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Make the Sacramento Kings make sense

A shockingly bad defense and boom-bust offense make every night weird in Kangzland.

Jan 12

Good morning. Let’s basketball.

Getty Images Sport

The Sacramento Kings are 5-6, in the thick of the play-in mix in the Western Conference. You may remember them from blow-out losses to the Warriors, Raptors and Blazers over the past week while two of the key players’ dads let their Twitter fingers loose.

Or you may remember them from beating the Nuggets twice, the Suns once and now the Indiana Pacers, thanks to some plucky play from Richaun Holmes, Harrison Barnes and De’Aaron Fox, including this victory stamp.

Justin Russo @FlyByKnite

OH MY GOD DE'AARON FOX

Every team has had some weird performances this season. Chalk it up to the oddity that is the NBA game experience right now (no crowds, little arena noise), the sped-up prep for the campaign, the many lineup and rotation permutations caused by player unavailiability due to rest and COVID-19 protocols, the frequency with which teams are playing the same opponent twice in a row.

But for the Kings, every game is a weird performance. There are few normal wins and few normal losses. The team is literally all over the place, Jekyll and Hyding its way toward .500. Long-term, this feels like a team that will end up near the bottom of the standings, because when the Kings look bad they look really, really bad. But then they put up 127 on Indiana and you start to wonder if it’s the blow-out losses that are unreliable.

Here’s what we can tell about the Kings after watching recent games and looking at the data:

Their defense is truly hideous. Statistically, it’s the worst in the league. It’s a wonder they don’t give up 120 every night. Oh wait, we are just receiving word that the Kings have given up 120 in each of their past five games. Well then.
Their offense is completely erratic, relying on hot nights from supplemental players and lots of free throws, which makes no sense given the roster.

Buddy Hield should be the team’s best scorer. However, he’s shooting 36% on the season and never gets to the line. De’Aaron Fox just picked up a max contract extension: he’s under 20 points per game because he’s under 30% from three and only 70% from the line. (Fox is No. 16 in the NBA in free throws per game. He has to hit them at a higher rate to take the next step as a scorer. He has shot appreciably better than 70% from the line in his career.)

Harrison Barnes has seemingly been hot since putting on a Kings uniform, and rookie Tyrese Haliburton is scoring efficiently. This all creates a situation in which when Fox pops, Haliburton plays and another player other than Barnes has a good night (Holmes, Marvin Bagley, Nemanja Bjelica), the Kings offense actually performs quite well. When Fox is out or quiet, or Haliburton is out, or no one else has an inordinately hot night, the Kings offense falters. It’s boom and bust.

In the last five games — in which, remember, Sacramento has given up 120 every night, with defensive ratings of 117 or worse — the Kings have had two dreadful offensive nights (offensive rating below 100) and three great offensive nights (offensive rating above 120). They lost the two bad offensive nights and won two of the three great offensive nights. The other one? They gave up 144 to the Raptors and lost.

So in the end, when you piece it together, the Kings start to make a little more sense. Not “this team is 5-6 with wins over really good opponents” sense. But a little sense. It’s a boom-bust high-ceiling offense with a completely embarassing defense. We’ve seen these teams before. The 2019-20 Washington Wizards say hello. There are lots of these teams sprinkled throughout modern NBA history. It’s a shift for the Kings, who last season were simply mediocre in every fact of the game.

Frankly, this is more interesting. Almost assuredly doomed all the same, unless the Kings can figure out how to keep opponents under 120 at least once a week. But interesting.

