Data Analyst Explains Why Sacramento Kings Suck (but Malik Monk doesn’t)

Data Analyst Explains Why Sacramento Kings Suck (but Malik Monk doesn’t)

Welcome. My channel is first and foremost a photography channel. Today though, I am way off topic. Please forgive me. Um, some of you have asked me how I afford to have the photography hobby that I do and to have all the nice cameras I have. And the short answer is um I’m a data analyst and I help billion dollar companies and my hourly rate, if you need to know what it is, you can’t afford me. And um today I have a bone to pick with the sports team that I follow, the Sacramento Kings. And um right not just the organization but also the fans and the media around it right a lot of times um right stupidity exists throughout the entire community and culture and it’s uh how they can go 20 years and uh remain in mediocrity and hopefully I can show them some numbers that might open their minds to um right a different possible future. that they’re imagining. So these are stats from last season. I’ve sorted the players by plus minus. Uh there are three outliers on the good side. Sabonis, Monk, D Rozan. Um Ellis is right there. Murray is well not right there, but down in fourth and fifth spot. Ellis and Murray. Okay. And then on the other end, right, there are some down in the cellar, right? Jake is off the team. Isaac Jones, uh, he was a rookie development player. Um, Herder is off the team. Trey Lyles is off the team. Alex Lynn is off the team. Uh, but down here, second to the bottom is Zack Lavine, who makes the most money and will be a starter this upcoming season. What’s that about? Um, he is going to be starting instead of Malik Monk. Now, when we go over here, we have wins and losses from last season. And I’m doing wins minus losses. So, you can see Malik won uh Malik Monk won 36 games, 29 losses. He is plus seven on a team that was under 500. He is a big-time outlier on the positive side. Down here at the bottom, you have Colobby Jones, Keegan Murray, and Zack Lavine. Okay. All right. You can see where I’m going is I’m frustrated that Malik Monk once again is going to be moved to the bench and uh Zack Lavine is going to be starting in his spot. Okay, on this page I have every starting lineup from last season. There was a group that won four and they lost none. They were undefeated. Drosen, Ellis, Monk, Murray, Sabonis. Now, if you take out Monk and you add Lavine, right, that takes you to a fiveman group that’s at the very bottom of the list, right? D. Rozan, Ellis, Lavine, Marie Sabonis. They were three wins, six losses. That’s a net of -3. Back up to the top of the list where we see the best net wins. Monk is in group one, group two, group three, group four. Okay, Ellis and Monk, right? They pair together so so well, right? Malik is undersized. Even as a guard or even as a point guard, he’s a little undersized. He’s under 6’3, right? In terms of physical stature, he’s more like Steve Nash and Steph Curry than um right SGA, right? He’s he is a small guard. He pairs best with somebody like a Keon Ellis who has length, who’s a good defender. Monk and Ellis started together seven times last season. They were seven and0. They beat the Sixers, the Grizzlies, the Warriors, the Heat, the Celtics, the Timberwolves, and the Cavs. Okay, interestingly is D Rozan was also part of all of those groups. Here we see four man groups and um sorted by plus minus the top three groups, right? Dero Rozan Sabonis Monk Ellis. D Rozan Sabonis Monk Murray. Dero Rozan Monk Murray Ellis. Right. It’s the those same characters uh permutated. So, right, that’s I don’t want to say totally conclusive, but right, the numbers point to Malik being a very good starter, especially paired with Ellis. Um, this season rolls around and neither Malik or Ellis are starting. They’re both coming off the bench. Now, to a lot of fans, right, they think back to the season and they feel like Malik didn’t really excel as a starter um for some reason, even though that’s not what the numbers say. I want to look at his game logs real quick. So, he comes off starting, this is like they they lose a head coach. Doug Christy’s a co the coach now, and they win 10 of 11 games, including a sevengame stretch. Um, okay. This big column here that I’ve highlighted, those are his points, right? Look through there. He was only in single digits one time. Okay, his assist column, he was five or more assist in almost every game, right? Including a 12 assist game and a bunch where he had eight or nine. Now, also in this stretch, they lose Fox. They add Lavine. It’s sort of an awkward time where they don’t have any practices and they’re traveling and they’re trying to figure out how to play together in games just by like talking some things out in the hotel. Um, so you’re adding a new