Five biggest keys for Kings to have a successful season
James Ham has the five keys for the Kings to have a successful 2020-21 NBA season.
Basketball is back.
The Sacramento Kings kick off their 2020-21 schedule Wednesday evening in Denver when they face Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray and the Nuggets.
Michael Malone’s squad is coming off a stellar season that took them all the way to the Western Conference Finals. They are a deep squad with plenty of young talent and an entertaining style of basketball.
Sacramento struggled in the Orlando bubble, but they are ready to turn up the pace and try to get back to the style of play that made them one of the team’s to watch during the 2018-19 season.
It should be an interesting season in Sacramento. Here are five keys to success for coach Like Walton’s squad.
All eyes are on the $163 million man. Fox is the head of the snake, the face of the franchise and the player the fanbase has fallen in love with. The Kings will only go as far as he takes them, which really isn’t that fair.
In short, there is a lot riding on the shoulders of the 23-year-old point guard. He was incredible in the bubble and the reports from behind the scenes in Sacramento is that Fox is about to take another huge leap in his evolution.
Fox struggled with his 3-point shooting throughout the preseason schedule, but according to Walton, the fourth-year guard has put in a tremendous amount of work on his perimeter shot and the team isn’t concerned.
Outside of the 3-point misses, Fox has looked good. His confidence is at an all-time high and his teammates are ready to follow his lead. If Fox takes full ownership of the play on the court, the sky's the limit.
Last season Buddy Hield moved to the bench to give the Kings a spark with their second unit. They don’t have that luxury this season with Bogdan Bogdanovic no longer on the squad.
If Walton begins the season with the predicted starting five of Fox, Hield, Harrison Barnes, Marvin Bagley and Richaun Holmes, then the team is going to need someone to step forward.
A second unit of Cory Joseph, Tyrese Haliburton, Glenn Robinson III, Nemanja Bjelica and Hassan Whiteside has strong defensive potential and should be able to space the floor. But none of these players are considered offensive juggernauts.
Haliburton is the player with tremendous upside, but he was drafted just over a month ago and he’s more of a Swiss army knife than an elite scorer. Whiteside can put the ball in the basket as well, but mostly on putbacks and rolls to the basket.
Walton is going to have to get creative with his rotations. He’ll need to leave a scorer on the floor like Fox, Hield or Bagley when he goes to his bench unit or things could get out of hand quickly.
Marvin Bagley needs to hit the reset button. He needs to forget everything that has happened in his NBA career before this moment and give himself a chance to start anew. Fans in Sacramento need to do the same.
Packed with potential, Bagley can still be a star in the NBA. He’s set his sights on staying healthy and producing for the Kings. He’s missed a lot of developmental time, which he’ll need to catch up on, but all the talent is there.
Walton will use Bagley at both the four and the five this season and there is a good chance he’s in the starting five on opening night. If healthy, there is a chance he can quickly become the 20-point, 10-rebound player the Kings thought he would be when they selected him with the No. 2 overall pick, especially if he can stretch the floor with his refined 3-point shot.
Since the departure of Rick Adelman following the 2005-06 season, the Sacramento Kings have rolled through nine head coaches before hiring Luke Walton. His first year didn’t go as planned, in part due to a trip to India, injuries to Fox, Bagley and Bogdan Bogdanovic, and a global pandemic shutting down the league for nearly four months before restarting in the bubble.
Walton wasn’t perfect, but a coaching carousel is a recipe for stymying the growth of young players and amassing losses. For reference, see the last 14 years of Kings basketball. At some point, Sacramento needs to settle on a coach and give him the latitude to succeed.
The Kings sat out most of free agency. They lost Bogdanovic, Alex Len, Harry Giles and Kent Bazemore. They replaced those players with three rookies and a group of minimum salary players on one-year deals.
Maybe Walton catches lightning in a bottle like Dave Joerger did two seasons ago. But there is also the potential that half the roster is turned over during the season as management looks to collect more assets.
Every coach is judged by their win loss record, but at some point, the revolving door has to stop and the team has to allow the team to grow under one voice.
The ultimate key to the Kings’ success lies in their ability to maximize their talent. That means that this team needs to sprint up and down the court from the opening tip until the final horn.
After injuries hit the Kings hard early last season, Walton slowed the tempo in an attempt to stay in ball games. By the end of the season, the Kings were starting to see the pace improve, but they still finished the year 20th overall. With Fox, Hield, Bagley, Haliburton, Holmes, Robinson III and Barnes all built to run, Walton needs to demand they play an up-tempo style.
There is a time and a place to slow it down. For Sacramento, that moment will come after a 48 minute battle, when the players are in the cold tub.
