The Sacramento Kings are on a roll. Despite an early season schedule filled with playoff-caliber opponents, the Kings continue to defy logic. A 5-1 record might as well be 40-1 to a fan base starving for quality basketball.
After Friday night’s double overtime victory over the Phoenix Suns, the Kings have now won five in a row for the first time since the 2006-07 season. The last time they started the season 5-1 was 1999.
Kings fans are engaged and praying that they finally have a winner after eight straight seasons of lottery ball. You almost expect rioting in the streets.
It’s early, and the Kings still have a brutal month of November to get through, but there are ample reasons for optimism. Is the current pace sustainable? No, but it is possible that this team has jumped back on track after nearly a decade of wandering aimlessly.
How do you gauge Sacramento’s process? I’m not sure there is an exact science, but the look and feel of this team is not smoke and mirrors. The Kings have built their foundation on defense, rebounding and aggressive offensive play. The result is a team that grinds out wins, even when the game turns ugly.
DeMarcus Cousins is a huge reason behind the Kings’ early run. He is drawing plenty of praise for his post play from the national media, but for those of us who have covered him during his four-plus seasons in the league, the growth is incredible.
The former Kentucky star looks like an early lock for an All-Star bid and if the Kings continue their strong play, he will draw consideration for other postseason awards as well.
More than the numbers, Cousins’ poise and composure in pivotal moments of the game are a revelation. When he picked up his sixth and final foul on a questionable moving screen call in the fourth quarter of Friday night’s win over Phoenix, Cousins walked to the bench without incident.
Moments later, Cousins restrained his head coach Michael Malone, helping to avoid a technical foul in an incredibly close ball game. If he can get his foul issues under control, his numbers will only improve.
Cousins isn’t the only bright spot for the Kings. Rudy Gay is playing exceptionally as he moves toward free agency next summer. The two stars of the team have an improved synergy after spending time together this summer with Team USA at the World Cup in Spain.
Plenty have questioned what would happen if both Cousins and Gay had an off night. We got to see a small window of that on Friday when Cousins fouled out and Gay was struggling to find his game. The Kings aren’t a two-man wrecking machine; it just feels that way sometimes.
Darren Collison is a floor general on both ends of the court. He has drawn some of the game’s best point guards early this season and held his own. Every game there seems to be a moment when the Kings start to stumble, and Collison picks them up and gets them back on the right path.
Many believed that Carl Landry was washed up after playing just 18 games last season. The veteran forward is providing the Kings spectacular contributions off the bench. As he works himself back into NBA shape, his numbers will only improve.
Sometimes the piece you couldn’t move ends up significantly factoring into your success. Jason Thompson is like a bad penny that keeps showing up. In past years, Thompson has been unwilling to take on a secondary role, but that has completely changed early in this campaign.
Thompson came into the season needing just 59 games to become the all-time franchise leader in games played. If you would have asked two weeks ago if Thompson would make it to the mark, the answer would have been a resounding no. But Thompson is anchoring the defense. He is taking the opponent’s toughest cover in the post and limiting him on a nightly basis.
The question of sustainability is going to keep coming up, but what are these core group of players doing that is outlandish? Eventually, Cousins was going to grow up and play to his potential. Rudy Gay is a very good second option who unquestionably has All-Star level talent. Collison’s per-36-minute stats this season are almost identical to his career numbers, and so are Landry’s.
Thompson is having a disastrous start to the season on the offensive end. He currently sports a Player Efficiency Rating (PER) of 1.9 and is shooting 31 percent from the floor, some 19 percent below his career shooting percentage.
Add to this the growing pains of Ben McLemore and Nik Stauskas and the enigma that is Ramon Sessions, who is currently shooting 23.1 percent from the floor, and there is hope for improvement.
You could make the argument that the Kings have more players playing below their potential than above it through six games.
Despite early struggles from a handful of rotational players, the Kings are plugging away. Teams come in knowing that they have to stop Cousins, but they can’t. They also know that Sacramento ranks 27th in 3-point attempts and 29th in 3-point makes, and still they can’t gum up the spacing for the Kings.
If you would have told me that the Sacramento Kings would be sitting at 5-1 after six games, I would have called you crazy. But after watching this team play, it continues to grow on me. The Kings aren’t playing a pretty brand of basketball, but they are buying into the coaching schemes of Malone and moving forward as one unit.
This is a smash-mouth, gritty basketball team that plays hard every night. It is beating its opponent on the glass by an average of 10.4 boards per game. On the defensive end, Sacramento is holding its competition to 41.4 percent shooting from the field and 28.7 percent from behind the line.
The Kings are attempting 13 more free throws per game than their opposition and knocking down 82 percent of their chances from the stripe. They are the aggressor on both ends of the floor, perhaps no better exemplified by the play of Cousins, who is on the verge of stardom.
Sacramento might not be a title contender just yet and it is still a long way from stealing away a playoff spot. The Kings need a few more pieces to make it all work long term, but for now, they have caught lightning in a bottle. As long as they take it one game at a time and don’t get too overconfident, they have a chance to win each night, which is completely unexpected.
Enjoy the ride, Kings fans. It could last a day, a week, a month or maybe a decade; there is no telling. For today, you have a winner and a team worth watching. The question of sustainability will work itself out soon enough.
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