piece, which Lavine was, in my mind was a terrible pickup because he’s basically just like a taller version of Malik who can’t break down people as well and may actually be a worse defender even though he has more size. Um, and then you you get into this stretch where Malik starts dealing with a foot issue which is clearly impacting his shot. He takes some time off. He comes back and then he starts to have a really good stretch. He has his maybe his three best games in a row right here. A win against Memphis and Cleveland. He had 28 points, 22 points, 34 points, right? Seven assists, eight assists, five assists, but he gets sick and he misses three more games. He comes back and that’s basically it. His his opportunity as a starter is done. uh Ellis gets moved into the starting lineup and Malik is back into the six-man role, right? And a lot of this just has to do with right you you sort of need Ellis in the starting lineup and then all of a sudden for defense, right? And then all of a sudden it’s like how do you have Lavine Demar and Malik and so you know Malik loses out on that um because of age and prestige and and uh contract and all those types of things. And so then he’s back into the six-man role. All right, I’m going to back way up and right. I’ve I watched every single one of Malik’s games in the NBA, many of them twice. I followed him through his Hornets career, his time at with the Charlotte Hornets. And I’m going to tell you my take on uh his career, and um it’s going to be different than than what you’ve heard, right? Okay, his rookie season, um, if you look at his stats, this is per 36, everything actually looks pretty good, uh, with the exception of his two-point percentage. Um, and consequently his effective field goal percentage and right, the strikes against him his rookie season was he was he is undersized. He was thin. He’s athletic, but he sometimes uses his athleticism to sort of make an acrobatic play uh instead of absorbing contact against a physical interior defense. Right. So, his rookie season, he struggled uh at around the rim. Um he tried to to get draw foul calls and he never got them. Uh, and he took a lot of ill-advised um, you know, difficult fadeaway two-pointers that were almost three-pointers. Uh, and right, his defense was was, you know, the worst of his NBA career. And it’s, you know, and it’s still, right, um, spotty and overall relatively average, right? Um his second season rolls around and there’s talk that maybe he’ll become the starter. Um you know talk of a camp battle between him and Jeremy Lamb. Jeremy Lamb was was bigger uh was playing the best basketball of his career and also had a lot of history with Kim Walker. So Jeremy Lamb won the minutes and he continued to play a backup role. The Hordets had asked Malik to add some muscle and to get stronger around the rim. Um, and you can see that he did that. His two-point percentage jumped and otherwise he looks really consistent with his stats. Um, and he was sort of a sixth man but didn’t, you know, he was like ninth or tenth off the bench so his minutes stayed pretty low. Um then his third season rolls around and now Kimell Walker and Jeremy Lamb are gone and the organization is faced with like what are they going to do with Malik? Are they ready to make him the starter? Um and a couple things happen where Terry Roier becomes available and he had had a really good playoffs and so they they start thinking that they’re going to go with Scary Terry. um right provide a little veteran leadership to this young group of guys. Uh so Roier comes in as the starting two guard and Malik was not ready to be the point guard. Um and Devonte Graham was very very good at filling in for Kimba and had a lot of Kimba like um skill sets as the distributor. And so Malik again uh was coming off the bench. But what I want to show you here is um right even though he was coming off the bench um he he started to piece together some really good games right so he had 20 points 31 13 and then just kind of a steady stretch of double figures but then he had 19 19 25 15 and all of a sudden um the media is is starting to make noise about whoa Malikica’s waking up like he’s here like you know Malik’s ready to be the starter and he gets his first start as a Hornet. Um, I mean it was amazing. He’s almost 3 years in and everyone that had touched the Hornets organization had started except for Malik and he finally gets a start and he’s in the news about how he’s turning the corner. But he does have a bad day bad first game as a starter. But what was worse than that is uh now the NBA was interested in some drug test and some uh examining who you know you make this much noise and they’re going to look at you and he was doing some illegal drugs and that was the end of his season. Uh and it really um painted