If the last couple of days are any indication of how the next few weeks are going to go, basketball fans everywhere are in for an absolute treat. The best league on Earth has seen a plethora of rumor and activity: the Mavericks blow up their current rebuild and put together one of the best young cores in the NBA, and all it took was Kristaps Porzingis walking into Scott Perry’s office and telling about a dream he had where he met Dirk Nowitzki. Anthony Davis is officially on the trading block and before Danny Ainge could even pull the knife out of the back of his former players to stick into some current ones, Davis’ dad comes flying in with a People’s Elbow to talk smack about the Celtics loyalty issues. We’ve had All-Star snubs and Twitter blow ups, Kyrie backing out of his promise to re-sign with Boston…. It’s all so so great. Through it all, the Kings have sat back, done nothing, said nothing and I probably couldn’t be happier about it. Onto more current events, the Kings have a game today against a Sixers team who withstood the Warriors for 48 minutes and came out on the backs of a Joel Embiid 20-20 game and Ben Simmons living up to his otherworldly potential on both ends of the court. Alright, you all enjoy. I’ll be outside this evening enjoying a typical, beautiful Sacramento (checks out window) monsoon.

Let’s talk Kings basketball!

When: Saturday, February 2nd, 7 PM PST

Where: Golden 1 Center, Sacramento CA

TV: NBCSCA

Radio: KHTK Sports 1140 AM

For Your Consideration

The Ends and The Means: Before I get into the game day related stuff, I wanted to spill for a moment on the current state of the rebuild and how its stacking up with some successful modern equivalents, like, ahem… the Sixers. We don’t have to talk about The Process, anymore. You all know what it is, you can espouse your opinions on whether or not it was ultimately successful, and whether or not you think Sam Hinkie is a genius or an unfeeling AI in a makeshift meatsuit. But something struck me over the last few days, especially after hearing Anthony Davis Sr. basically announce he wouldn’t support a move to the Celtics because of the way that the Celtics treated Isaiah Thomas in the trade that netted the Celtics Kyrie Irving. Sam Hinkie peeved a lot of agents and players with the way he treated players as pawns in a statistics game. Celtics GM Danny Ainge swindled everyone for a decade to build a team stacked with assets so that he might one day get an NBA mega star, only to have the way he built those assets also be the thing that keeps him from it. Sam Hinkie was dragged out into the middle NBA Square and shot in cold blood in front of other GMs, made an example of for his style of management. Danny Ainge might slowly be suffocated by a team piled so high with talent that none of it can truly break through before the remaining assets wither and die.

This isn’t to say that the Kings are the nicest boys on the block. Sure they’ve surrounded their newbies with a positive and nurturing environment that seems to stress cohesion and togetherness and I honestly have no doubt in my mind that Vlade cares for these men and their families. Even pulling Bjelica out of heading to Europe because his wife didn’t like the idea of cold Philly winters was pretty damn sweet of the Vladefather. But we shouldn’t forget that this now positive and seemingly great environment to play in was built on the corpse of DeMarcus Cousins. Lest we forget that the one lasting star the Kings had during their decade long rebuild, who was playing in an All-Star game in which he represented the City of Sacramento, was traded MID GAME away from said city; a move so brutal and unfeeling that the NBA changed when the trade deadline occurred, in part, because of it.

I’m excited for this team, for the direction of the Kings and for any potential trades that the Kings might make. Chaos in the NBA is fun for the fans. I really love that Vlade and Company seems to value chemistry and setting up these guys to succeed in the long run. The longest view is usually the best one. But, this was a lesson learned in metaphorical blood. Successful teams like the Sixers and Celtics have done it, and thrive in spite of it. But, Sacramento isn’t as storied as Philly or Boston, and if somewhere long down the road from now the Kings are set to go from a conference final hopeful to a championship favorite with the agreement of a trade like one the Celtics are desperately hoping to make, my hope is enough time has passed that the seeds planted on the corpse of our former superstar have grown high enough and thick enough to cover how this whole thing started.

JoJo, Benny and the Boys: Getting away from the waxing poetic to the waxing on the floor the Kings might just take tonight. The Sixers are, for all intents and purposes, a terrible matchup for the Kings. Even with JJ Reddick and Wilson Chandler being out tonight, the Sixers are strong just about everywhere that the Kings are weak. Winners in seven of their last nine games (with one loss being by two to the Thunder) the Sixers play at the seventh fastest pace, score the fourth most points per game, and rock an absolute Monstar-like lineup when compare to the wirey youth of the Kings. Find a skinny guy on the Kings and you’ll find a chiseled Adonis version of them over on Philly’s side. Moving away from this topic before you all realize I’ve been Ailene Voison this whole time, the Sixers are buoyed by Twitter comedian and sometimes basketball player Joel Embiid who comes into tonight’s game averaging 27.2 points, 13.4 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 1.9 blocks a game. To call Embiid a “do-everything player” would be like calling a jackhammer-machine gun-hang glider-refrigerator a “Swiss Army knife”. The guy has a grand total of one weakness in his game and I sincerely doubt that Rihanna is coming through that door tonight at the Golden 1 Center. The Nightwing to Joel’s Superman is Ben Simmons, a first-time All-Star who at times looks like the high school freshman coming back to middle school for a scrimmage against the sixth graders. The guy is a 6’10 point guard who basically averaging 17 points, 9.5 rebounds and 8 assists while shooting 57% from the field and terrorizing opponents on offense all while overcoming a terrible allergy to the three point line. If that doesn’t warn you of the immenent danger, there’s a Batman on this superteam: Jimmy Butler, a guy who likes to be seen brooding and saying he prefers to work alone but has also called out every star he’s ever worked with for not doing their fair share of the load. Butler himself is a two-way star; averaging 18.6 points, 5 rebounds and 3.6 assists as well as 2 steals a game. Close your eyes and imagine a three on three game between Fox, Justin Jackson and Willie Cauley-Stein and on the other end, toss in the three Sixers I’ve just described. Like I’ve said, enjoy the game… I’m going to go stand out in the monsoon.

Also, JJ Reddick is obviously the Wonder Woman of that drawn out metaphor.

Prediction

Kings win this one with relative easy. Fox flashes by a any guard they throw at him, Buddy uses his Cyborg like precision to knock down 7+ threes and Bogi martian… manhunts (?) his way to a near triple double! Akis doesn’t allow me to stay up all night watching cartoons and eating Reese’s Pieces ever again.

Kings: 124, Sixers: 112