keegan’s first year shooting was an outlier, but I do expect both of them to move toward being average three point shooters over the course of the season.
I don’t think that’s enough to get this team out of the first round, which to me is still a failure given the lack of player movement.
All possible and I don’t disagree. I am trying to cling to some hope without making excuses.
And if we are a first-round exit that is definitely a failure in my book.
The games when DeRozan and Sabonis were out with injuries, Fox easily got to the paint/rim with relative ease. There was more space.
I think the Kings need to pick a direction with team building. 4 or 5 out, leaving the paint open for drives and kicks. Or build off screens and DHOs.
They seem to be trying to operate too many styles of offense at once, and don’t have the personnel to do that.
Completely agree. The fact that our offense was markedly better with DeRozan and Sabonis out is not good! The spacing issue and lack of three point defense have been obvious since game 1 of the preseason. The last two years they had an identity. It wasn’t anything great but at least it was a direction. Now they are trying to blend styles and it’s a disaster.
I get the idea behind bringing in DeRozan. A guy that can score when the offense stagnates, or the game slows down because defense tightens down.
I had hoped they would get him moving and in the flow, or having others cut off him as the defense moves to double the ISO and force the ball out of his hands. But the defense seems perfectly fine with letting him ISO and living with the results.
Brown needs to do better when Demar is in the game to get others moving and involved. This ain’t the 90s, ISO isn’t the go-to offense anymore, at least not for the first 3.5 quarters.
God we suck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not a bad year to tank, the only really bad team in the NBA is WASH. Ton of great prospects in the coming draft.
Once you give Fox a supermax, this roster that isn’t good enough to make the playoffs is set in stone. So what’s the point?
It continues to baffle me that a GM from the Morey tree would construct a team that doesn’t value the 3 point shot.
I understand that he probably didn’t think his two best shooters would suddenly forget how to shoot but how in the world did McNair think it was a good idea to have his 3 best players be non 3 pt threats in 2024?
The poor shooting is a team-wide epidemic, aside from Keon. That surely hampers any offensive strategy. But that’s the results we have seen this season.
Neither of those players were above average from three last season, and they traded their other high level shooter. The Kings front office should know better than projecting career highs as the new norm.
SGA and Jalen Williams are what we wish Fox and Keegan could be.
SGA to Fox – ‘anything you can do, I can do better’
The first half looked better, at least they weren’t down 20 in 5 minutes. In the first half they were attacking the paint more, taking less 3s, and hunting ISO for DDR and it was working. They went away from that in the 3rd and started shooting (and missing) too many 3s (again!) and the game got away from them.
Personally I want to see some of the young guys get some real minutes and see what they can do. I know as constructed, in the West, this team is not going anywhere.
The problem with that is Fox is probably gone. Maybe it is time to at least consider trading him?
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