It's when one or more of those guys are absent or underperform that Sacramento really has trouble. Last night was just the latest example as Rudy Gay missed the game with the flu. DeMarcus Cousins and Isaiah Thomas were the only ones able to generate any real offense of the Kings, scoring 55 of Sacramento's 89 points (almost 62% of Sacramento's total output) on a combined 21 of 42 shooting. The rest of the team however scored just 34 points on 10 of 45 shooting (22.2%).

One thing to remember though is that the reason the Kings have no real depth is that they gave it up in order to acquire Gay. Patterson, Vasquez, Hayes and even Salmons are all good rotation players in their own right. If the Kings had those guys AND Rudy Gay, this would look like a really solid squad. But we don't, because that was the cost of getting Gay. As such, when Gay is out, the Kings have an even weaker roster than they did before the trade. That helps explain why Sacramento has gone just 1-6 in the seven games since the trade Rudy has been out (that includes the Houston game where he got injured) and why the only Kings players with a positive +/- per 100 possessions are the starters: Isaiah Thomas (+7.5), Marcus Thornton (+6.4), Rudy Gay (+7.5), Jason Thompson (+5.4) and DeMarcus Cousins (+5.8).

The good news is that this is a temporary problem. Depth can be acquired in a few ways, while acquiring stars like Gay is much more difficult. The trade deadline is in a couple weeks and I expect we'll see a few moves from Sacramento's end here. We know we need another ballhandler, we know we need better defenders, but we also need guys who can hit open shots on a consistent basis.

Rebuilding takes time. It doesn't happen overnight. Right now the Kings have three players they can count on any given night, and they've proven that with those three guys, they can play with anyone. Now it's time to build around them and make our "Big Three" more than just an "Only Three".