Kevin Huerter and Trey Lyles return to full practice participation

With the start of their 2024-25 regular season this week, Kevin Huerter (shoulder) and Trey Lyles (groin) returned to practice Tuesday.

BY BRENDEN NUNES

Oct 22, 2024, 3:08 PM Updated: 3:16 pm

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With the Sacramento Kings 2024-25 NBA season set to kick off Thursday night in Golden 1 Center against the Minnesota Timberwolves, two key pieces return to full participant status at Tuesday’s practice: Kevin Huerter (shoulder) and Trey Lyles (groin).

Since suffering a dislocated left shoulder and torn labrum in a game on March 18th, 2024, Huerter has been working his way back to action. Gradual progress over the offseason allowed him to get shots up alongside DeMar DeRozan and Domantas Sabonis at USC.

However, this is the first time he’s fully participated in a team practice against live defenders since camp started on Oct. 1st.

It’s unclear if he will be available for Thursday’s opener, but the sharpshooter seems to have looked like himself in practice, where he primarily played alongside the starters in scrimmages.

“They haven’t given me the green light that (Huerter) will play on Thursday, but I think he’s close,” head coach Mike Brown said. “He looks good. He doesn’t seem like he’s missed a beat at all. If he plays, he’ll probably start, but right now, we’ve got to get the green light to see if he’s going to play.”

“I feel like it’s tough (coming back from an injury like that),” Sabonis said. “But he made it seem like he never left the starting unit.”

There’s a common thought that players shouldn’t and don’t lose their starting jobs due to injury. It’s a curious case for the Kings, considering the job that Keon Ellis did in bolstering their defense while also knocking down shots after Huerter went down last season.

Sacramento’s third-year head coach was asked if he follows a similar logic as the guard who started 59 of his 64 games with Sacramento last season nears his return.

“It can happen,” he said. “I’m not going to put myself in a box and say if a guy gets injured and the new guy steps in and we run off ten in a row and that guy comes back for game eleven, I’m probably going to keep it rolling. You try to think of it that way, but it’s not 100 percent or set in stone to always happen that specific way.”

For a team that shot the worst three-point percentage in the preseason (25.4 percent), getting a sharpshooter like Kevin Huerter back should benefit their pace and floor spacing with his shooting and consistent off-ball movement.

“You look at a guy like Kevin (Huerter) and even a guy like Doug (McDermott), and their pace it just brings a certain level of gravity to the game because of how well they move,” Brown said. “They know when to cut back door when you come off a DHO, when to stop, when to go quick, when to slow down, and all that stuff is hard to guard when you have guys with the IQ that they have. It’s definitely a great dimension to have on our team, something different than the other stuff that we have.”

Less clarity was provided on how Lyles has looked in his return to practice, but having him available should help bolster a previously injury-riddled bench unit. Brown was transparent in explaining the difficulties that have come with limited availability up to this point.

“This is probably the first time that I still feel like I don’t have my hands wrapped all the way around what I want to do,” he said.

Luckily, they have an 82-game season ahead to iron out the kinks. Still, every game will matter in a Western Conference that’s expected to be highly competitive and congested as teams fight to stay out of the play-in tournament.