It’s no secret that the Sacramento Kings had a down year. They finished 22-60, tied with the Utah Jazz for the fourth-worst record in the league, and are awaiting their fate from the ping pong balls on May 10th for the NBA Draft Lottery.
It’s hard to look at any stats from the most recent Kings season with much regard. Player stats are easier to look at and find takeaways, but the team was so bad as a whole that pretty much everywhere you look, they were at or near the bottom of the rankings. From poor three-point shooting and defense to a lack of rim protection, it’s the same issues we’ve seen over the last few years in Sacramento.
But a little more research shows an interesting stat that quietly defined the Kings season. They were the only team in the NBA last season that failed to win a game by 20 or more points. Even the 17-win Washington Wizards and 19-win Indiana Pacers squeaked out three 20+ point wins each. But the Kings? Their biggest margin of victory was 16, which they reached twice with wins over the Chicago Bulls and Miami Heat.
Ultimately, it may not mean much, but it shows one glaring thing that the Kings were missing: a true star and 1A player.
The three rookies in Nique Clifford, Maxime Raynaud, and Dylan Cardwell all impressed in their first NBA seasons, but none currently project to be All-Stars or the type of player that you build around. They all currently project as solid role players, or even high-level stars, which is great to find given where they were selected in the draft, or in Cardwell’s case, signed after the draft.
The hope was that Keegan Murray could step into more of a leading role in his fourth-year. He got the big contract extension, but we only got to see him in 23 games during his injury-riddled season. Losing Murray not only hurt the Kings’ slim postseason chances, but it took away the opportunity to see his growth in an expanded offensive role that the Kings desperately needed to see this season.
Not Many Huge Individual Performances