Sacramento was one of the most talked about teams last season but only for the wrong reasons. They traded away their best player who asked to leave the team, they fired their head coach that had led the team to back to back winning records after 16 losing record seasons in a row and then, they also fired their GM only hours after the end of the season.
For the new season, Sacramento seems to want to beat the record of playing the most guards at the same time but that won’t be a good idea. DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine will be their primary scoring options and they have a history together in Chicago but with them the Bulls were a mediocre team and so, signs aren’t great. Last season they shared the court in 879 minutes and the Kings were outscored by 4 points per 100 possessions.
Their frontcourt also lacks depth behind Domantas Sabonis. In order to make things worse, Keegan Murray got hurt in the preseason and will be out for a while. This will be a problem for the team as they lack anyone else with decent ability to play the PF position.
After signing Dennis Schroder, the Kings also recently signed Russell Westbrook. These two guards play a very different style of basketball. They also have Malik Monk to add depth to the backcourt while their first round draft pick was Nique Clifford, another guard. In theory, having so many guards wouldn’t be a bad idea if they were versatile on both ends of the floor, but that doesn’t seem to be the case as most of their guards don’t like to play off the ball while only Keon Ellis is known for his defensive prowess.
Unfortunately for Sacramento, there is only one ball in basketball and so, coach Doug Christie will have to find a way to use all his guards effectively. On defense, the Kings will have to pull a miracle to avoid being one of the worst units in the league. So, if they want to be competitive this season, they will really need to be elite on offense.
Sacramento had the #1 offense in the league three seasons ago, but that team used a very different style as they were one of the most 3pts happy teams in the league at that time. This isn’t going to happen with this roster as already last season, they were only #24 on 3pts volume in the league.