The Sacramento Kings Are a Disaster

The Sacramento Kings Are a Disaster

I don’t think there’s a team that frustrates me more in the modern NBA than the Sacramento Kings. We were there. We were finally out of the gutter with this team after missing on draft pick after draft pick in the 2010s after selecting Demarcus Cousins. They get Darren Fox in 2017. They get Tyresese Halbert in 2020. And this team is 3-7 to start off the year. They’re at the bottom of the Western Conference. And I don’t think there’s a light at the end of the tunnel with them, which really upsets me because I loved watching Dear Fox in Sacramento. I loved watching Tyres Howard in Sacramento and even when they shocked everybody and probably shouldn’t have made this trade in hindsight and maybe at the time we knew it as well when they traded for Damonta Sabonis gave up Tyres Hallebertton I was still okay with it because the Sacramento Kings ended up making it to the playoffs in 2023. They lost in round number one to the Golden State Warriors in seven games. But now that was three regular seasons ago. They ended up going 46 and 36 in 2024. They missed out on the playoffs. It was a tough Western Conference. Last year everything went wrong. Darren Fox said he was not signing an extension, so they traded him for 60 cents on the dollar to the San Antonio Spurs. They fired Monty McNair, their GM. They fired Mike Brown, their head coach. They had one of the more perplexing offseasons, not really picking a direction where to go. And I just don’t know what’s going to happen with the Sacramento Kings this season. Like I said, they’re 3-7 right now. They’re 13th in the Western Conference. They’re a bottom 10 offensive team, 23rd in offensive rating. They’re a bottom three defensive team, and they are a bottom five net rating team. This team is a very tough watch on defense. They have no chemistry. They have no sense of any type of collective defensive scheme whatsoever. Guys are just getting right by them with ease in transition. Guys can pick them apart and matchup hunt them in isolation. And Doug Christie, who has preached defense this year, and they’re going to prioritize the defensive end of the floor, barely even plays his best defender, Keon Lewis. He played garbage time against the Minnesota Timberwolves in their blowout loss. You know who’s somebody that can maybe keep up with Anthony Edwards and Dante Devenenzo on the perimeter? Keon Ellis. I don’t get it. And maybe it’s something we don’t know about cuz we were preaching for Keon to play more under Mike Brown. And now it’s just the same thing with Doug Christie. And so far this season, Russell Westbrook has maybe been their best player. That is so discouraging. It is 2025. Russell Westbrook is in his age 37 season and he’s your best player. That is not going to give you any type of hope for the future in the tough Western Conference that you’re currently in. And I think the Sacramento Kings have played some fun games this year. They had a fun, entertaining opening night game against the Phoenix Suns. They lost by four in overtime. They beat the Jazz by one. They lost by six to OKC. They lost by four to Denver. Like the fact that they gave up 127 points to the LA Lakers in a game in which LeBron James and Luca Dotic didn’t play in. Austin Reeves had 51 points in this game. And if you go back and watch the defensive effort the Sacramento Kings gave in that game, it was abysmal. Austin Reeves was getting to the free throw line with ease. He was getting downhill. Nobody was picking him up in transition. And this team is headlined by a lot of guys that haven’t really won much over the last few years. Zack Lovine was the headliner coming back in the dear and Fox trade. He’s been off to a fine scoring start this year. Actually, a really good scoring start I should say. I should give him the credit. 25 points, 52% from the field, 43% from three, 90% from the free throw line. So, he has been extremely efficient, but his on-off numbers are not great. He’s not really a ceiling raiser at this point in his career. I think we know that Zack Lavine can get you a bucket. He could be somebody that could just be an efficient three-point shooter, hit extremely difficult shots, but he doesn’t have the consistency or I think the clutch gene in him to really elevate the Sacramento Kings this year. If Zack had that, they wouldn’t be three and seven right now. And a lot of people point to the time when they got Demar D Rozan for Harrison Barnes in a first round pick a couple off seasonasons ago. A move that just sounded cool at the time, but really didn’t make sense for how this team was built going forward around Deonta Sabonis and Zack Lavine going into the 2024 season. Damonta Sabonis has been banged up a little bit this year, but he’s also struggling to have his numbers on display. He is not hitting his three-point shots whatsoever. We know that Damata Sabonis struggles from downtown, which can kind of limit his value. And he’s not a rim protector either. He’s a type of player like a Nicole Jokic or Alpun Shenun, but if you’re not going to be as effective as Joic or have the defensive intensity as Alun Shenun, it is really tough to pay you what they’re paying him right now. Malik Monk’s been a fine score, but how many guards does this team need? because they ended up signing Dennis Shruder in the offseason cuz they love what he did for the Detroit Pistons in the playoffs. I’m sure they were really encouraged for what he did in the Euro basket for team Germany after