the rest of his um time at Charlotte. um right the fourth his fourth season rolls around right he’s the end of his rookie season or his rookie contract and if you look at his per 36 like his points are up at 20 all of his percentages are good his three-point percentage was over 40% his re his rebounding and his assists were up like he was actually playing pretty solid basketball but his minutes were really low because the organization was already had already decided that they were done with Um he and the coach were definitely not communicating. Um they had had a falling out, right? Malik felt like they had promised him some more opportunity than he ever got. Um and um ultimately didn’t like how he was being coached. Um yeah, so the Hornets did not sign him uh right after the rookie contract. it was going to be like a 13 or 14 million to keep him for a fifth season. They were not going that route. Uh instead, the Hornets chose to go this route. They went with James Book Knight who uh was caught passed out in with a gun uh what with a DWI and some Doritos in his lap. You got Miles Bridges who uh was beating his girlfriend or his wife. You had Kai Jones who went crazy. You had Brandon Miller who was supplying guns to murderers. You had Harold who had three lbs of of pot in his car and you got LaMelo Ball who uh is driving recklessly. Um right. And Right. And so culturally the Hornets uh were on the struggle bus. Uh but everybody just wanted to blame Malik. And um he came out of that not without Minio offers. the the Lakers offered him a vet minimum and he jumped on it and um I remember that season where all the fans were were down on him. They thought that he had sucked at Charlotte and that he wasn’t going to be anything for them. They thought that Wayne Ellington and Kit Mazemore were were going to get and and um um what’s his name? Ken Kendrick Dunn. Oh gosh. um where they thought that that that’s where the minutes were going to go that Malik was going to be 12th man on the on the bench or on the roster and right and I remember being like well I think he’s actually going to be important and he was so anybody who watched this Lakers season um right it was championship aspirations they had a bunch of Hall of Famers um and that’s not what it was right they just they they didn’t win any preseason games they started the season slow. It was a a dumpster fire the whole season through. And the Lakers fans will tell you that the only good thing about that season was the breakout of Malik Monk and Austin Reeves, the two boys from Arkansas. And here you can see that Malik had 39 games off the bench and 37 games as a starter. If you compare these stats, you can see that Balik gets an efficiency bump from starting, right? He was starting, playing 32 minutes, 17 points. His three-point percentage was 42.2. Um, right, all of his stats were good. Um, yeah, Lakers wanted him back, but they were in a pickle with West Russell Westbrook. And until they figured out how to get off of Russ, they didn’t have really a solution for how to keep Malik. They were hoping that 6 million bucks would be enough because that’s all they could offer, but it was not. Right. So, the Lakers were hoping that he’d come back for the 6 million. Um but the Kings, right, this is the one good thing that the Kings did. Um Monty McNair, right? He said, “Hey, Malik, we can give you $9 million to come play at the King with the Kings.” And in Malik’s mind, not only was it $3 million more, but it was an opportunity to go and start with Darren Fox and to become one of the most dynamic back courts in the NBA. Now, in less than 24 hours after Monty McNair made that great decision, he made another decision which was not a good one, right? He brought Kevin Herder to the Kings, who guess what is also a shooting guard uh immediately crushing um the Malik Monk Fox starting back court. So, the season starts uh first year at the Kings and Malik is coming off the bench. Um, right. And his minutes sort of float around the 15 to 25 range. Uh, right. And he’s he’s the backup to Kevin Herder. Uh, you know, a little bit of a six-man role. And but then something happens u at the 59th game of the season. Kevin Herder gets injured uh at the be not Sorry, I goofed that. Herder gets into foul trouble early in the third against the Clippers and now all of a sudden Malik is coming in a few minutes into the third and he catches fire. Okay. And then right we know what happens here. This is one of the greatest NBA games of the last decade. The Kings and the Clippers go double overtime 176 175 and Malik is the best player on the court that night and scores 45 points, right? And afterwards you get the Malik Fox in interview and they’re just like, “We have arrived. We are here. We are we’re here to uh you know kick some ass in the NBA.” And