The Abridged version:
- The Sacramento Kings open their season Wednesday against the Los Angeles Clippers.
- One storyline to watch is the development of first-round draft pick Darius Acuff Jr.
- Questions surround some of the team’s veteran players, including Keegan Murray, Domantas Sabonis and Zach Lavine.
The Sacramento Kings are back, tipping off their 41st season in the capital this week.
The Kings open Wednesday on the road at the Los Angeles Clippers, with their home debut at Golden 1 Center Friday against the Portland Trail Blazers.
Are the Kings worth a watch?
Yes, because the NBA is always worth a peek.
But the Kings come with a warning label for long-suffering fans who deserve better. You know who we’re talking about. It’s you, and your friends and family, and the guy who brings two beers to his nose-bleed seat and sits alone in his Mike Bibby jersey. We applaud the die-hards who have invested in this product for years, emotionally and financially. This is your team, your joy and misery. There are some who say this glorious mess is their own.
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“Everyone has us ranked dead last or whatever, but we see these things and we have a chip on our shoulder,” Kings center Dylan Cardwell said at the team’s media day earlier this month. “It’s going to be a different year for us. We’re going to shock a lot of people.”
The Kings have layers of intrigue – how good will the first-round pick be? Is Keegan Murray ready for his best season? But the makeup of the team leads one to think of the old ride parked in the used car lot with faded paint and an unsteady idle with the sticker that reads, “As is.”
As in, you get what you pay for.
There is luck and then there is Kings luck, and so much of it has been putrid or worse. That ugly trend continues as the club’s top off-season acquisition is down and out. Ben Simmons suffered a season-ending Achilles injury in practice on the eve of the season, a royal gut punch.
Buckle up, friends. Think of this season as a roller coaster ride with some loose bolts. Be sure to use the harness and ask for a roll bar. And bring a helmet.
A slow preseason start
Preseason games don’t count, but they’re designed to help formulate some semblance of team chemistry. The Kings had little of that in going 0-5 in preseason games.
The starters did not work well together. The team has injuries beyond the crusher to Simmons, who sat out last season to get his body right and impressed coaches and teammates in fall camp. Promising second-year big man Maxime Raynaud is out indefinitely with a knee injury.
That’s left a lot of other questions.
First-round pick Darius Acuff Jr. will score as the lead guard, but can he defend? Can the Kings defend as a group? How healthy is the always-active Malik Monk? He did not see any preseason action. Murray has to produce his best season, Domantas Sabonis must return to form and Zach LaVine has to be at his most prolific for the Kings to compete.
No radio, but the G-Man remains
The Kings will not be on radio this season. But the Kings will be on the air with live broadcasts on Kings Radio, a free platform on the Kings app. Fans can also follow the action on Kings.com. The Kings can be found on TV on NBC Sports California with the return of play-by-play voice Mark Jones.
No radio access for the Kings is a bummer for old timers who appreciate tooling around town and listening to the smooth and tireless Gary Gerould in the car or the garage transistor radio. Yeah, yeah. We hear you. Get with the times.
The man who goes by G-Man will call the games on Kings Radio on the app like he has since the Kings first arrived in the fall of 1985. Gerould has described a lot of bad basketball, doing so with class and flair. He is an ageless wonder, a regional treasure who has redefined aging.
Are the Kings worth a watch? Yes, because the team either surprises people as players believe they will, or they sink. But G-Man is always worth a listen.
The Kings can’t get any worse, can they?
The Kings want to believe that they can compete for a play-in spot, but Las Vegas bookies project the club winning no more than 21 games. What do those guys know, right? We do know this: Kings fans don’t have the same level of enthusiasm for a season of promise as they did last season, when the club went 22-60, good for 14th in the Western Conference. Early injuries have dulled optimism.
The Kings have had their moments over the decades, to be sure, but the bleak seasons have been rooted in poor drafts, suspect free-agent signings, injuries and a turnstile of coaches. Team owner and chairman Vivek Ranadive was hailed as a hero for saving the Kings more than a decade ago by purchasing the franchise and ushering in the Golden 1 Center era. But he’s ripe for criticism. He has been taken to task over the years by fans on social media. Fans also speak volumes by not attending games after seasons have turned sour.
The roster is the work of Kings General Manager Scott Perry; he has said as much. And no one bears the heat more than Doug Christie, the coach who can feel the pain of the fan base.
How the Kings got here
The Kings have produced 11 playoff teams. The first was the debut season here, in 1985-86, a loss to the Houston Rockets. The 1995-96 Kings lost to the Seattle SuperSonics in the first round. Sacramento peeled off eight consecutive playoff teams under coach Rick Adelman, the Vlade, Webber, Bibby, Peja and Christie teams, from 1998-99 to 2005-06.
Then there was the 16-season playoff drought, an NBA record for futility. Mike Brown won NBA Coach of the Year honors in 2022-2023 when the Kings last reached the playoffs, a seven-game series against the Golden State Warriors. That series ended at Golden 1 Center when Steph Curry dropped in 50 points to break the collective hearts of a fan base who expected more playoff teams.
Brown wasn’t allowed to finish his contract, so he went on to lead the New York Knicks to the NBA championship last season.
How’s that for luck?