they picked him up. But giving $45 million to Dennis Shruder in the year 2025 I thought was also a little bit reckless as well. Dennis Shruder has shown no signs of consistency this year. There’d be a good game, then he would follow it up with two bad games. He’s shooting 39% from the field this year, 28% from three. He’s averaging around 12 points and six and a half assists. And that’s why Keon Ellis doesn’t get any playing time because you have Zack Lavine, you have Russell Westbrook who’s been good and I don’t know where the Kings would be without Russell Westbrook right now. They didn’t really need him going into the year because you have Malik Monk and Dennis Shooter as well. Keon Ellis is barely playing. Their first round pick, the 13th overall pick in the 2024 draft, Devin Carter is barely playing this year. He’s appeared in seven games, mostly garbage time, averaging six minutes a night. He’s averaging 0.9 points per game. one of the very few players in the NBA averaging under one point per game that have at least played seven minutes. And yeah, Devin Carter may not be good, but don’t you want to figure that out? Last year, he was just thrown into the fire of a dysfunctional organization that fired their head coach that treated their star player. He was recovering from a major shoulder surgery after getting drafted. So, he didn’t have a preseason. He didn’t have a summer league. He didn’t have a training camp. He had nothing to ramp up and was just thrown out there. So, obviously, he was going to struggle in his rookie season. I thought he looked really good in the summer league and I thought this guy could be a real contributor with Keon Ellis off the bench for Sacramento this year. Nope, they barely want to play him. This team does not have great front court depth and that’s why we’re seeing a ton of Drew Eubanks this year in the absence of Keegan Murray’s currently hurt right now, which is showing that it’s a big loss for Sacramento. They just picked up Precious Aua who just got waved from the Miami Heaton. I think Precious is a good third string center that can provide some defensive intensity. No, he’s playing 18 minutes a night right now for the Sacramento Kings. They’re playing Maxim right now who they took in the second round. Dylan Cardwell was an undrafted free agent to throw out there at the start of the year. Dario Sarich is basically unplayable who they traded Yonas Valenunis for in the offseason to save some money to go out and sign Dennis Shruder. They were actively trying to sour dump Malik Monk to go out and sign Dennis Shruder as well. I am so happy Russell Westber is on a team this year cuz he’s been so much fun to watch in some games this year with Sacramento. But why did they do this? This team makes no sense. They basically saw what didn’t work in Chicago and they said we’re going to do that here in Sacramento. We’re gonna have Zakovine and Demar D Rozan who couldn’t really win much in Chicago outside of 2022. And you know, we’re also going to get a big that can’t play defense that likes to have the ball in his hands like Nicole Vuvich in Deonta Sabonis. It’s basically the Bulls 2.0. This team also takes the most amount of shots from the long two this year. They take the most long twos in the NBA in the year 2025. This team does not want to preach any type of forward thinking in the league. They take the most mid-range jumpers in the league. Yeah, that’s because of Demard Roen and Zack Lovine and even some Russell Westbrook taking these pull-up jumpers. Dennis Shruder likes the mid-range and I just don’t know where it’s going to get better from here for the Sacramento Kings. I feel really bad for their fans because they went through such a dark period in the 2010s when that team could not draft a single good lottery pick, which is honestly very impressive to this day. Then you had Fox, you had Howalon, who you traded away for Sabonis, and that’s fine. You made it to the playoffs in 2023, but then you resulted to paying Harrison Barnes, trading a future first round pick for Kevin Herder. That pick actually ended up being the pick that the Pelicans traded for Derek Queen. The Atlanta Hawks got that unprotected swap between the Pelicans and the Bucks. Troy Wilds didn’t work out for this team long term. Sasha Vizenov, they worked on the DaVon Mitchell pick. They couldn’t develop him. Why did they need another guard after drafting Fox and Halbertton? I don’t know. And maybe that just comes back on ownership. Maybe that comes back on VC Rodiva for not really being as hands-off with this team as he should because they hired Scott Perry. He would go on to try to trade for Jonathan Kuminga at one point this off seasonason as well. I like them getting Nick Clifford and I do hope Nick Clifford can run a little bit of the point at some point this year. No pun intended, but he was somebody that looked really good in the summer league. He looked really good in the preseason as well. It’s just there’s so many mounts to feed in Sacramento right now and Keegan Murray hasn’t came back. So Keegan Murray will help this team. But they recently just lost to OKC by 31 and they just lost to Minnesota by 27. Back-to-back blowout games. Where’s this team’s fight right now? I don’t know. And when you look at the standings in the NBA, you look at all these teams in the Western Conference that are most likely going to finish higher than the Kings in the standings, right? You have those top six of OKC, San Antonio, Denver, the Lakers, the Rockets, the Timberwolves, and