What Now? Nothing, That’s What

Two more games have been postponed due to COVID-19 protocols: Mavericks-Pelicans on Monday and Celtics-Bulls on Tuesday. We’re up to four on the season. We also have our first substantial team outbreak: four Mavericks have tested positive for COVID-19, per Tim MacMahon and Zach Lowe at ESPN. We only have one name, Maxi Kleber. Dallas is scheduled to play the Hornets on Wednesday and Bucks on Friday; if those games happen, we’ll get a better sense then. The Athletic’s Shams Charania reported a more alarming note, that one unnamed player from an undisclosed team had tested positive COVID-19 for the second time since the pandemic began. ($)

The NBA had a call among general managers and a meeting with players’ union representatives on Monday. ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reports that the NBA Board of Governors is having another call on Tuesday. All reports indicate that while what’s happened since Friday is worrisome, it’s not going to derail the season. And why should it? This is what the NBA knew could — would? — happen if it didn’t use a bubble for the regular season (which was not on the table for players or owners) and started the season in December (a priority of the owners for strictly financial reasons).

From the NBA’s perspective, sure, it had to postpone one game on Monday. It still had seven other games on local T.V., fulfilling contracts and helping teams that own their own regional sports networks make money. Every game played now in the thick of it helps the NBA land its Finals in July, which is outside of football season.

Pause the season? So the NBA can get rid of the virus for now and then let it spread around the league again at the end of January, all while delaying the end of the season by that long and potentially impacting the start of the 2021-22 season? No way! Right now you have 2-3 teams who cannot field squads due to COVID-19 protocols. That number might need to grow to 10 or 12 to justify pausing the season from a logistic or financial perspective. And clearly the financial perspective is the priority — they wouldn’t be starting the season until MLK Day next week or later otherwise — and the logistical perspective is just the one they need to make work under the circumstances. No other perspective appears to have much prominence.

The NBA is talking about rescheduling shootarounds and being more vigilant about post-game interactions between players on opposing teams. Sure, make moves on the margins to improve the risk calculus. That’s what all of us have been doing since March 2020, even those of us mostly sticking at home. If that results in two fewer players getting COVID-19, it’s worth it. If it models behavior that leads to 0.5% less spread in a given NBA market, fantastic. But the NBA really shouldn’t expect anyone to believe that this type of tinkering is going to fix this outbreak. The league just can’t afford to look to its players or its fans like it’s doing nothing as players begin to test positive in higher numbers. So the league is doing the closest thing to nothing.

This shouldn’t be a surprise after the haste with which the NBA arrived at a December 22 start date and for the reasons it did so. The NBA had a really, really successful bubble experience, saw other leagues skip the bubble and survive and decided to emulate those other leagues. So the results are emulating what those other leagues experienced. Go figure.

Scores

Knicks 88, Hornets 109 — Gordon Hayward is on a tear and Charlotte has won four straight to get above .500. Hayward looks a half-step slower than in his vintage Utah days, but he’s got that versatile arsenal going at a high level. Working well off the dribble, off the ball with cuts and movement, hitting spot-up shots.

Grizzlies 101, Cavaliers 91

Bucks 121, Magic 99

Suns 107, Wizards 128

Sixers 94, Hawks 112 — Atlanta’s starters just blew Philly’s out of the water. Strange game for John Collins: just seven shots, all of them threes. They didn’t need his offense but after recent leaks it’s worth monitoring.

Raptors 111, Blazers 112 — Heartbreaking loss for Toronto as Robert Covington forced Pascal Siakam into a really tough potential game-winner — Siakam had chances to win each of the last two games for the Raptors, missing both. Portland went out and won this game, though, coming back from down 14 in the fourth on the back of Carmelo Kyam Anthony. A mid-range bucket, a tough offensive rebound, A BLOCK and a handful of threes to the dome. You love to see it, unless you’re the Raptors, in which case you are being tortured.

Pacers 122, Kings 127

League Pass Cup Update

After Charlotte’s win over New York, we now have half the field at .500.

Schedule

All times Eastern. Games are on League Pass unless otherwise noted. Clearly, games are subject to postponement. Our single League Pass Cup game is denoted with a 🏆.

Heat vs. Sixers, 7
Nuggets vs. Nets, 7:30
Jazz vs. Cavaliers, 7:30
Lakers vs. Rockets, 8, NBA TV
Spurs vs. Thunder, 8 🏆
Pacers vs. Warriors, 10:30, NBA TV