Rebuild and Retain: Sacramento Kings
With a respected, logical coaching hire, a solidified front office situation, and a bona fide star in place, this year might finally be the one in which the Sacramento Kings take back the letter “i” in their moniker, replacing the more meme-able “a” that the internet has replaced it with.
With last year’s additions of Marco Bellinelli and Kosta Koufos next to DeMarcus Cousins and the Kings’ small core of young talent, the team likely fashioned itself a playoff contender. However, a lopsided roster skewed toward offense and a coach who did little to correct that balance in favor of pace and his own feather-ruffling version of innovation led to another disappointing year.
The team finished third in points per game, boosted heavily by the quickest pace in the league, but finished 22nd in points allowed per 100 possessions, creating a division between the coaching staff and front office for the umpteenth straight year. The young roster could score in bunches, but lacked the discipline to bend to its opponents’ various styles when the sprint slowed to a jog. Too often, the game would degrade into frustrating imbalances that the Kings lacked the talent to overcome.
The team turned the ball over third-most in the league, behind only the uncompetitive Phoenix Suns and Philadelphia 76ers. Their shot-making was nice, but they did little else, and were in the bottom quarter of the league in terms of free throw shooting, another worrisome symptom of the mismatch between style and roster construction.
This summer, the team pounced on a suddenly available Dave Joerger from the Memphis Grizzlies and maintained continuity behind the decision-making nucleus of former Kings players Vlade Divac and Peja Stojakovic. With the league’s salary cap expected to jump to around $90 million this summer, the Kings project to have max cap room this year, able to compete with the rest of the league to sign what should be a decent free agent crop.
Here at Upside and Motor, of course, the focus is always on youth and development. While the Kings have a history of mortgaging that side of their future, this particular crossroad in their team-building process presents an interesting opportunity to feature the Sacramento franchise in our Rebuild and Retain series, in which we highlight the players on rookie contracts on the NBA’s lottery (non-playoff) teams.
To finally get over the decade and a half-tall hump and make the playoffs, the Kings will need to turn these players into contributors and craft a successful style around them.
Note: Only players on their rookie contracts will be considered for this series. If a team has signed a player to a second contract, that more than likely means that they are considered a core member of the roster.
THE BUILDING BLOCK
Willie Cauley-Stein
Despite being a consistently dominant defensive center at Kentucky, a leg injury during Kentucky’s fairytale 2013-14 season forced Cauley-Stein to remain at Kentucky for a third year. Luckily, his continual improvement led to interest across the lottery and his eventual selection eighth overall by the Kings.
He was fortunate enough to earn playing time immediately under coach George Karl, who is notoriously difficult on rookies. Next to focal point DeMarcus Cousins, Stein was able to operate largely as a Waste Management worker, cleaning up messes on both sides of the ball and digging into the grunt work around the hoop.
Some of the most interesting action happened early in the season when the spry frontcourt and not-yet-burnt-out Karl combined to try some fun stuff:
Stein has the tools to be legitimately fearsome in those sets which use motion to free him up diving toward the hoop. The Kings under Karl often used their bigs as facilitators early in the clock, and Stein is already capable of making the right decision in those situations. His intelligence is on display whenever he’s on the court, and his performance itself makes a decent pro-college argument. Watch this oop from the first home game of the season:
Eyes on the ball, inching toward the hoop in perfect synchronization with Rajon Rondo’s hesitation dribbles, finished off with a perfectly timed jump. Fortunately, not much has to be done perfectly when you’re as physically gifted as Willie Cauley-Stein. He makes a lot of big-man basketball stuff look simple, taking advantage of the frame that those extra college years blessed him with.
