Sacramento Kings Thriving With Darren Collison

Darren Collison and the Sacramento Kings are one of the surprise teams in the NBA

The Sacramento Kings have been the early surprise of the NBA season going 4-1 and doing it in impressive fashion.

They beat two playoff teams from last season in the Portland Trail Blazers and Los Angeles Clippers with the victory versus LA coming on the road. Sacramento took down the Denver Nuggets at the Pepsi Center in the second night of the back to back followed by a 131-109 romp of the Nuggets to sweep a home-and-home Wednesday night.

Many, including myself, thought the Kings were making a major mistake this past offseason letting Isaiah Thomas go and replacing him with Darren Collison.

The Kings went 19-21 in games Thomas, Rudy Gay and DeMarcus Cousins played and when the three of them were on the court together (995 total minutes/24.3 minutes per game) had a positive net rating of 1.6 with a 104 offensive rating and 102.4 defensive rating.

That’s not the time to start jumping up and down thinking Sacramento was on its way to a championship, but it was a clear step in the right direction. We’re talking about an organization that hasn’t accomplished a winning percentage of higher than .341 since the 2007-08 season. The Kings haven’t been .500 since 2005-06.

It was a curious decision Sacramento didn’t march forward with the trio listed above when Thomas could have been retained at a reasonable price. Whether they made the right decision long-term letting the more talented player leave for the Suns and replacing him with Collison remains to be seen.

As of now the move is paying off, but Sacrmento’s success is larger than simply moving on from Thomas to Collison despite how the statistics make it look.

In 125 minutes together this season (24.6 per game) Collison, Cousins and Gay have a 108.9 ORtg and 85.3 DRtg, which is a +23.6 net rating. That’s absurdly good.

The change from Collison to Thomas has mainly been a subtle adjustment of less is more. Isaiah’s biggest strength is at times also his biggest weaknesses. He has a unique ability to create his own shot in small spaces off the dribble. This at times leads to over dribbling and controlling the ball a tad too much.

Nothing in these videos is spectacular, but it’s Collison making the right basketball decision. There’s no unnecessary dribbling done by the point guard, he gets the ball where it’s supposed to go.

Thomas with the Kings last season averaged nine drives per game and Sacramento averaged 9.5 PPG on those drives. The former UCLA point guard isn’t nearly as aggressive totaling 5.3 drives per game resulting in five PPG for the Kings. Collison understands being able to break down a defense individually isn’t his strength and doesn’t attempt to do it as much. Him understanding his limitations has helped lead to more ball movement as Sacramento is averaging 21 more passes per game this season.

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Putting all of the increase in ball movement on Thomas would be unfair, but you do see in these statistics how Collison is helping. He averages 5.7 more passes per game, takes 4% less of his shots with seven dribbles or more and 4.1% less of his shots come when he holds the ball for six or more seconds.

Gay and Cousins usage rate is up ever so slightly, 2.7% between the two. Both players are taking advantage of all of their opportunities – Gay has a PER of 27.2 and Cousins 29.9.

These two have become the clear focal points of the offense and Collison makes sure to keep them involved. Instead of pounding the ball into the ground he has no problem running sets without dribbling and letting the offense run through the two highest paid players on the roster.

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This is where the difference between the two is noticeable. Rudy Gay’s shooting percentage is unsustainably high, but the more important aspect of the chart is the separation in volume of passes, raw passes per game and field goal attempts in each situation.

All of this being said the Kings offense is only a little over four points better per 100 possessions so far with Collison sliding in for Thomas as a part of the trio. With only a five game sample size that can easily swing in one game. What’s been more significant is the early improvement on the defensive end.

Collison came out of college known as a stingy defender playing under the slow it down, grind it out, half court style of basketball Ben Howland employed with the Bruins. This reputation eventually devolved at the NBA level.

The Kings have been terrific to this point and Collison hasn’t hurt them, he’s had a positive impact. Head coach Mike Malone deserves a good amount of credit for Sacramento’s defensive success. The players have bought in and they’re working hard including the often maligned Cousins. His effort has been solid through five games.

In the first four games this was a pretty surprising development:

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On Wednesday, facing Lawson again, the Nuggets point guard shot 3-7. Collison was an annoying pest making plays.

In both of the PnR videos Collison gets good help from Cousins, whose foot speed is a strong attribute for him defending the action. Cousins help gives Collison the recovery time he needs and in both situations it ends as a successful defensive possession.

With the third play it’s an extreme example of Collison playing smart off-ball defense. The Nuggets poor spacing allows two Sacramento defenders to guard three Denver players above the break. Because of this Collison cheats off his man and is able to swipe the ball from an unaware Kenneth Faried.

Throughout this game there’s less flashy work from Collison. When defending a player on the wing he pinches in, but stays in range to be able to properly close out his man. Collison’s got his arms in the way clogging up the Nuggets penetration and passing lanes. Malone has the Kings players playing smart, heady defense.

The key to the Kings continuing to play above the expectations will still rely heavily upon Cousins and Gay performing at an extremely high level on both ends. They’re the two most important players on the team.

Through five games it’s only fair to give Collison credit for not being the detriment to the roster he was widely believed to be. Collison has done what he was brought in to do and for now has subsided the chatter of what was thought to be a major mistake.

All statical information in this story is from NBA.com and the PER numbers can be found at basketball-reference.com

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