Opinion: This Sacramento Kings' Season is Looking A Lot Like The Past Six
The Sacramento Kings don’t look like a playoff-bound team once again.
If the Kings maintain the current 8-15 wins to losses ratio, they will not win the 33 games they did in the 2015-2016 season and will find themselves retaining their first-round draft pick that is otherwise owed to the Bulls should they finish better than the poorest 10 teams in the league.
This may be a little good out of a lot of bad! Despite another poor season, the Vivek-Divac-Joerger management team will have another chance to improve on the poor results of the past few years and maybe get an All-Star quality player in the NBA draft next June.
The Jimmer Fredette (now in Shanghai), Thomas Robinson, Ben McLemore, and Willie Cauley-Stein lottery picks these past few years simply have not yet borne ripe fruit. Nik Stauskas had forgettable stats in his first two years with the Kings and the Philadelphia 76ers, but is now looking like he is the shooter we all thought he would be—but with the 76ers.
The 2016 first round picks of Malachi Richardson, Skal Labissiere, and Georgios Papagiannis are as yet unknown quantities as all three rookies are sorely lacking in experience and spending most of their time with the Reno Bighorns.
Therefore, let’s look at what I’d prefer to think of as the unthinkable: the Kings pulling off a trade for their one All-Star, DeMarcus Cousins.
Nov 30, 2016; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Sacramento Kings center DeMarcus Cousins (left) and vice president of basketball operations Vlade Divac check the status of the court surface of the Wells Fargo Center before a game against the Philadelphia 76ers. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports
The Kings are nothing without him, but sadly, are not doing so well in the seven seasons he has played with them. If a trade can happen this year where the Kings can get a young potential All-Star (or real All-Star!) plus a first round pick in 2017 draft in exchange for Cousins, they should look at it.
Losing Rudy Gay to free agency after this season seems like a most definite possibility. Without Gay and Cousins, the bottom up rebuild will absolutely have to begin. I must mention too that the Kings received from the Suns the signing rights to Bogdan Bogdanovic out of Serbia, who may be the two-guard who will resurrect memories of Peja Stojakovic.
Note on Seth Curry: This writer (me) was not pleased that Seth Curry was allowed to walk after he showed such promise this past April. Now signed with the Dallas Mavericks, Seth tore through the exhibition season but has since cooled dramatically. Currently shooting 41.8% from the floor and a poor 30% from beyond the arc, the Kings’ management team may have made the right call after all.
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