His post game has miles to go, but he can make room for himself:
Fortunately for the Kings, that set of physical blessings can take complete control of a game on the defensive end:
The blocks and boards will always come to guys with the length of WCS, as long as even a pinch of effort is given. If he and Cousins can survive together long-term, they will have the ability to destroy the opposition on the boards every night. The key to that pairing on defense will be Stein’s ability to defend the league’s stretchier bigs:
Most of that will come from experience in the league learning different players’ tendencies and different teams’ schemes, but on that particular play, even a stronger reaction to Ryan Anderson’s drive would have left him closer to Ryno when the shot went up.
He can get awfully handsy in the post, making it extremely easy for a good offensive player to victimize him down low. Stein averaged nearly four fouls per 36 minutes this year against mostly rangy matchups. If and when he replaces Koufos as the team’s primary backup center, there will be some growing pains:
However, the instincts are there, and he’ll mature into a guy who can use his abundant tools to affect a game positively. This stuff is encouraging from a guy most would categorize under the big umbrella of “raw rookie big man”:
If there’s anything he ought to improve at immediately, it’s his ability to corral smaller players after switching onto them. The Kings rarely switch on the pick and roll, preferring that their bigs drop back to play free safety in those situations, but their pick and roll coverage overall was inconsistent, and Joerger will likely change that strategy immediately. Stein often struggles against quicker shooters, but occasionally offers hope (sigh, Swaggy):
On Cousins’s best nights, Cauley-Stein is a great compliment. Too often, Cousins prefers to take over games, bypass the set offensive scheme, and ignore defense completely. However, if Boogie can channel his best vibes more often under Dave Joerger, he can be a dominant, agile, two-way playmaker and defender. Forget the three-point experiment; even the best version of a non-shooting Boogie is someone that a Rim Reaper like Willie Cauley-Stein can exist next to.
THE MAYBE
Ben McLemore
Facing another late lottery selection in a weak draft, the Kings latched onto what was professed to be the most surefire guy in their range — just ahead of Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, CJ McCollum, Steven Adams and Giannis Antetokounmpo. Such is the crapshoot nature of the NBA draft.
McLemore still has the makings of a legitimate “3-and-D” wing, capable of defending three positions and making a variety of shots. Unfortunately, that appears to be his absolute ceiling, as the ball-handling, showrunning and shot-creating aspects of his game have failed to launch.
Most alarming about his offensive game is his remarkable inability to read and react off the ball. McLemore is constantly in motion, but rarely in the right place. His three-point shot is above average and should garner some attention in forcing potential help defenders to stick with him, but they’re too often able to stray toward the action because of his awkward placement inside the arc:
Does he know where to be? Has he been told where to be? Often, the troubling thing about watching the Sacramento Kings is not knowing the answers to those exact questions. When Boogie is acting of his own accord and Karl is perpetuating schematic inconsistencies with puzzling rotation decisions and ineffective play-calling, it’s difficult to blame someone like McLemore for bouncing around like the Energizer bunny in the half court.
However, those #KANGZ issues, while real, do not earn him the benefit of anyone’s doubt. A smart shooter knows his strengths, makes room for himself, and launches when comfortable. We’ve seen players like J.J. Redick and Kyle Korver continue to improve by becoming more nuanced in their approach on and off the ball. McLemore would do well to make more plays like this:
Simple, instinctive, and ending with a splash. If you’re going to be an offensive team, you have to be able to manufacture open looks in the half court, not simply rely on creating 105 possessions for yourself on a nightly basis. That’s where McLemore can shine; making good reads and keeping the machine going.
The Kings tried, to relatively little success, running him around and through screens in the mold of the off-ball juggling act that the Golden State Warriors have run the past two years. McLemore’s lack of understanding and opponents’ general lack of fear for his shot have made those plays ineffective:
To maximize his shooting and downhill speed, the team ought to try more of it. That speed was helpful in transition, especially for a team who tried to craft an offensive identity out of it under coach George Karl:
If he finishes through the contact, that coast to coast ability is a tasty treat. His great foot speed also helps on the defensive end, where he can swallow players whole:
More than anything, my hope is that Dave Joerger can simplify things for a roster full of malleable individual talents. If McLemore is unleashed in the same ways as his draft mate KCP, he’ll be looked at much differently come next season. The young man has put the work in to get to improve his game, and his shooting stroke is something I never want to stop watching:
THE PRAYERS
Seth Curry
While you were watching the final push to the playoffs in the West, a little ways down the standings, Seth Curry, the true heir to the Splash throne, worked his way into a coming-out party in April. The Kings may have found themselves a cheap third guard, provided he stays with the Kings after declining his player option.