you have the Portland Trailblazers. I like more than Sacramento. Golden State I like more than Sacramento. I’m gonna assume the Clippers will be better than Sacramento at the end of the year. And hey, one of Phoenix, Memphis, or Dallas could definitely end up better than Sacramento this year. So, what? You’re going to just end up missing the playing tournament again? Thank god the Sacramento Kings own their first round pick this year. I’m just scared they’re going to do something crazy as well. Like, what if this team trades for John? Just I don’t know. I wouldn’t put it past them. It’s something they would make in the past. It’s something VC has done in the past as well. And I do feel like we’re heading that direction right now with the Sacramento Kings. teams are also shooting 74% at the rim against them. That’s the worst ranking in the NBA. And I don’t know if that’s going to get better. Keegan Murray’s a good perimeter defender. Is he a good rim protector? No, you’re not asking Keegan Murray to do all that. So, you’re stuck with kind of your rim protection defense of Drew Eubanks, rookies Dylan Cardwell, Maxi Marino, and Deonta Sabonis. This year, we saw a lineup at one point this year. Russell Westbrook started at the power forward position in the year 2025. This isn’t 2K. No, this is trying to win in the Western Conference with an expensive payroll a year after trading away your franchise star and you’re trotting out Russell Westbrook at your power forward position. What are we doing? There’s too many either nonshooters, non-help defenders out there, non- room protectors. This is not a well- constructed basketball roster. I think they’re going to have a lot of fun offensive games. I’ve enjoyed a lot of Kings offensive sets this year, but man on defense it is a tough tough watch. Rudy Gobear looked like prime Wilt Chamberlain against them the other day and they’ve had a tough schedule to start off the year. I’ll give them that. But it’s not going to get much easier being in the Western Conference and being in the Pacific Division. They have Denver tonight when you guys are seeing this. They have Atlanta, Minnesota, San Antonio, OKC, then you have Denver, Minnesota again over the coming weeks. Their schedule doesn’t get much easier till the end of November. And this team is already three and seven. What if they are doubledigit games under 500 at that point? Maybe they’re able to beat Denver and things are going to look bright for them, but I don’t know if I’m going to take those chances with the Sacramento Kings right now for how they’re looking. They even showed VC on the broadcast against the Minnesota Timberwolves and he looked disappointed as well. I don’t know what you guys were thinking. And I also feel like it’s just them not prioritizing the young development of any of these players. And the same thing is going to happen with Keon Ellis. Like they had Nemesis Kater on this roster a few years ago. A young big man that was going to take a little bit of time to develop. But if you watch the Celtics this year, that is exactly a type of player, a physical rebounder, shot blocker down low that Sacramento could desperately use. And they cut him for Javal McGee. Like, I swear some team is going to trade like three second rounders for Keon Ellis at the deadline. And he’s going to be like a perennial top 15 perimeter defensive guard in the NBA that’s a solid enough three-point shooter. Like, this guy’s never going to build up any confidence in Sacramento if he has like the quickest leash out of anybody I’ve ever seen that actually has this defensive upside. That’s just like goes back to what I said before. Doug Christie has wanted to preach defense this year and you’re not playing your best defensive player. He must be terrible in practice cuz I don’t know why they won’t play Keon Ellis anymore. Like Dennis Shruder will go one of 16 from the field in their last two games against Minnesota and OKC, but then Keon Ellis will barely play in those games. Somebody that can maybe try to make Sha’s life a little bit harder or Anthony Edwards as well. I’m not sure if this team would actually trade one of its like main rotational guys this year. I’m glad they extended Keegan Murray before the season started. But like I don’t know if anybody’s giving you a valuable asset for Zack, Deonta Sabonis, or Demar De Rozan. We kind of know who these players are at this point. Maybe you could parlay Russell Westbrook into a couple second rounders because he might not be on your roster again next year. He could retire next year for all we know. They were trying to trade away Malik Monk in the offseason. Maybe that happens this year. Some team could definitely benefit from his shot creation at the two guard position. So yeah, I would love to know what you guys think about the Sacramento Kings. Do you think I’m being too harsh on them? You can let me know down below. I just want this team to succeed. I feel really bad for their fans. So, I’m kind of frustrated about their start of the season. And from what we know out of these guys in the past, I don’t know if it’s going to get much better. Hopefully, this is the worst they look all year, but I wouldn’t put it past them if it’s not. So, I hope you guys did enjoy this video. Let me know what you guys think about the Sacramento Kings currently and where they could end up going forward down below. If you did enjoy, make sure you’re subscribed. I’ll catch you guys in the next one. Peace.

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