A Few Things to Consider:

Most encouraging however is the fact that in the last five games, DeMarcus has a field goal percentage of 51.4% and a three point percentage of 42.9%. This surge has come at an absolutely critical point in the year, where the have's and have not's are now slowly starting to separate themselves and the Kings are still sitting on the fence about where they really deserve to be. With DeMarcus himself indicating in a post practice interview on Tuesday that he finally is getting his legs underneath him after a bout of injuries, and with Coach Karl recently praising DeMarcus for taking charge of a postgame talk after a scare against the Lakers on January 7th, DeMarcus seems to be coming around to the fact that it is both his play and demeanor that are the key to the Kings making a push for the playoffs. Look for Wednesday's game to be a continuation of DeMarcus' January trend, especially if Anthony Davis decides to rest his back.

Between a Rock and a Hard Spot: The Sacramento Kings and New Orleans Pelicans matchup is an intriguing look at two teams that start with opposite expectations from most national talking heads, and are now at critical stages in the search for what comes next. Kings fans all know about how little respect Sacramento's off-season moves have gotten and the endless circus that the 2015-2016 season has brought. But for all the high's and low's the Kings are sitting just a few games out of the 8th season and are looking to make serious ground up in the month of January.

Odds and Ends:

Story Time:

Back when I was in high school, I found myself playing varsity basketball, high up in the mountains, in a round-robin practice tournament against Galena High School out of Reno, Nevada. It was my first real game of varsity basketball and considering how I had just transferred to this school, I was nervous. Around midway through the second quarter Coach throws me into the game at small forward and I immediately run down a fast break and block Galena's best player off the back board, corral the rebound, zip through a couple of defenders and score a layup. With gallons of adrenaline now flowing through me, I barely made out my coach screaming at me to come to the bench to sit. Confused, I sat down next to him and asked what I'd done wrong. He looked over and told me to shut up and watch.

The kid who had replaced me was near identical in looks to me and was seeing his first action as a member of the varsity team as well. Galena's best player grabbed the ball from the point guard, ran the length of the floor, lined himself up against my lookalike, then charged full tilt towards the rim, dunking the ball harder than I'd ever seen a kid dunk before. He dunked with enough force to throw my teammate out of bounds on his butt and into the pads.

Prediction: Omri comes back and immediately starts hitting threes from Davis, CA, Kings see they drew an easy matchup against the Pels, and Rudy has a sick dunk somewhere in the mix: Kings 120, Pelicans 100.

As always, for the other side of things visit: The Bird Writes