Sacramento Kings
The 2019-20 Sacramento Kings season can be defined by their regression from exciting young surprise team to underwhelming dissonance, missing the playoffs for a 14th consecutive season.
What did we learn?
If the 2018-19 Sacramento Kings were sexy as fuck, then the 2019-20 Sacramento Kings were semi-attractive at best, like a 6.5 but only when they put on a lot of makeup and appeared in the perfect lighting.
Sacramento started the season 0-5, blaming their preseason trip to India. (For what it’s worth, the Pacers also made the trip to India and also started slow.) There was an 8-game losing streak in December and another 6-game losing streak in January. Those stretches put together from December 17th to January 22nd totaled an abysmal 3-15 record. After that point, however, the Kings turned the ship around in a big way, winning 13 of their next 20 games before the season was postponed.
Injuries were a big factor to the mediocre-level of play and inconsistencies throughout the season. De’Aaron Fox, the Kings zippy point guard missed 17 straight games due to an ankle injury. Yet it was when Fox returned from that injury that the Kings 3-15 record took place.
After being the 5th-fastest team in the NBA based on pace the season before, the Kings slowed things way down under new head coach Luke Walton, finishing 20th in pace. Honestly, it felt even slower than that and was exceptionally annoying. The Kings (read: Luke) did not know how to play with their best player. It did not help that Fox’s three-point shooting dropped off a cliff, from 37.1 percent to 29.2 percent, but his two-point percentage at least increased from 48.2 percent to 53.5 percent.
Buddy Hield’s 3-point percentage also dropped this season, to below 40% for the first time since his rookie year. Buddy finally got paid by the Kings (read: Vlade) just before the season began, yet Luke Walton had moved Hield to the bench by January. Hield off the bench actually kind of worked, but $94 million is quite a lot of money to pay a bench player. Word on the street is that Hield has recently not been returning Walton’s calls. We don’t blame him.
Marvin Bagley can’t catch a break. Unless you’re talking about his thumb which he broke on opening night, causing him to miss the next two months. Just four games back from the broken thumb, Bagley re-injured his left foot from last year. Bags only played 13 games all season. He has flashed some potential when actually on the court, but that’s been few and far between. The Kings were 2-11 in games Bagley played this season.
The Dewayne Dedmon and Trevor Ariza experiments were a grand failure. The Kings traded away two of their biggest offseason acquisitions. But at least they got a keeper in friend of the blog Richaun Holmes! Holmes is one of the best power dunkers in the league, bringing a clandestine intensity with him every time he steps on the court.
The good news for Kings fans is that incompetent GM Vlade Divac resigned from his duties last month at long last. Vlade was the Kings saboteur GM for the last five years and openly admitted that he didn’t know how the salary cap worked. Vlade as a player was a big part of those really fun Kings teams from the early 2000’s, but we suspect Kings fans will never be able to forgive him for passing up on Luka Doncic, a nightmare that must be lived every waking day.
#Kangz
_____________________________________
What is the answer to our Season Preview Final Questions?
Will opposing teams be ready for the Kings speed? Our fear is that the element of surprise is gone.
Opposing teams did not have to be ready for the Kings speed, because the Kings did not play with the up-tempo whirlwind pace that was nascent, self-sufficient and irresistible to us in 2018-19.
_____________________________________
Would our preseason Over/Under prediction have hit?
The Kings won 39 games last year and did not move the needle in a big way this offseason while the rest of the West got decidedly better. UNDER 37.5 wins. (46% winning pct)
Kings 2019-20 final record: (31-41) 43% winning pct
Yes, our preseason Over/Under prediction would have hit!
_____________________________________
What’s Next?
Figure out how to get the Lambo back out of the damn garage. We are pleased with the hire of Alvin Gentry as Associate Head Coach. A disciple of D’Antoni’s 7 Seconds or Less Suns, hopefully Gentry can nudge Luke in the right direction.
Get Marvin Bagley healthy!
Re-sign restricted free agent Bogdan Bogdanovic if somehow possible. New GM Monte McNair has his work cut out for him from the jump.
Re-sign Harry Giles who had some strong moments in the bubble.
Nemanja Bjelica, the sweet-shooting Serbian, knocked down 41.9 percent of his threes on 4.4 attempts per game. Might as well increase those 3-point attempts as Bjelica has now shot over 40 percent for three consecutive seasons. Belly can also do this:
_____________________________________
Favorite Kings Highlight from the 2019-20 Season:
Professor Big Shots!
