The Sacramento Kings have become one of the stories of the young NBA season but not for the reasons fans hoped for in the summer. With their record sitting at 1-4 ahead of tough trips to Milwaukee and Denver, prospects for the rest of the season are not looking very bright at the moment.
Thanks to their late game struggles the Kings have struggled to hold on to leads despite going ahead at one point in all five of their matchups so far. Fans have pointed to a lack of size that hurts them on the boards while head coach Doug Christie has blamed a lack of focus.
“It seems sometimes we get a little bit bored with the monotony of doing things the right way and having success at it,” Christie bluntly said after the loss to Chicago earlier this week. You know things are not going great when the head coach is already calling out his players for their lack of focus just five games into the season.
Kings fans on Reddit and Twitter have already been calling for the team to tear down the roster and focus on their young players. Sacramento has the 3rd oldest roster in the NBA which has caused many fans to call their roster construction into question as well.
Fans have described the team construction as someone playing NBA2K and simply putting together a team of players that they recognize as a casual fan. With a starting lineup recently that featured Russell Westbrook, DeMar DeRozan, Zach Lavine, Domantas Sabonis, and Dennis Schroeder, it’s hard to argue against that statement. Perhaps this would have been a dominant lineup five years ago but at this point it feels like a team hastily put together by a front office that needs to sell tickets by featuring recognizable names.
With young players like Keegan Murray and Nique Clifford missing time through injury, it seems unlikely that the Kings will make any significant changes to their current rotation. Christie has already shuffled his starting lineup a few times and will likely continue to do so, but we should except to see the same names getting big minutes in the next few games.
Until Murray and Clifford are healthy, the only young players Kings fans should expect to see in the rotation are Keon Ellis and Dylan Cardwell who have both seen their minutes yo-yo depending on injuries ahead of them. Ellis is a fan favorite for his hard-nosed defense and Cardwell is an active big man but both are limited offensively which limits Christie’s options with them on the floor.
We know that preaching patience is not appealing for Kings fans who have been waiting decades for a return to contention but that might be the only option right now. This team is full of veterans that can still improve and the return of their injured young players could give them a shot in the arm as well. It may be a long stretch coming up but a turnaround with a healthy squad is certainly possible.
