Stuck In The Middle With You
Dec 10, 2020, 4:43 PM | Updated: 4:48 pm
(Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
(Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
Can the Kings break the trend of finishing in the middle of the pack?
After four-plus months of no basketball followed by a short stint in the bubble, followed by four more months of offseason, the Sacramento Kings are back.
The Kings will face the Portland Trail Blazers on Friday night at the Moda Center in the first of four preseason games.
With the arrival of a new season, there is always a fresh sense of hope that comes with it–something Kings fans have been trying to grab on to for over 14 years.
De’Aaron Fox has inked a max extension that will keep him in Sacramento for at least six more years. Marvin Bagley III is feeling healthy and ready to put a rough 2019-20 season behind him. Tyrese Haliburton is being looked at as the third piece to the puzzle for the future of the franchise.
While the Sacramento Kings will not be expected to make the postseason, the 2020-21 season is about much more than scrambling for an eighth-seed postseason appearance and first-round exit: it’s about growth.
Since their last playoff appearance in 2006, Sacramento has teetered around the 28-35 win mark, placing themselves in a predicament–too good for a top-pick in the draft, not good enough for the playoffs.
The franchise has only had four top-five picks since 2006:
- 2009: Tyreke Evans (4th)
- 2012: Thomas Robinson (5th)
- 2017: De’Aaron Fox (5th)
- 2018: Marvin Bagley III (2nd)
Four top-five picks over 14 years isn’t enough for a team that has missed the playoffs for almost 15 seasons in-a-row (which will become an NBA record if the team misses the postseason again in 2020-21).
An example: The Philadelphia 76ers were bad–very bad–from 2012-2017.
Over those seasons, they compiled records of:
- 2012-13: 34-48
- 2013-14: 19-63
- 2014-15: 18-64
- 2015-16: 10-72
- 2016-17: 28-54
The 76ers drafted in the top-five in four out of five of the following drafts: Ben Simmons (1st overall), (Markelle Fultz) (1st overall), Joel Embiid (3rd overall), and Jahlil Okafor (3rd overall).
Since 2017, Philadelphia has locked in Simmons and Embiid as the faces of the franchise, dealt away Fultz and Okafor for assets and built on of the best teams in the East—averaging 48.6 wins per season over the last three years.
In order for Philadelphia to make that jump, they had to climb the lottery, meaning that they had to lose a lot of games.
Believe it or not, the Kings have not been good–but they also have not been bad enough.
Since 2011, the team has held the following positions in the NBA Draft:
- 2011: 7th
- 2012: 5th
- 2013: 7th
- 2014: 8th
- 2015: 6th
- 2016: 8th
- 2017: 5th
- 2018: 2nd
- 2019: (No first-round pick)
- 2020: 12th
The team has a track record of missing the playoffs, but always doing what it can to get as close as possible.
Since 2012, the franchise has topped the 27-win mark in each and every season, ensuring that they remain out of the Western Conference cellar.
This has been a “shoot yourself in the foot” move for the franchise.
Obviously, you want to make the playoffs. You want to win. It’s why you play the game.
But when it comes down to it, the Kings–as hard as Vlade Divac and Pete D’Alessndro tried in the past–have not had the talent to make that jump to the playoffs.
Drafting players like De’Aaron Fox is how you get there. Drafting well, building around young talent and refraining from dishing out bad, long-term contracts is the way to build a winner.
New general manager Monte McNair has already gone against the grain of Divac, refraining from matching Bogdan Bogdanovic’s offer sheet and signing a handful of veterans for league-minimum, one-year deals.
The act of “going for it” has hurt the Kings each and every time that they have attempted to upgrade its roster for a postseason push:
- Signing Rajon Rondo, Kosta Koufos, Marco Belinelli and Caron Butler to free agent deals in 2015 after the infamous salary dump trade with–you guessed it, the 76ers.
- Trading for Harrison Barnes and then committing $85 million to him over four years
- Giving Cory Joseph, Trevor Ariza and Dewayne Dedmon huge deals in 2019, all for over $10 million per season.
Hey, if these were moves made by a perennial contender like the Lakers, Celtics or Clippers, they would make total sense to me.
But for a struggling team like Sacramento–are these moves supposed to push them into playoff contention?
Sacramento’s best chance of turning things around and really beginning to build towards a better future starts with a few simple components:
- Stop committing money to players that are not going to be a part of the big picture.
- Build around Fox (22-years-old), Haliburton (20-years-old) and Bagley (21-years-old).
- Be content with losing now if it means you could win later. Winning 33 games does not help the development of the franchise.
It’s hard for fans to stare a losing season in the face and accept the fact that the team they love, the team they pour their heart and soul into, will struggle to win games.
Absolutely, a season where the Kings win 20 games or less would be miserable to watch.
Do you know what’s worse?
Watching a team in limbo, where they miss the playoffs by seven games and finish outside of the top-five in the draft lottery. It has happened again and again for the Sacramento Kings.
Being realistic and making smart moves is the first step. The franchise has already signaled that things are going to be done differently under the McNair front office by letting Bogdanovic walk.
The free agents brought in by McNair–Hassan Whiteside and Glenn Robinson III–are very talented veterans that could net returns come the trade deadline.
Stockpiling assets while holding on to the young talent is the name of the game.
Of course, who knows? Maybe the Kings win 45 games and make the playoffs. I’d love nothing more than to come back to this article and toss it in the trash after Sacramento breaks its 14-year playoff drought.
Based on what I have seen over the last five years, it just does not seem to be in the cards for 2020-21.
That doesn’t mean that the Kings season needs to be a waste, though.
The growth of Fox, Haliburton–and most important–the growth of Marvin Bagley III is of the upmost importance this season. If those three players turn into what the front office hopes they can become, adding a top draft pick to that trio could form a scary squad in the coming years.
Cade Cunnigham, Evan Mobley, Jalen Suggs, Jalen Green and Ziare Williams (to name a few) are players to watch regarding the 2021 NBA Draft class. Any one of those players could add to a potential three-headed monster of Fox, Haliburton and Bagley come 2021-22.
In order to break the dreaded playoff streak, the Kings need to first break out of the middle of the pack.
Being good, but not good enough and bad, but not bad enough is not going to build the Sacramento Kings into a playoff team.
Sabotaging the future of the cap space and altering the progression of promising young talent for an outside chance at cracking the postseason needs to stop.
It’s time to rebuild the right way.
