The Sacramento Kings are Quickly Becoming One of the Early Season Surprises for the NBA
The Kings are a good offensive ball club that is beating some good teams
Sacramento just hired Mike Brown in the offseason. He had previously had a few head coaching stints including an NBA Finals run with the Cavaliers with LeBron James. He’s had success previously before being an assistant for the Warriors the last few seasons. I think that it’s a combination of coaching and new talent that is carrying this team right now.
They are 9–6 early in the season after a six-game winning streak after they started 0–4 in what looked like another lost season. The surprising part of this run is that they’re currently second in the NBA in offensive efficiency (118.6). Their defense is also getting better as the season goes along.
The game against the Nets in primetime was a slaughter. They scored 153 points in a 153–121 win over Brooklyn on November 15, 2022. It was the second-highest score for the Kings since the Sacramento era started back in 1985. Their offense looks legitimate.
They have a bonafide star at point guard in DeAaron Fox. They have Harrison Barnes as a wing. Even rookie, Keegan Murray, is contributing early on. Then they have players coming off of the bench like Malik Monk, who can absolutely create his own offense at any time.
They also have Davion Mitchell, who is as talented on defense as this team is on offense right now. Chimezie Metu has even adapted as the backup center on this team to Domantas Sabonis.
Sabonis was one of the players that the Kings received from the Pacers in the epic trade last season. I think that at this point, the Kings have won this trade so far just based on the play of Sabonis. He’s averaging 17.5 PPG, 10.9 RPG, and 6.0 APG on 59% shooting from the field and 31% from the 3-point arc. He also had a season-high 22 rebounds against the Warriors. His rebounding will definitely help this team, especially if they expect to maintain the fast pace of scoring that they’ve found early on in the year.
This team is so deep and balanced that I believe that they could maintain this pace. The starting five of Harrison Barnes, Keegan Murray, Domantas Sabonis, Kevin Huerter, and DeAaron Fox are already showing that they’re one of the best in the NBA.
I grew up in Sacramento and am a Kings fan. This is about as excited as I’ve been about a Kings team since that 2001–2002 team that made it to the Western Conference Finals against the Lakers, yeah, that series.
They have now been on a current playoff drought of 17 years that could end this year. They certainly have the talent. Now they have the coaching and as long as the major unit can stay healthy for the most part, this is a team to look out for. I know that the Utah Jazz is also another surprise of a team that was expected to tank but they have also come up big in the Western Conference, whose standings look wild right now.
The Kings are right behind the Jazz by 1.5 games and would be in fifth place right now if the season ended today. The season doesn’t end today and they still have some tough stretches of basketball to play out. The rest of the league is taking notice of what they’re doing now.
I think that some of the games down the stretch are going to be more competitive because the recent stretch of games has been sneakily good but now we can all see that the Kings’ offense is good.
I hope that they can finally break their streak but I’ve seen some great starts and stretches from this team eventually peter out. This team, at least right now on paper, though, looks legitimate. Sacramento Kings fans should be more excited about this year than many seasons before in a long time.
No head coach since Rick Adelman has lasted more than three seasons. I hope Mike Brown can coach this team in the long haul because if he can get them to play this well now, I can only imagine how good this team can get with a little bit more experience from him.