The apple doesn’t fall far from its brethren in terms of Seth’s shotmaking:
Looking further, he’s already better than McLemore at the space-making, off-ball run around:
A backcourt of he and McLemore would be a legitimate gameplan-changer for opposing defenses, provided they can defend enough for long stretches. He’ll always be at a disadvantage defensively because of his lack of size and athleticism, but he keeps his head up and works hard to fight through picks and contest shots.
Teams will always be tempted to go after him on the pick and roll, but if he can manage to work his way into contesting those shots and keep his occasionally over-eager jumping of the passing lanes to a minimum, he can be hidden on the less-talented bench option as a team’s third guard.
His playmaking still needs work:
Yet that pass is precisely what makes him special and necessary for the Kings. How many players have been that fun for Sacramento in the past decade? Forget sophisticated or spectacular for a moment- if you give me twelve minutes of unadulterated shot-heaving and pretty passing, I’ll forgive just about anything. It’s worth monitoring if Seth can develop into more than a fun shot-maker; the Kings may have really found a piece on offense.
James Anderson
We’re including Anderson here because although he’s not on a rookie deal any longer after having spent time in five organizations and a year overseas, he’s a fascinating piece nevertheless. He’s also better than Quincy Acy, who was the other candidate to fill this out and give Kings fans more than three players’ worth of hope. Technically, he’d still be on a rookie contract if San Antonio had kept him and taken on the fifth year option afforded to him as a first round pick.
It’s not difficult to understand why the first four teams that gave Anderson a chance were among the smartest, most sabermetrically inclined in the league (San Antonio, Atlanta, Houston and Philadelphia). He almost always makes the lowest-risk, most efficient play:
However, he makes it similarly easy to understand why those four teams passed on him and how he’s cycled through six teams five seasons into his career, despite being a smart player:
This is the same sort of undisciplined play that plagues the Kings on a nightly basis. He crashes the offensive glass here, even though the Kings rarely do so. Then, hunting the ball after missing on the rebound, he joins two other Kings in matching up on the ball-handler Norris Cole in transition. Finally, he slogs toward the rim with no clear plan and a one-on-three disadvantage before turning it over to restart the entire possession. That’s the literal definition of a net neutral, and you can’t afford to have guys on the floor who erase their own positive plays.
He does have positives, of course. He can credibly move up a position to play the four in smaller lineups, and is a surprisingly solid defender in the post:
Five seasons in, we’ve probably seen enough to know what James Anderson is. But if he can turn a few of those neutrals and negatives into disciplined, efficient positives, the Kings will have landed on the kind of affordable rotation piece that teams hunt every offseason (he also has a player option for next season).
FROM #KANGZ TO KINGS
After this offseason, the Kings can make a legitimate case as contenders for the bottom of the playoff bracket in the Western Conference. We’ve chosen to focus on the youngsters here, but as was stated above, this whole thing hinges on stability among the higher-ups and Boogie’s buy in.
As much optimism as I may have spouted up top, none of these guys are franchise changers in their current forms. The Kings, however, have completed step one of any rebuilding project- they’ve acquired a franchise cornerstone in Cousins.
If they make intelligent moves on the edges like Koufos and Bellinelli, avoid bad deals like last year’s Nik Stauskas-for-nothing swap and stop hunting mid-tier free agents like Wes Matthews and Andre Iguodala, the West may have a legitimate, young, playoff-level core out in Sactown.