It’s Sunday in the NBA, which means, EARLY GAMES! You wanted to take your family to a movie that gets out early enough that the kids could go to bed at a reasonable hour? TOUGH. You were planning on grabbing an early bite with your friends before the start of a new work week? NO WAY BUB. You think these situations only really work for those in the Pacific Standard Time Zone, which is an overly simplistic view of how fandom operates in an era of internet streaming and NBA based cable packages and most are you are fine with the start time? WELL YOU AREN’T VIVEK THE GUY WHO WRITES MY CHECKS, SO YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHAT TO WRITE!

It’s Russell Westbrook, Paul George and the thing that ate Jason Momoa. There’s top ramen in the pantry, and i’m sure “Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween” will still be in theater’s next week. Let’s talk about your waning personal life Kings Basketball.

When: Sunday, October 21st; 4:00 pm PST

Where: Chesapeake Energy Arena, Oklahoma City, OK

TV: NBCSCA

Radio: KHTK Sports 1140 AM

For Your Consideration

Russell-ing the Herd: This might be the most calm and upbeat I’ve been a few days after the Kings gave up record breaking amounts of points. The Pelicans dropped 149 points on the Kings and everything is just … fine. Sacramento could very well find themselves in that same position tonight: Russell Westbrook is a shark in the water and Kings are swimming towards him like a rotor-sliced Tuna fish, and yet, everything is just… fine.

Tonight will be a big test of this Sacramento squad’s hot starts. De’Aaron Fox has gone up against Ricky Rubio and Jrue Holiday/Elfrid Payton, all very fine NBA players. They aren’t Westbrook, a man nearly as quick and twice as thick as Sacramento’s finest young lead guard. IF Fox can accept the challenge of both attacking Westbrook and stemming the onslaught of Westbrook’s offense, I think we, as a fanbase, need to start preparing ourselves for a very special season for De’Aaron. It’s still absolutely too early to tell for sure, but, start preparing.

Willie Cauley-Stein is also someone that get’s to test his hot start against his greatest enemy: mediocrity. This is the game in years past that Willie would shirk from, the game after the good game from Willie, in which he sees he has a chance to coast a bit, so he turns off the all the engines at the productivity factory. This is not to take away from Steven Adams, a fine NBA center and one of the tougher, and more likable, players in the NBA. This is all on Willie Trill and the mindset he has said he’s changed this season. It’s easy to play up to Rudy Gobert and Anthony Davis, two of the great bigs in the current NBA. What will earn Willie that cash he’s hoping to get: beating up on guys he’s supposed to. If you can go out and get 24-7-4 with 2 blocks against Gobert, and you can get 20 & 7 against Anthony Davis, go get those against Steven Adams. Go snatch 14 boards. Go swat 4 shots. The performances against the NBA elite are a good start, but the difference between flash and fire is consistency. Burn up those second tier guys on the nights you know you won’t be on the featured highlight reel, and the money will come in droves, from Sacramento or otherwise.

Finally, I think I want to talk about Marvin a bit too. The kid’s alright. Predictable? Sure. Left hand dominant? In the worst way. But the guy works his ass off and if he keeps being productive in the minutes that he plays, Sacramento fans aren’t dummies, they’ll see it. Twelve minutes or thirty-two, if he’s giving the level of effort we’ve seen from him, he’ll find his way into the league and absolutely has the ability to change the minds of those still railing against Vlade Divac’s and Brandon Williams’ mistake this summer. Props to the kid for putting his head down and working. I’m actually excited to see his follow-up performance tonight.

S(acramento) T(heater) R(eview)

Tonight’s movie: White Lightning

What IMDB Says: Easygoing Arkansas good ol’ boy Gator McKlusky (Burt Reynolds) is serving his second federal prison sentence for running moonshine when he learns his straight-arrow college graduate brother and his girlfriend have been murdered. Eager to take down corrupt county sheriff J.C. Connors (Ned Beatty), whom he suspects is behind his brother’s death, Gator agrees to a federal attorney’s deal that releases him from prison to infiltrate Connors’ underground booze-running business.

What I Have to Say: This is one of those Burt Reynold’s bleed through movies, in which you sit down to watch it with someone and you end up arguing over what happens during the course of the film because you swear you’ve seen this. “Is this the one where the trucker’s box him in to keep the cops from seeing him?” No that’s Smokey and the Bandit. “No Smokey is the one where they’ve got that dude Big Bear where – “ No that’s White Lightning! “Which one is the one where he has a chimp?” THAT’S CLINT EASTWOOD IN EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE!

This is not Oscar bait. This is a movie that the show Archer references. Quentin Tarantino straight up stole parts of the White Lightning soundtrack to use in Kill Bill and Inglorious Basterds. It’s a movie that Steven Spielberg spent month’s prepping to direct and then decided during casting to ditch the movie, because he didn’t want his first film being Burt Reynolds-whiskey-runner related.

Trailer: (WARNING: contains a sequence of flashing lights, which may affect anyone who is susceptible to photosensitive epilepsy or other photosensitivities.)

For Rent: On Amazon ($3.99) and Youtube ($2.99)

Prediction

Justin Jackson scores in double digits. Radio heads scream in my ears on Monday about him turning a corner. Harry Giles comes in and has himself his first really good professional game, and by that I mean he doesn’t foul out and he just keeps being my wonderful son. Westbrook becomes an East trickle everytime De’Aaron Fox comes at him and Fox’s All-Star campaign officially gets underway tonight after he goes for 30 and 9 assists. Dennis Schröder grabs a player’s jellybean bag, because that’s the only thing hes done of note in his entire career and I wanted a little extra space on this section to make the section look fuller.

Kings in a barnburner.

Kings: 124, Thunder: 117