Hey look! It’s our first weekend preview of the year! Rejoice as you get an even looser definition of “preview” than is normally allowed! The Kings are in Utah Saturday night for a game against the Utah Jazz; a team that they actually had some success against in preseason (thought admittedly, that was before Bagley’s injury… and also preseason). The Jazz have broken even to start this season, eeking out a win against the new look Thunder and then falling at the hands of the L.A. team that couldn’t get a Paul George who wanted to be there TWICE. On the Kings side of things, they’ll be in Utah with a banged up core; Buddy Hield is still dealing with a tweaked ankle he suffered at the hands of the famously clean urine having DeAndre Ayton and now De’Aaron Fox suffered an apparent hip injury after the famously small urinator, Rodney Hood, flagrantly fouled him in the fourth quarter of the home opener on Friday night. Here’s to hoping that bench unit is as good as we all hoped it was! Let’s talk Kings basketball!

When: Saturday, October 26th; 6:00 pm PST

Where: Vivent Smart Home Arena, Salt Lake City, UT

TV: NBCSCA

Radio: KHTK Sports 1140 AM

For Your Consideration

Blah Blah Land: With the Jazz game Saturday night and the Nuggets in Sacramento on Monday, the Kings are more likely than not to start this season 0-4. With the fervor of the first lost and the disappointment around the Home Opener last night, there’s a chance that this snowball of emotion starts picking up steam as it rolls towards hell. A subjective example: last night at the game we had a guy in our section so stressed during the third quarter he was closed fist rocking the chairs next to him. He was cussing out the coaching staff, flipping birds to the refs and all the while tossing haymakers to the seat next to him. Guy was going for a heavy weight title during Portland’s big run and ended up getting in an usher’s face, cussing out some cops and was nearly dragged out of the arena. After the buzzer sounded and fans filtered out, it became very obvious that a man a few rows up from us had fallen asleep and was content with his nap to the point of telling a fellow fan that it was cool, he’d wait until the ushers rolled up to leave. This was a HUGE gap in fan experience and as I thought about it last night, both fairly indicative of how this season has gone so far. The Kings have found a way to be both frustrating as hell to watch and also somehow far less exciting than last year. I’m not talking about the hype, just the general game play. They aren’t running and gunning as we had assumed would be the strategy after last years success. Even with the ball movement being much more crisp during the loss to the Blazers, there’s just something off. Yes, they’ve got a new coaching staff and new teammates and that takes time to gel. But early returns are lack luster at best, and the majority of fans are either sliding towards punching chairs or going back to sleep.

This would be the paragraph where I normally start discussing the game tonight. Utah has slow and old De’Aaron Fox as their point guard now in Mike Conley, Donovan Mitchell is trying to prove that he’s not just inefficient, springy young Buddy Hield and I’m struggling to find another bad comparison that might annoy the resident’s of Salt Lake City. Oh got another: popular everyman small forward Joe Ingles, who is really just short and sassy Nemanja Bjelica has been moved to the bench recently in favor of a wonky-ankled Bojan Bogdanovic and Jeff Green, the guy everyone thinks Harrison Barnes is. Utah is playing for a potential championship, Sacramento might be playing to keep the start of a new French Revolution from happening. Powerful motivators, Tom, back to you in the studio.

Prediction

Someone comes into this comment thread and gets offended that I predict the Kings win the game, again, like every game, ever, that has ever happened, that I’ve been the one to preview. OF COURSE I’M GOING AGAINST LOGIC AND THE HEART OF MY ARTICLES, THEY’RE THE KINGS DUDE!!!!!! Donovan Mitchell has 30+, Rudy Gobert records 5 blocks and the Kings blow their asses out by 17! Wooowooo, can’t stop this hype train! Fox for 40! Buddy with 7 threes! Marvin comes back during the beat down just to dunk on Rudy with his broken right hand! Did I say 17 points??? I meant 77! Kings win by 77!

Kings: 164 points, Jazz: Math that I don’t want to do because its Saturday, but its 77 less.