So the Kings are currently the second worst team in the West and limping into Utah having been humbled by the Dallas Mavericks and some dude who put many numbers into many different boxes on the stat sheet. The Jazz are a single game out the second seed in the Western Conference and the winners in nine of their last ten games. The Kings are 4.5 games out of the third pick in the NBA Draft. It’s Saturday and the sun is shining and why are we doing this again? Let’s talk Kings basketball.

When: Saturday, January 18th, 6:00 PST

Where: Vivint Home Arena, Salt Lake City, UT

TV: NBCSCA

Radio: KHTK Sports 1140 AM

For Your Consideration

Not Quite My Tempo: There comes a point in every Sacramento Kings season where the bottom just plum falls out, the poop in the bed becomes too prevalent to ignore, the elephant in the room tramples through the confines and frees itself from having to watch anymore Sacramento Kings basketball. Last season was a treat in that we had hope through the All-Star break and that “We Might Suck” train of thought didn’t leave the station till a time after. The Sacramento Kings reached that point the other night when squaring off against the Dallas Mavericks. The Mavericks won a championship, tried to retool, said goodbye to their aging superstar in a subpar season, tanked, found a superstar and are now firmly in the playoff hunt again in the timespan that it took the Kings to win 39 games ONE time and worse yet have their fans consider that a success. Watching Luka Doncic was a treat even if he was beating the hell out of the Kings in every way imaginable. You know that scene from Casino Royale where Le Chiffre ties James Bond up to a bottomless chair and smacks that knotted rope up underneath him again and again and again? Wednesday’s game was a lot like that. Now Grant Napear, Vlade Divac and whatever other mouthpiece they want to use can claim the season is lost because of injuries WHACK and try to play off the most disappointing season in a decade for the Kings WHACK and try to lightly dust complements around a 21 year old MVP candidate WHACK without mentioning that the kid should be rocking cranberry red or royal blue WHACK but the fact of the matter is that after 14 years of “maybe next year” and “maybe next coach” and “maybe the next draft” and now even rumblings of “maybe next owner” coming up, the Kings are still finding ways to be a disappointment. 1985-Forever. WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK.

Tonight the Kings take on a Utah Jazz team who have also collapsed and risen again in the time it has taken the Kings to get one draft pick correctly. They’re coached by a great coach in Quin Snyder, held down on defense by a perennial Defensive Player of the Year in Rudy Gobert and led by Donovan Mitchell, a player the Kings should have taken at 10 in the draft that year. I say this now because it’s pretty obvious the Kings patience for Harry Giles is about as thin as the stack of accolades for the Kings general management the last decade, and in all but telling Harry to take his talents elsewhere THIS SOON AFTER GETTING HIM HEALTHY, they wasted that pick. One Justin Jackson and abandoned Giles is not worth a Donavon Mitchell. One Harrison Barnes and Harry Giles isn’t worth him either, by the way. Not that it matters: the Kings have repeated over and over these last two years that they aren’t looking to get get younger or add more youth – possibly the the most ass backwards idea in sports since stealing first base was a thing teams did. It’s not like youth ever gets you anywhere in this league right? Not like Russell Westbrook, Kevin Durant and James Harden ever had any success together or reach an NBA Finals before any of them had turned twenty-four years old, right?? It’s not like the two most important men in regards to the Sacramento Kings future on-court successes are barely 21 years of age and are most successful when utilizing their youthful speed and quickness. The Kings lucked their way into a Lamborghini and are so excited to put a trailer hitch on it to tow their bricks and bullshit around town.

The Jazz are a successful team, they’re a fun watch. Let’s see how many times they try to get us to laugh at two Bogdanovic’s playing against one another.

Prediction

Jazz pity the Kings and forfeit.

Kings: 1, Jazz: 0