what happens the very next game? Malik is back into his bench roll. Herder’s back into his starter role and Malik gets just 20 minutes and the next game he’s down to 15. And as you see looking down these game logs, nothing changed, right? It was like it was like the organization didn’t witness the game, right? It was just back to business as usual usual all the way until the end of the season except until what happens? They get to the playoffs, right? and right and now all of a sudden your best players step up because they have to because the defense is all of a sudden really good. So looking at our playoff log right at the end of the season Malik is still only getting like 20 minutes a game. Playoffs arrive and look at his minutes right yes he’s not starting but his minutes are up around 30. game one he scores 32 points beat the Warriors right game six right in on the Warriors court he scores 28 and convincingly convincingly beat the Warriors by 19. Okay, Malik was arguably the best Kings player in the series. Fox is the other person in that conversation and there really isn’t a third person right there. After you that it’s just like a like a long list of where the heck were these people in this important series. Maybe Keegan Murray shows up a little bit in late in the series. Um so the season ends and it’s like wow the Kings have two stellar guards and that’s about it. How what’s the next season going to look like? Well, the next season rolls around and Malik is still on the bench coming in behind Kevin Herder. But Malik embraced the role and as we look at his game logs, right, he didn’t start a single game that season, but look at his production, right? Look at all these po games where he scores 20 or more points. uh he should have won um six man of the year except he does suffer an injury towards the end of the season. Um but he had a really good um season as a sixth man which unfortunately sort of in a lot of people’s minds has enforced this idea that this is who he is. He is best as a sixth man, right? And it’s because he can create his own shot and he can create for others and to have that off the bench is a really wonderful thing. Um and for an organization that doesn’t really have any wonderful things, right? Um that’s one thing they just want to have. And then last year starts, right? And again, Monk is coming off the bench. Um, it’s not until game 21 that Malik gets his first start as a Sacramento king. Uh, right, we basically have to go through 20 painful games of watching Kevin Herder struggle. Um, and then finally there’s the breakthrough of giving Malik a chance. Uh, they lose to the Spurs by two. Um, and then they beat the Rockets. um which was a big win. Uh lost to the Grizzlies, but then they beat the Spurs, beat the Jazz, beat the Pelicans. Uh Malik and Monk, not Malik and Fox are having a wonderful time as teammates. And then, um they go on a losing streak, which um right, the Lakers beat him three three games out of four. Um and all of a sudden, the coach is fired. And that takes us back to here, right? The argument I want to make is that Malik is ready to start. He’s been ready to start. The best pairing with him is Keon Ellis, right? There’s good data that suggests that you can pair him with Murray. Um, that is a very strong group of three. And then after that it’s like, okay, if it’s Domos, well then you you got to find that fifth person who makes a really complete five. That person is probably athletic and def with defensive strengths and can block some shots but also maybe spread the floor a little bit. Who is it? Uh and the team can’t find that person, right? And because they can’t, right, they they give up Fox and they go with the the biggest name they can get. They bring in Lavine, uh, who definitely spoils the party for Malik. Um, and now all of a sudden, you know, because the offense was so jank but last season, uh, because Demar Ball is not the same thing as playing with pace and the team had a confused identity. Uh now all of a sudden they think they need a point guard and Dennis Schroeder who has played on every team in the NBA um is is here and everybody’s super excited about Dennis Schroeder and Zack Lavine and Demar D Rozan. We’re going to be playing with pace and shooting open threes and making layups and we’re going to outcond condition everybody and and all the while Keon Ellis and Blake Monk are going to be coming off the bench and it’s a crime. All right, enjoy the

A data analyst looks closely at stats and explains how the Sacramento Kings organization continues to make mistakes with their roster and rotations, dooming themselves to 20+ years of mediocrity. On the flip side, Malik Monk is very underutilized and has a right to file a complaint with the league about organizational stupidity. An opinion piece? Maybe not.